UC37 December 1979-January 1980 by Christopher Squire

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Undercurrents 37 December 1979 - January 1980 Contents

1 Eddies : News from everywhere 7 What’s When and What’s What 9 Third World Energy - Andrew MacKillop: AT’s no gas for the Third World 12 Vienna Blues - Het Fort Van Sjakoo Bookshop: More than doubleDutch at UNCSTAD 13 Anvil Chorus - Rick Hoversall: Forging ahead in Papua New-Guinea 14 UN-Revolutionary - Richard Baker: More than sweet FAO 16 Street-Fightin’ Man - Simon Watt: A programme for creative destruction 18 Home-Grown Gas - Bill Evans and Dick Stowe: A digest of excremental politics 21 Weeder’s Digest - Peter King: What to do with the condensed books 22 Eco-Logical- Chris Hall: Ecology and the environmental fix 24 A Topoly - The Undercurrents Game: How to play the system and lose 26 A Woman’s Right ... - Tarn Dougan: No return to the back streets 27 ... On Baby - Debby Hyams: The Kids are not alright 28 Fit For the Family - John Dennis: Adults make kids ill 30 Environmental Education - So What? - Steve Stirling 32 Silkwood And After - Jim Garrison & Claire Ryle 34 Behave Yourself - Kieran O’Connor: Think yourself out of a corner 37 Reviews 45 Letters 47 Small Ads 48 Masthead ________________________________________________________________________ Published every two months by Undercurrents Ltd., 27 Clerkenwell Close. London EC1R OAT. Full details of editorial meetings. distribution etc. are on page 48. ISSN 0306 2392. ____________________________________________________________________________

New secrets law :state could burn books BENEATH THE CITY STREETS, Peter Laurie's lengthy examination of secret precautions for home defence and the protection of state institutions, has just been ipublished in a third edition. Also published recently is the government's new 'rotection of Official Information Bill' which, if it becomes law, threatens to nprison readers of the book and researchers who wish to continue the same line ,f research. I t would also resurrect the 'oppr'essive' legal provisions which rapidly collapsed when journalist Duncan Campbell was prosecuted for 'collecting information' in last year's notorious ABC case. He reports: HE somewhat archeadogical research and investigation recounted in Beneath the City Streets began in 1963, within the libertarian activists of the 'ommittee of 100. In 1963, one group ..scovered and carefully searched the underground bunker at Warren Row, near Reading, and uncovered much of the story of the secret plans for underground shelters for senior officials that have subsequently become notorious as the Regional Seats of Government. The revelations o f the Spies for Peace outraged many in power, and astonished many more outside the government. They also inspired others t o continue the same sort of research over the years that followed. The first Beneath the City Streets, in 1970, contained a wide range of rumours and analyses; the hidden significance of the Post Office towers that scatter the cities and countryside, A e continuing development of the secret defence bunkers, the wholly inadequate plans for actually protecting the civil population, and so on. Republication o f this the book, which was hampered not least by the proceedings in the ABC case, marks h o w far this sort o f research has come. Public awareness of the significance o f odd bits o f hardware strewn around is higher, and more critical. Some serious conclusions have emerged from the research. The Post Office network of microwave radio towers, with their slightly surreal conglomerations of dishes and horns pointing across the landscape, do serve secret purposes. Down the east coast, whole segments of this supposedly civil network serve only military radar stations and control centres. I n places as far apart as London, Yorkshire and south Devon, the network kinks weirdly in order to accommodate secret requirements t o stand close to bunkers or

Standard Underground Shelter Entrance, Mkl! The '1-Shaped Houses' which were built all over Britain in the 50s give access t o underground shelters via lifts i n the rear extension. Anstruther, Fife, one of the Scottish government hideaways; listening posts. Large chunks of its phenomenal communications carryingcapacity disappear o f f to odd military corners and other centres, such as the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham, or the RAF's huge underground communications centre at Rudloe Manor, north of Bath.

Mystery news = nexus Several links throuah the Post Office tower system have no apparent purpose in any o f its applications. There are four such networks, all o f which appear t o converge at a tower near Harrogate in Yorkshire. The four links come from each point o f the compass; from Craigowl near Dundee in the north, From Fairseat near Maidstone in the south, neatly bypassing London, Birmingham and Manchester en route. Two other links reach the Harrogate tower, called Hunter's Stones, from Quernmore near Lancaster, and the centre o f York. These four links do not carry telephone or telex calls, telegrams or television. They do not link radar stations, or w e n fly o f f to important military bases. But the centre of this mvsterv . . system. . Hunter's Stones, is just a mile or

two south of a huge, and decidedly secret U S A r m y Security Agency base, Menwith Hill, Bristling with satellite communications antennae, Menwith Hill remains somewhat enigmatic.

Vast phone tap When researching an article on the communications monitoring activities-The Eavesdroppers-the Menwith Hill spokesman told me that "your government won't allow us to say what goes on here". US

sources suggest that this b a s e ~ o n e of three major American monitorin centres in B r i t a i n ~ m a ymonitor vast amounts of international telephone and other traffic, going out o n telephone cables to Europe and Canada. I f that is so, then these mystery parts of the Post Office microwave network are the most gigantic telephone taps ever invented. One famous part of Post Office tower mythology-the idea that secret sites lay underneath the paths of the radio beams between the towers-turned out to be untrue, and has now been dropped in favour o f more sophisticated starting points than the notion of twentieth century electronic ley lines. Rather sadly, not much more is said about the networks of secret bunkers-now called sub-regional headquarters, or SRHQS-than was originally discovered fifteen years ago. Since then, the secret planners have been busily at work building whole new chains of them, burrowing existing ones deeper and concealing monumental and deep basements below new government office blocks.

standard fake houses One rattier delightful feature has emerged, however; the typically British bureaucratic way in which the secret underground constructions o f the 1950s were all marked by the construction.of a standard house to provide a concealed underground entrance; These houses are distinguished by their T-shaped floor plan, front verandah. circular window in the (cont. 0 2 c o l 1 )

Buchan, near Peterhead, a major R A F radar station.

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They had obviously spent the day planning h o w to get the protestors down (confirmed by the diagram of the scaffold tower on a blackboard in Dunbar police station!) Workers from the site removed the chains on the main gates with oxyacetylene burners and bolt cutters. Immediately after this a large earth-moving machine drove up inside the site with a platform built so that police could gain access to the middle of the tower above the top of the gate. Some protestors were escorted o f f the tower,others had chained themselves t o the scaffolding and so had to be cut away -going limp they were lowered individually and carried into the waiting police minibus and van. The tower was rapidly dismantled b y site workers.

29 October: Report from Torness by Severnside Anti-nuclear Alliance. The sun rose on a 24foot high scaffold tower chained with a massive chain and two large padlocks to the main gates at the site of the Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian. The tower was clad with banners and protestors, mainly from the evernside area, all set to remain up there as long as possible, (ith the help of their support people. 7am site workers egnn t o arrive, and w r e handed taflets about the action. There was rapid build-up o f workers and ieir vehicles all along the A.l as l e y could not drive onto the site. The atmosphere, after the i t i a l shock of the groups surprise rrival. remained friendly, but as i e numbers o f workers grew and l e y got cold waiting they began t o et restless. Eventually a side gate 3 the site was opened and so the nrkers had access to the site;long lads d i d not gain access until the fternoon through a different gate.

the area were present throughout mmt ofe,,, after,,oon,

Eviction A t sunset the police arrived in force and swiftly surrounded the base of the scaffold tower and impounded t w o of the groups' support vehicles.

Arrests Two final gestures-one person chained himself to the door handle of the police van and t w o people sat down in front of it. There were 9 arrests, all being charged with breach o f the peace. Thegroup leaflettad Dunbar the following morning with a leaflet explaining their action. There was good coverage o f the action b y the Scottish Press and Radio Forth. I n summary-our plans worked well, we made mistakes, learned a great deal about ourselves and our capabilities, shared an important experience, but most o f all we worked well together as a group. Non-violent direct action by small groups could be effective in bringing work to stop, given sufficient preparation and number!

-A n automatic scanning receiver for the detection and location of 'bugs'. Its sweeps the spectrum from 10 MHz t o 4 GHz and looks on t o the strongest signal. For more information write t o Undercurrents, Box SPY.

CÃ‘itersp shop - -

ANY Undercurrents readers

JOW profile who are not only paranoid but ibout 20 workers continued t o Ã£er , i.n.ll.hm.ld ~~- ~-~will want to gait by the pedestrian gate. which to g2 g,th A,,diey ad been chained and Padlocked London to stock iy the group o n their arrival at the ite. After a long delay the chain "Pat new Counterspy Shop just opened there. The mmectiateiu, the was~ ~ . .oate - shop i s run by something ,pened 2 members o f the group sat called Communication Conto1 hwn i n front of it and linked arms. kfter some time they were removed Systems, which strenuously iy the police. denies links with "organised The police kept a minimal crime". iresence throughout the day, I t is full of goodies like irecting site traffic to the side telephone scramblers, devices t o nuance. They indicated that the reveal whether phone lines are roup would be left t o freeze taooed. . . . and all manner o f bits and ~vernightlThere were doubts about pieces for repelling intruders, his as the t w o senior policemen for baffling buggers, foiling kidnappers and otherwise keeping yourself t o yourself, at an average cost of several thousand dollars a box.

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"Defensive weapons" CCS, whose US founder was indicted by a grand jury in the 1960safter his bugs got into the wrong hands, had some problems at its previous home in London's Wilton Mews. For instance, Scotland Yard wascuriousabout its stock o f CS gas-purely defensive, according to CCS-and about a device called the Taser, which administers a 10,000V shock to, say, recalcitrant Department of Energy officials. The Taser has now been classed as an offensive weapon but the Counterspy Shop stocks another device-a torch giving out a very bright flash o f light which leaves victims disoriented for long periods-which could be at least as dangerous. Although the Shop claims to stock only defensive gadgetry, i t was recently showing spy cameras and listening devices along with the Voice Stress Analysers for curious personnel managers. As one o f the Shop's functionaries Jo Ann O'Neil says, "All we do is self them; it's Just like a knife. You but it in a shop and it's u p t o you whether

you cut meat with it or use murder someone."

Rubbish Watchersof pedlars in this field reckon that much is grossly overpriced and that many of the electronic devices have exagerated

claims or are largely ineffectual. Nevertheless, Counterspy in particular has received a lot o f publicity recently and, i f the published f i b r e s are t o be believed, their turnover has increased astronomically.

Taking a liberty B A D NEWS for magic mushroom freaks: a Judge has ruled, and a jury has agreed, that powdered Psilocybin mushrooms constitute a 'preparation' of a chemical (psilocybin) forbidden under the 1971 Misuse o f Drugs Act. This reverses and contradicts the 1978 Appeal Court decision (R vs. Goodchild. The Times 7 April) that possession of a plant containing a controlled drug was not an offence if no attempt had been made t o extract the drug. The judge argued that 'preparation' was not to be taken solely in its pharmacological sense but in the wider sense of, for example, 'the preparation of a cricket pitch'. After 1% days o f g a l argument the jury agreed, though only by a majority verdict. The sentence was a Â£10 fine and a suspended jail sentence. The case

will go to appeal, but in the rneantime take care. MEANWHILE. Younu.Torv. Charli Smedley's revelation that he is (or was) a p o t head has produced a predictably Pavlovian response from t w o leading young lefties: Nick Butler of the Fabians alleged that the Tories had a plan to dope young people 'so that they would not n i t i c e the chaos being created by the Tory Government' and Bot Labi. a Youna Socialist, stated he was against legalisation as i t 'wouli be another way o f encouraging escapism from the problems that young people face'. Cold comfort for the 10.500 people busted for dope last year but perhaps we should be glad tha there's one bandwagon that these political opportunists aren't scrambling to get on to. y> (News Release) 7-2

li'-'--ge Brain THE POWERFUL agriculture lobby hm won twice over with the 7th report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, which has spent 2%yews (not?)looking at "Agriculture end Pollution". Apart from the report itself, which was almost wet enough to counteractthe destruction by draining of the Sommet Levels, the glue on the spine of the report staged en industrial action and the report has had to be withdrawn from sale while Her Majesty and the rest of the Stationary Officeput some blacklegglue in. The report itself will cause noone to lose any deep at night (except battery chickens). It leys, among other things, that intensive livestock units should be subject to planning end pollution controls; that there ahwld be ' t m e r control* of pesticide usage and that anxiety about possible health threats from rritogenouc fertilized ', is not fustifired 'on the present evidence'. After examining the threats to people and wildlife, from overreliance on toxic pesticides, the Commission only questions whether spraying 'more freely than , is necessary' really prqducat benefits of 'blemish-frw' produce thetoutweighs the coftt i n environmental health. No questioning of whether to spray at all,end the whole report produces

nothing new or radical about the problem.

Silence in government

better than the 7th report, and the, 6th report, known at the Flowers Report after its chairman, produced excellent comments on the dangers t o civil liberties from nukes. Questions are already being asked an Padlament about the delay, and the Government will have to do something. e ~ Ã §i f it's only accusing the Comminion of being in l u g w w i t h lefties, MOSCOW end Dr Goebellt. A t the level of current thinking about nuclear power and the environment within the Tory party, thÃ§ might lust do that.

Carry on.polluting

Meanwhile, mother piece of To that extent, it should be environmental leaisletion ooes for acceptable to the agricultural a friadmm, wry, burton.The establishment and so might Government are strenuously trying actually get an answer from the to cover it up, but the Control of Govrnment, if it's lucky. No Pollution Act's m ~ u r n o water n ' pollution are likely t o be delayed ruction hat yet come from the Government on either the 6th at leak five years. As we drown in report, on ~ i r h t l u t i o n or , thÃ the s e w ~ outride e the c l o d 6th report on nuclearpower, both hotpitel,isn't it great to live in now 3 years old. Both were much Mamie's Britain?

HUT

Government in Action +

. ...or Govwnment inaction? Two more indications of the the wind blows with the

Tories.. ..

THE ELECTRICITY Council is planning to mew* in on the thriving busiwu of brenwtfon. It Wiem that there broom for expamion bocaut* of the riling coit of oil and an. According t o Circuit News, the official publication of the Council, M t Bill Dobie presented a paper to the Cremation Society explaining how superior Qlactricity was. The time taken for the operation, he said, would be reduced from en average of 78 minutes with "fuel

or kings UNDER THREAT of d-BuctiOm 1~ CWUI~ GirdmCommunity Guden. A woman promcmtly chÃ§lnoh i n r t f to tomt f i x t u m in the G u d m u put of a camp* to draw etmntion to their Covmt G u d m community's dwim to k * w this at 0pm KMC*. She wes 8-d md chargwl for breach of the pieo*.

It is one of the few pieces of mpen space left in Central London, built largely by volunteen, to use as an open public facility. It is used by local nursery groups, of? work? casual visitors an the l o o community. It isalso the site of an annual festival plus other smaller festivities. it has two ponds, f l o w beck, lawns, play area, an allotmen including a greenhouse, a nage and 1barbecue. It has one full-time gardener, plus many volunteemam cost Â£5,00 t o build, mainly financed by Westminster and Camden Councils. It was w successful it won the 1979'Britain in Bloom' Improvement Award for the London region. The garden w a built in 1977, after a 'gentlemen's agreement' with the site owner, MEPC Ltd. ' who did not have the necessary financeavailableat the time. It was aareed that as w o n as t h w had the Â£4 million required, the kte would be handed back t o enable them to bliild the intendedoffice block to accommodate 1,500 office worker..

Not to let

the seafront at Dungenen while engineer, try frantic.llV to make the thing work..

U prize L And Exmoor is on its way out is a totfonei Park. thanks to the Jovernment's k o w t o w w to a action of the agro-busin-& lobby, Moorland Conservation Orders, ntended to protect Exmoor from ~loughingup, are now norfoing t o orm part of the Government's buntryside & Wildlife Bill, despite upport from ell pa-ties end even Â¥arof the agri-lobby. The Orders, irst recommended int h e h c h w t e r t bill 7emrt of 1977. were ~ rof a ost due to the election.

station? Then the customer! could be incinerated free. This would provide a ulendid, and apposite. Â¥dvertiMmenfor the benefits brought to humanity by the nukes. The one snag would be if the reactor happened not t o bÃˆ "available", as the CEGB politely puts it. There is the materiel (or a splendid farce, m r r i n g Jacques Teti pertnpt. showing t t m s of funeral cars and fuming m o u r m s lined up in a w l i d traffic Ian) along

I N CASE you did not realin, Oetoba waa i n t a n a t i o d maw c o m a n i i o n month. IIB n w k chit, ttr R o y l Society end E m Jointly Â¥wante4 f10QO prize for emrgy connuvation. You might upoct the w i n t o w t o tho- desbnina combined h Ã §and p o w &stanis, or hnprowd inwlation-but no, vouarawrono. Theorlrwn m MÃ‘ J W Ã ‘ n t u e l l a&&4ocl Harris end V W Eldnd, of B a k d Ã § Nud- LJbormorMi end the Windula b b o f o r y rfethaly, for dulr work on Â¥xtmdht h i lifa of fuÃ§(lÂ¥mÂ¥ InWgrmx

The company want t o build m an investment, wen i f left empty it would remain a company asset. MEPC admit that thav do n o t have inntended tenant for the building. The social price t o pay, for ailowing multinational companies t o be pulled out of the slump t h e duo themselves into. throuah speculative gambling in theearly 70s, would be high. It would be the local community of an inner city area, those whomost appreciate a non-exploitive island in a see of commercialism, who would lose out. At present, if the local people win, there a r i plans to build en adventure playground for older kids, end a stall to sell refreshmenn and the produce from theallotment which was abundant last y r . Procwck us to go bock into the develooment of thenerden. It All be interesting t o see who will (uccmd in this s t r u ~ l * . the kings of commerci8l enfrprfh, or the humble allotment ubbÃ§aÃ Tha campaign to save the g f t h n is at 14 Endell Street, London WC2.

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'HE BRITISH GOVERNMENT h i G i l t 8 full-*cale air-turbine electricity from the wwi-and givenit far a the Jfpann*. at Falmouth, dockyards which Meanwhile, back in the old ountrv, our engineers, wentors and scientists are onfined to playing about with wdels that are never b i i r han one-tenth scale. This incredible Â¥xemplof US Windpower Inc. (USWP) a iritein playing the r a g M d - t r ~ d 1Smployea Massachusetts hilanthmpist, end doing for e company, has butt o m the' matthy, proiperous country what aimrican electricity utility t is not pnpared to do for itÃ‘If market for renewable energy one as a rnult of e decision by by contracting with the he bbour Gcwnment to ollabomte in the International Californian Department of. :wgy ~ g ~ n c vw ' s e energy Water Reiource~to supply 1wmm. 100 megawatts for 20 yean at The Jwxneu have launched a 3% cents a kWh.

(and

could build e ship aimil.r'TO w h o m mom efficient than) the Kaimei have b u n cloud do-, b e a u r of a lack of o h .

US entrepreneurs

W t o n ship. the KÃˆmÃˆ with 22 m l u in the bottom. As tha WNU inend fall, air is pushed out and ucked in and air turbines sitting inthe deck me sent winning. Each inadrives an alternator and the i~wtriciwflows. The method was invented by a luanew. Yoshio Mawdo, and he if 300 Avigmtion buoys waking n thm Pacific without noad for any b n i l fuel to kwp the light shining. rrinity H o u r is now buying them ur British wfrs.

The company will install up to 2,000 60kW mills on itate lend new Pacheco Pass, an area of high and constant winds 80 miles wuth edt of Sin Francisco. Backed by private venture capital,the engineer! of US Windpower have developed the 'model T Ford' of windmills: it is made of massproduced off-the-shelfcheap and lightweight components end is. designed for assembly by two people. the 44' tower has a builtin winch thet allows the hub and drive train to be installed and repairedwithout a crane; it rests

on a six foot square concrete footinn. which is the onlv permment construction needed.

A . - model .- -.deal -

If they can deliver at the bargain price t h w have contracted for (and some wind pundits are sceptical), U S W s scheme is likely to become a model for the adoption of AT in thÃ US. Already three other mull d u l l and USWP is rmgo~lming with large users in other parts of the country. They forecast that by 1986 their annual turnover will be $75 million and production ^000 mills. California alone has identified 100.000 MW of potential win& power on state lend end plans to hernasa one-tenth of this by the year 2000. And n va a11 know, what California don today the reit of the USA d o n ten I V later.

INnu Rwtsl

British timidity iriteln decided to develop the idea

md the National Engineering Laboratory at East Kilbride improved on hin scheme to make a more efficient device. (The Mawdo ship M i l have holm in the bottom; Britain's contribution is to have the h o l n in thasida, rather like port?olM, and thus cwture pore of the Move power). But, becauw of the caution of the Government and, i t must be h i t f d , wme of the mginurs and scientists working on wave w g y in Britain, i t has been decided to launch the British ship atpine-tenth seals in the mouth of the Clyde. We like to make progress iiowlv. feeding everything into committeesda i computers. And thus it came about that we decided to help the Japanesewith their len efficient experiment-but a t full-scale. The British contribution i s 1 chembor f i n metres high. Under tmt conditions. with a simulated wave of fivem&es, the mean turbine w t w t Power has been 100 kilowatts; withlarger simulated waves, the mean power increased up to 170 kilowatts. Britain's mow ambitious schemes w far have been uoducinn about one kilowatt. The (rnermtor being r n t to Japan w built under contract for the- Deuertment of Enerw -~ -. bv . en w i n w r i n g firm named Centrex at N ~ b b o tA . ftw milea e w . ~

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Home sweet dome

ThÃ donr home for 'Intaemted LiftSupport SyiUm< ~iborttorv'lof RobTt end LM R d n a in N w Mexico, USA, will Ir f Ã ‘ u in Un TV progremmuvi thm @nn Uniwritty's ruw foundalon courn, Linw with Tahnolon. P o w a d only by the Kin end thÃ wind, the domu have b n n function& wcccafully for ovr m e n yew. The TV proarmmn ( d m by thm OU's Nigd CTosmd BBC produw Colin Mobimon) Â¥xplelhow the domes work end -lore the i m l i o t i o m d u e h Mif-wffkiiit Ihina. T h d will be b r o i d ~on ~ tBBC2 it 1 1 . 1 6 ~ on 1 Snurdey 6 Jtmiary md Siturdny l S J > n u ~ y 1980. and other u r t v uromotm d domu lib the hnwham. Steve Bur Shatter book t Ã ‘ will not -rim or u $ f their works Inca thw no ~

Corporate alternative technology A RECENT VISIT to thi Centre for Alternative Technology in darkest Powy r w e r t d Hurt the faithful un completely u n d i i e o u d by tho multinationah moving in on the Kt. But KM t h w would h i m bnn K i r p r i q to hear themwivw baing publiiiud by Or Jack Birks, Mmaging Director (TMhnial) of BP, at the launch of BP's nmv, end not very exciting, ~ n r w rÃ‘Ã‘r prizes. According to Eiiks, W >pÃ‡nd about Â£7. million a yea on renewable enerw reuwch end dwelopmmt, end is in the p r o c ~ of putting ell that under one roof m its Sunburv m w c h let# on the outskirts of London. And i t will b* rather en unusual roof, b u u r tha buildingwill not only h o u r Itr r n u r c h t n but dtnonstrme th* idms thev em workim on. e - i e ~ ~ ~solar, windMKI h u t wmos. "A kind of compmy w a n of an idea which is, Iw intqmsM to read, alrmdy going on in North Wain" w how Birks d m r i b d it. although sartorial standards will uotablv be highw and w a t t IÃ visible. . , -

The Centre for Alternative Technoloov itÃ‘I is Ptonnina to 60ft dimmer wind build a generator. I t s purpose would bÃto relieve the Centre's enerov shtheKim&er and providt e demonstration of l'villain Â¥ale scheme which they curroitly believe i s the most economic. They are hiving difficulty i n raising the f i i i m m thÃ§ hme Iwndnd an apoaal. Any mrmoul souls inmeiu-d in the ipomonhip d o n *should writ* to CAT.

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~lectricitydemand it (tillrisinl at$%pw -urn. To arrive a t a su<tripibIe syttnn early next cÃ‡Ãˆu will require action more thin words.-The d n d Nitwork for Alternative Technology end Technology Annsmant mnfennce. Auws 23-24, set out work on v i d e dtamativw and itabliil a permanent AT network. ,

Research and Developmen A lot of interest at NATTA 2 centred on the problem of AT m r c h and the Likelihood of institutional co-option, mainly by ~rogrsssivemuttinationals such as Philps. It means applying AT in competition t o the vast resources (ticked against ui. Without the potsibility a f c a ~ k s o u R& t D work then the embryonic AT' workp~cfliare doomed t o w r l y , extinctioi!. . Theproposal is to tot up an alkmative fundinflnetwork, with ~ ~ f i ~ , ' & t i 6$ ' i to # interface with all thed~u'a~monetary'taps, b y t on a level obredibility, th& doesnot exist at presÃ§nt systems of alternative levies could becreated in the future. Grbtit applications in the range E200.t2,000 ere being provisionally accepted.

Wrdination NATTA could take a co-ordinating rob, as many people require AT advice end have nowhere to 90 and no-one is in touch with all the worl going on, hence much overlap of retoarch inevitably occurs. Pooling their resources, existing AT groups could run joint projects Art impressive lead has been given by the northern branch 01 the Industrial Common Ownership Movement increetina tfsu~oort ' structure whereby I&c&s can help eich other out.

Education A priority would be the production ofrelevant video tapes or kids hooks e.&fletting through to student teachers. ~ l s the& o would be work with adults through Trade Unions end the WEA to help alternative work strategies to be drawn up. m r f h i p of NATTA costs Â£ for individuals, Â£1 for groups and organisations, for which the members will receive the NATTA newsletter and any publications. Credit isdue t o the Open University for a m a i l grant and the AT Group for support. Orgenisationscurrent~~ affiliatec include: Centre for Alternative Technology, New Age Access, SERAsCentre for Alternative lagu@rMland Technological Svstems,Undercurrents and close liaison is being maintained with bA)3LIGAES, the Parliamentary L j r i s ~ nGroup for Almrnetive E m Strafoies.

CAAT-The Campaign Against the Arms Trade-ere holding their quarterly national meeting on 1 b w r , 11ern-6pm. London University Catholic Chaplaincy, 11 Gower Street. London WC1. Details from CAAT. 5 Caledonian Road. London N1.

Tha NATIONAL CENTRE FOR ALTERNATIVETECHNOLOGY has a programme of winter courses: F9 hcwmba How t o Insulate; 11-13.bnuny Self Build; 8-10 W a r y Human Ecology; 1 6 1 7 FUmuy Ecological Land Management Coursescost Â£2 singte. Â£4 double inclusive. Details from NCAT, Machynllth, Powys, If you ere a small businexs in London affected bv bureaucratic planning regulations than attend the Town and Country Planning Association's Small Businesses and the Planner forum on 11 Dwnnbw at 6.30pm. at TCPA, 17 Ortton Terrace, London SW1. (entrapce130p on the door).

ICOM ere holding a two dw workshop on 8-9 DÃ§cÃ§mb et their Beechwood Collage, Elmete Lane. peds 8 (0532 720208). Cost is Â£1 per person including food, accommodation andcreche. I t will consider the legal, financial end organisational problems of co-ops as well as speakers from existing co-ops;

ENERGY

There will be a Co-operative Villages Conference on 24-26 Novmber. Anyone interested in helping to establish such a village shouldcontact Jan Bang, Mount Pleasant, Hainton, Lincoln. (Tel: Burgh-on-Bain 397). LOWER SHAW FARMHOUSE have a few weekend events left this wear: 7-9 D-~Ã‡~MUS weekend Â£1528 OJClnber-1 Jinuirv New Year Celebration Â£3 &tails from them at Show. Swindon, Wttshire.

Socialist Entiwneurs note that the NATIONAL EXTENSION COLLEGE is running courses entitled Your Own Business taking place in oariy 1 The courses use the excellent Small Business Kit published by them. Thiscoincides with the BBC2 programme on Sundays, 1 0 m until the and of this year. The courses will be run at the following placÃ§depending on demand: So~~wrer-Yeovil, Taunton, Bridewater; DwonBarnstable, Bideford, Exeter, Plymouth. Torbay, Exmouth; Cornwall-St Austall, Fdmouth. Havle, Combome, Bude, Wadebridge, Further @tails from Your Own Business, Central Offices, Dartinnton, Totnw, Devon. (0803 865024). The Business k i t contains a macial section on co-oos and i o n of u t o f u ~practkaltdvfci on financial/nurkÃ§ting/l*ga problems, enablingyou m realistically appraise aqy of your business Ideas before you smrt yourco-op ai well 4s Illowing you how t o run it effectively. The Small Businsa Kit is available from the National Extension College, 18 Brooklanda Avenue, Cambridge. Price Â£4.5 inc. BOB.

The National Conservation Corps have a WlNTER TASKprogramme which gives people the opportunity t o learn practical rural skills very cheaply M i l e helping t o consam the environment The tasks, usually 1 week events, take place all over the UK. They include such skills as Woodland , Management. Hedging, Clearing stream and opening UP old footoatha. Details from NCC, Reeding. nuke st-, Berkshire. (Include see).

POLITICS are m e t h i n g claw t o our hearts. For thow of you who fwl that a m i lelite group of MPÃ sining In an ivory tower somewhere in London can change anything for the tatter then the-PTliementw Liaiwn Group for Alternative Energy Stringy will i n t a m t You. They have had succeuful discussions in the pit. I n punuit of a wider M a r e of influence they are holding mother wries of discussions in early 1980. Details from Harry Frost, London University Extra Mural Dipt., G o w r Street, London WC1.

/ T ~ ÃCONSERVATION TRUST ere running a competition for illustrations on environmental themes t o brighten up their study notes. Small cash prizes will be awarded t o three age ranges up t o ega 21. Closing date is 3 1 January so send your am for details to: The Conservation Trust. 246 London Road, Earlev, Reading. They have aho opened a resources bulk and study centre i n Reading, cr&med with environmental type information plus visual aid copying facilities.

BEANSTALK, a local community group in the Wimbledon London em, Is planning a fringe fmtivl next Miy to coincide'with the regular-md boring-Mtrton F e i t i i l . They wnnt t o include k i d events. fanlnht theatre. photo@rÃ‘hMe. Mom PWPla mdtoJoinlnthamvwnWw on eaollactlve bails. Hino Joan on 01-947 6476 or Val 01-870 4319

With the ~r Incn~im thfwt of

AOIIMAMTAL W E N S d n d in MXking found t a u u of food, food Productbn, Â¥grk~ltum me. mly frit thtt i n u n particularly concerning ~ o m wwi m being W K f d by the group ulwhole.

ATLANTIC a n n r w r m i m with their ~nti-Umn6mcamp& in Eire. They em distributing lf m pimbhlet. produced in bifaat, all am DomgmI. Anybody inurwttd in hoping t h i n in t h i r or doming to help c o w the coma a n contact them at Atlantis, Burton Port. Co. Donegal, Eire.

fm&ei&a~ndfthm thanm: SoK-lffl~~.

CREATIVE MIND who publisha nnoazin* of the ume m e . an

If any womm would libto Incoirn involnd In tha group,

their Liwpooi Ctntre. The+ are abo letting UP a map h o p to

OIKMJF Ã‡ a t up by feminhts Involvd in thm Agriopitel group 1SOCMhI group i

fof <h* f cointry, confct turn.

181 Mvrtla Roil, Sheffidd 2

WntVI-âgukr to emlogid IMng in South London is e new bookit wrlnÃ§by andmorth ~ I E M O ~ O THE F EARTH. lt a h &in on -ti of Oty IIh,including food,. -,-,a, -1uvlmrnfov Nld efffclmt uw of m ~ r i a l x . From Wmdunrth FOE, 77 HMthorp StLondon SW18 6BT. Me.Â£(-1 inc. post. ,

th~fiwtvnk in Argmuim. They em coiicwitrmlmon r d a t i m the vr~d of ~ u c i w~i o w rT.II& note 'Latin Amarb la not lbloc: it It lconglomrite of npublio with llong himow d bloody dicutonhipt'. rnw em looking for pwple to build up l communicitbm ntwork and rocfive their nawx bullÃ§tins Contact Ow* Grinbwg, Pro World 89, C.C-Suc 14, Cwiml 1414, Argentina.

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proytmms e1c. to help fond their community action. Ommils from 26 Linnet Lane, Liverpool 1.17.

. . -,.RECYCLE WORKSHOP in Durham, xÃˆi themwhw up

HOOPERATIVECANAL CARRIERS a n now holding NWlw working partin. Theu uk* p l m et E l l i i ~ ~Port m Milmrn. are inwiwd in work on bom Mid their . workihop. m e Coop if looking for m m v h m in the NW -ifthW weeÃ‘fil thW will that commm* on nuking this lto l unble botywd. For millof working partin and w Ã § inforimtion wrim to HXMCMIW -1 b r h i , 26, Ehamm

hire.

TheOEFT. OF ENERGY hwn not lust oublilhed Stuff Â¥I(A@ &/or PA rub bid^ w Product uo our OKitv end IMP Stop Un Nuclwr MUMM by I i w i M n g your Home. But inatead they hwn bounht out a fm.excdlent. Ã‘I illuttmmd p i - ~ t i c d wide to cutting your dunntic fud bill: your ~ r t i ~ f ~ i -of a The fornfer title i s more accurate. Amiable from PO Box 702, London SW20 8SZ.

Fun i s not m i n t the law ym. NEW GAMES will help you achieve this dusive hi.The+ publiah Nwwiettv end orpniw fr- mwts from tim* to tlm. i f Pleyino with 6 foot diTWttr 'Grthbtlk;pirMhutw Mid old n*mm with new ruin is your idea of fun then contact New Gems, 60 Park Road, Dartford. Kent.

F m Wing fife* is producad by thÃ§ORKNE ALTERNATIVE PRESt. It is ! n t m e d in rigbnd Â¥utonAm particuifiy in Orkney i n d community wcialim. 30p from FWE, Ow-thfrWater, Sonday, Orkney KW17 2BL.

SCRAM (The Scottish CanxMian to R u i n the Atomic MMIM*)hÃ§producad l short I ~ f l a Whit'# WmtV with Nucim- P a w . ~ i n urn* y v i u to wppoq their ciTKMKinendluooÃ‘twavi which & couldcomribum.~hey <lK> e n producing e SCRAM EmmBulletin w h k h c k m o u t 6 tims 8 year end cotttÂ£UK; Â£ O v r Ã ‘ DÃ‡ war. From SCRAM, 2Ã Aimiie Piac*, Edinburgh, EH3 6AR.

to promote cycling, h w a cycle repairs and rebuild businen. It is orwniwd on a Co-op basis and has m m MSC fundim. Thw are looking for pwple to join them. You ahould hue a fair knowledge of the cycle trade, be willing totake Ã§omfinancial riponsibiiity and enjoy working with the young people they train. Interened? Contact Jon StÃ§phemRbcyclÃ Workahopt, Fowlm Yard. Back S i l w Stmat, Durham City. AGAY HUMANIST GROUP h Ã b a n wt up in the UK u a direct mutt of the private prowwtion brought m i q n Gdy N e w for bluphemouslibel by Miry Whitohwit. Orgxiiwra are planning to wt up I network of contacts and group* throughout the UK.,with a view to countwing enti-gav pr-nde, fighting bnomnc* in m r d to h o ~ ~ ~ x u iend l i t introducing y &a to hummist v l u u . Wore informationÂ¥bouthmn frob GHG, 46 Telford Awnue, London SW2 lend me).

If you think ATHIRO is a imngi name for a city thm d i n g A Third Gmlui City, whkh is m I m n o t a hruwcanmhere outline for the prolMted at Undncurrents in London. The 'Gmncown' s &scribed in UC NATTA network, on the other 35. will clear thinm UP. it is hind. iwmito be coming alive, published by the Town wid following the NATTA confewic* Country PlinningAllocietbn, In A u w t A rawla- n w n l t f r Is the~-~ oldmt end itnmt of Britain's ,now being produced. So It Ã‘f eivironmenml preaaum groups msible to wggm that any (prict Â£ from 17 Ctrlton Houw i m u n f d UC Natwork peopb TTTM*, London SW1I. The join up with NATTA. NATTATCPA would wlcon* comments the Network for Alternetiv end fresh idÃ on how to p r o c d . Tachnology and Technology Their current plan Is to tart As~nnwnt-is a coalition of AT mising cwimi for the p r o k t in actlvits and groups aiming to mid-1880 with a v i w to sfrting promote AT both nationally and buildingwork a year liter. locally. NATTA membership SCARP (Student Communitv i coats f1 oar annum for -~ Action Rnourcm ~ r o f l r t m kis~ ' indkidu~li(Â£1oroupl/ wtablisMid to hdp co-ordinf orgeniwtions). NATTA, Alternaive Technology Group, nuduit community action throuohwt thecountry. Work OpÃ§ University. Milton Keynw, includn opening up c o l l ~ Bucks. rÃ‘ourc to local end ACHILLES HEEL is a new m n ' l dKllop~ng community magazine. It is produced by a media work by mudenti. They ~

101-7394668). m e UNDERCURRENTS -~~ natwo* conaim of mm* 40 loot conucn hM UC26 for full lit of n u m e n d addram). ~ u t although Â¥on&e hiwe found It uwful locdiy. It his not rally tab0 off into m mffactln commniwtions network-et ~

KZ ~ E e T L n Z~ E e n mising groups and the politic* of

living as man for m e tin*. They haw found that men* power in sociw not only opp& women 'but eIw impriwns men in I d-dtning m-culinity which cripples dl ourmbtiornhipt. Prke 6Sp (incl. post) from MÃ§n Fmm PrÃ§tt7 St MÃ§rkRIM, London EB.

ly by the"Arab OPEC states)'as urร ยงA'<ft in need of real &vetepmnt suppdrlJY.,

ata laterstage gas pr~ctioN,.must'~:, =: :;.;; elanauoff.andbeninto;decli&.&in..:. .>:;.

Undercurrents ment; the growth o f services and relatively low-energy activities (e.g. electronics) Each percentage reduction in growth o f the Western economies leads to around a 1% cut in energy demand -appropriate energy management can ensure that this translates to a greater than'l% cut i n oil (and imported gas), for example through upgrading the use o f indigenous fuels, and conservation o f energy. For the poor, or underdeveloped, nations the reverse is true -they must use more than 1% growth in energy demand to get a 1% growth o f GNP, the reason being that as well as economic production they must achieve the growth o f capital ahd therefore energy-rich, infrastructure and services. On equity grounds it is both rational and realistic to argue for faster growth in the poor nations. But without political admission of these facts it is convenient for the spokesmen o f the rich nations, in all kinds o f international forums, to say that the poor, as well as the rich, must be dragged down by high and rising energy prices. These same spokesmen can then argue, as they do, that yet more Western expertise and capital must be used t o develop-indigenous and usually high cost 'alternative fuels'. They do not go on to say that they hope this will cut demand for OPEC oil and gas, reduce prices and lengthen reserves, so that the rich nations do not themselves have to develop alternatives.

New resources through new co-operation It is rapidly becoming clear that the world oil and gas resource picture is very poorly known outside the established production zones - which for the 'free' World means N. America, parts of S. America, Europe and Middle East. A few figures show how little has been spent by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), the World Bank and its affiliates, on finding more oil and gas, and developing it. In the period 1974-76, and in relation to expenditure planned by the IFIs for 1977-81 a total of US $8.44 billion was planned to be spent on all energy develop. ments in less developed countries. Of this some $8.367 billion was to be spent' on electricity generation and distribution (much o f this was oil-fired generation), and some $76 rnilllon was to be spent on all oil, gas and coal developments. That is the spending on electricity was planned at around 110 times that for oil, gas and coal supplies (World Bank Report 1588,1977). The sheer iniidequacy o f this has been recognised, very late in the day, by the World Bank in its 'Programme to Accelerate Petroleum Production in the Developing Countries' (World Bank Jan. 1979). This makes the point that i f nothing is done the LDCs will have an oil and gas import bill of around US $38.3 billion in 1985 compared with $14.3 billion in 1975. Recent price rises ensure that this figure is on the conservative side.

Based on the above figures the aficionados of alternative energy can claim that massive funds should be switched into the solar group o f energy technologies. However this ignores at least two crucial points: the alternate fuels, apart from energy conseryation (which is not a 'fuel') and so& solar sources. are often very costly; and the likelihood of oil and gas finds, and development of coal, in a very large number o f LDCs is very good at the new international oil energy price. In regard to the costliness o f alternate fuels it can be pointed o u t that Brazil, thecountry that has gone furthest and fastest with power alcoh il fuels, needs a price of around 50 US con& per litre for its sugar cane alcohol system to be economic. This is with probably the world's largest sugar industry, and the international sguar price down to historic lows -which means that alrernate demand for sugar is very low. A price o f US 3 150 per ton for refined oil products (i.e. over $20 per barrel) translates to only a basic price o f around 12 US cents per litre. Alternate fuels do not come cheap, and their development is only realistic when other economic, social and political factors play their part in making up the economic deficit they produce, compared with conventional oil supplies from the 'price gouging' OPEC countries. With many millions o f workers in the sugar industry, and big landowners and corporations i n a poor profit situation because o f the low world sugar price, i t was to Brazil's net benefit t o develop sugar alcohol - there being an additional potential benefit that, i f enough sugar went into fuel production, it might stimulate the world sugar price. For most developing countries this is not the situation. Agriculture develop. ment should be tilted towards high value crops that can give good wages and fast rural development. But the rationale for accelerated oil and gas prospecting development in the LDCs is an even stronger xgument against the 'alternate' fuels. The World Bank group, in its programme to accelerate petroleum production in LDCs made the point that explordtion activities in some 38 countries cut o f 70 surveyed had cornpletely inadequate accumulated data on which to make any conclusions regarding potential reserves; in another 22 exploration was 'moderate', i.e. very small scale in relation to that in the present oil production areas on the world. Of these 70 LDCs some 23 were judged to have High-Very High potentials for finding and developing commercial oil and gas, with the 'Very High' category meaning a good likelihood o f finding oi.1 fields able to produce 1.5 billion barrels or more (World Bank Jan. 1979). I f this is then related to the total oil demand expected by the IFIs for the oil-importing LDCs in 1985, i.e. 7.2 million barrels aday, the possibility o f making the entire group self -""'cient for 20

The ITDG Power Project ONE Appropriate Tachmlogitt who would not agree with Mackillop it Peter Frbmkd, P o w r Project Officer of tha Intermuliam Technology Development Group. For five-.,+, vean ha has bean d w d w i n g wind and k t e r mills and l u r b i n x~i i f b l a for locd manufacture and mainmnancft in tha Third World. Two are particularly promising: a ' : tun-of-streamriver turbineand a mkrohvdro electric turbine

Run-of-stream river turbine

Lowering tha vertical axis puts the r h r turbine into the water for a tĂ&#x192;â&#x20AC;&#x2DC; run. TRADITIONALLY.. large - undershot waterwheels were used in parts of the Middle East and the Sudan to t w m a l l quantities of river current energy, but thew are massive end material-intentiw if relation to their power output, and a? therefore uneconhic. With this in mind, the ITDG Power Project has developed a ' l o w solidity'' device which runs completely submerged in e river current and is therefore potentially quite efficient vet does not need much construction materiel. Initial work indicates that it can convert up t o 40% of the energy flux; amounting to 7 2 0 ~ 1 m 2 t0.lhplft2J from a 3kt current. This device is the same in principle as a Derrieus vertical-axis windmill or e VoigthSchneider ship propeller. The initial prototype tested over the front of a motor boat on the river Thames is only 1m in diameter by 0.5m deep. I t is planned t o develop a larger version, to be suspended beneath a Pontoon, for pump~ngirrigation watar from rivers passing tnrough and regions lsuch as the Nile. Nioer, Euphrates. Indus. etc). At the time of writing the power Project is working on a design for a unit with a cronsectional area of 3m2 which could lift approximately 61m3 113500 UK gall) per hour against a 5m 116ftl heed i f submerged in a3kt 11.5mIs) current. Large areas of fertile alluvial but arid soil that cannot at present be exploited economically for agriculture (due to the high cost of imported energy sources such as diesel or electric pumps1 will becomeaccessibleto a device of this kind. We are hoping to test this prototype in Juba, Southern Sudan, in late 1979 or early 1980.

years or more was judged tp be very good. g then deyettiping thÃ§s nruntfor w t r i c i t v g>nenitim to permit . . . ~ i h d i q and WÃ‡~M <lati;flc<tiofl d o wnli-donlopÃ§ ~ . sources w a i n s the biggert:Â¥flrtblem,, !v and it is, to say the.ft#$t,:pmpf.~,ted , ,..~ r i v n *MI Klequata cyrimtt. b y the time f a c t o r therich nations.:. 1 1 . . . show little'inclinatibn o f limiting , .. demand, and a? becomingmore b ~ e n in their,threats towards the OPEC nations. If they y m o t control their warlike impulses, the kind o f ewnomk crash envisaged by Paul Erdman,in . pro The Cnsh o f 79, due to attempts,by " the.West t c get oil,by force, comes up a;a real threat to the world. The IFIs now acknowledge that there mist be a massive increase in oil ,, . I and gas exploration and development in the LDCs, and the January 1979 World Bank statement envisaged an , increase i n such effort to alevelof arimnd U$$6,66 bilHori by 198SÃ compared to an estimate of~s-$13. billion being spent on oil sew31 and . .. development i n rich nations at that , .. . time. While thisis O f .coum&a welMOST of the power projects have been : come developmentjt still only shifts dr*occupiwJ with lifting wnr,ona of the world funding for such explciratid most I r k pnrqulsita for improved and developmentto a ~tuation~where ~ r k u l t u mproduction l in most parts of the , . the oil-lmporting, jortty . . LDQ . , ,, world. H-r, wr(I alatfliation is ; , ha& the minority a funds. Afco, . ' mother imoortant MA. To thisend, ITDG h n &pond work IFIs of course.&nvisagethat the bulk by in innwmive h v d r w o ~enginur r in of this work will be undertakenby ' Western companies using Western t the Wot of Endand. Mr R u ~ wAmutrohc~ Enns, to dev*l& further mnb promising capital, Thus thÃlongawaited advent .. ,. d l - l c d e hvdro-tlatric auimentha has of T@nical,Co-<Ãˆperatib for. wolwd. Sour of this Â¥quipmantion tha Developing'Quntcies ,\TCp&proyides UK market w i n uw, but tha Group and , s o w hope (hat this Inot the .*,. 1 . Mr Irnm h w idÃ§mflea nnd tar low case. .. hadÃ§iiÃ§lnÃ‘.Mr.Enmhaaallod>vlo an alatronk control l y s m which Ulminft nuny of th* moÃ§upmuvi. a Development : ,. cwnpof~ntsin trbditionxlturblnu leg ho . allow OPEC to keep up,supplies to oaf. maar Ww. oovernbr or mechanical' A t present TCDC (s i d its infancy;< the LDCs while these nationsdevelop ,, i n k & w needed) and which is more , however the concept nowexists as4 ;. their own petroleum sources. And : nliabla Â¥n maintenance frw with l " Unite i Nations-level (affi~liated to ,auictor mvonw than conventionaihvdroin the next centyry, *en these UNDP) ortanisation specifically for . h i G c o n t r o l wsmms. For hioh Ã§n soyr'ces ar~themselvesbeginning to , ' . encouraging and organising the transfer mdium hÃ‘d ha has d w l w e d a familv of of technical expertise and assistance , .,:, run out, the funds accumulatedby : Ptlton Whds which can also be . . between developing codntries. Because, ..'-:. the LDCs thrwghexports'of their Â¥(Â¥ctronici controlled. own oil and gas, and though greatly , , the LDCs now include many oil producAl a nwtt of identifying this MA, . ., '. expandedeconomic activity based. , ITDG hiat its dimoaal inwilv devrtoort , . ers, diverse i s Burma, Pakistan, . on secure and stable-priced energy, : . Nigeria and Malaysia, it is reasonable ..': to argue that atleast a significant part , ' can b$ used to import the Western alternate energy systems. This does .: ofthe technical expertise, as well as not, of course, mean that there should ; hardware, for the new World Bank plan , be no development o f such energy foe petroleum devdlopment in the but it must systems in the LOCs can be obtained i n and from , . . Â¥oratotvo ovruas in the naar futuraafd otherdevelo~inecountries. When this be kept inproportion to likely reserves, be fully economic, and be new opportunity is linked with the Ã ‘ v f l i a t r o n i contro~~wa haw approached without the hysteria b n n sent by the Group to plows Â¥ucas recently-announced OAPEC and Fiji, Nepal and Pakistan. At the timeof that many Western spokesmen use to sel in aid and investment OPEC -~- -chanzes . writing about 30 are in regular uÃ§ in UK , their new religion of 'energy independen policy to i m ~ k v e ' h accelerate d . . inttdlations. resource development in the LDCs, an Andrew Mackillop altogether mom hopeful approach can . . REFERENCES be taken towards the speedy,developWodd BÃ§n Wort 1688. Mirwnris Mid EMrn w n t of hew oil and gjs supplies for, , mdpublnh*d by IT Publiotiona 19 King in ;ha Developing Countirn. World Bmk, . the LDCs. It can be envisaged that. .~ ' Sti~.London WC2: 240pp A4; Â£7.5 Washinoton. USA. May 4 1977. olus Â£ o & > . This book Inn a wid* nrietv ... . TCDC,if able 6 freely use (i.e. withWorld BulkJm 1979. A Programw to Acol' of inmr~atikallymiilabla'amill-scale wt rigid tying) the increased funding ' . at* PetrolÃ§unrÃˆProducti in the Dmiopir . : p o w r w i p m m t md d i s c u q the criteria available from the IFIS, tan provide , . Coumria. World Emk, Washington, USA.. for mlatinf m tpproprnf system for a January 197% much more exploration and develop.p'n . #paidneed; it il indeed "a minaof effort,,for the same costs, simply by' UNESCAP1979. Cimlopmant.Strmgitoin. the 19801for the ESCAP RMl0n.W using lbwer-cost non-Westernexpertise, , . plant and equipment. Greater provision .. : Economic ftnd Social C o m q 6 i fa Ash md P ~ r f k1. &gum 1979. , ,. , , . of actual fcnds, from ,OPEC, can. then ., . . .. , . : . , .. , . . .,, . ,LJfrwork will, it is hoped, mult In a

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M U D AND MOSQUITOES; police dogs and paranoia: such was the welcome the "Alternative Forum" gave to the Het Fort Van Sjakoo Bookshop when they came to the UN's conference on Science and Technology last August. Whatever happened to that fabulous Viennese gemutlichkeit? 'ienna represented nicely the underlying roblem the conferences were there to ickle; the division and subdivision o f uman society which prevents us from ving and understanding our lives as a thole. The conference-goers were ivided; Stadhalle Kongresshaus, Volksochschule Margareten, some women on weir own i n the Floradorf, and far, far away, hidden i n the Praterwoods, the -.o-village. So from the start dialogue, anfnntation, contact between all those iterester! was impiissible. We suspect this was on purpose. The ,ustrian authorities, asked for a site for n alternative forum (which could o f ourse have marred their carefully contructed image o f Vienna as the quiet, eutral, comfortable international con:rence city), produced a distant, inonvenient, mosquito-ridden meadow, quipped with one badly-functioning ilephone and a mobile toilet. And t o lake sure the hippies in tents didn't isturb the official guests in their diluting, airconditioned Hilton and itercontinental rooms, parades o f the arious police forces were arranged in i e eco-village, with dogs, portable idios,high boots, whitelgreen cape nd plain-clothes policemen as well.As 'this wasn't enough, the meadow is a ature conservation area, so another lot f police appeared to 'protect nature', assling us even more, and constantly

quibbling about polluting the water system with soap; that is, when they could be hoard above the noise of the trains carrying chemicals, the new highway and the Vienna University test nuclear reactor, all nearby. Traffic and offices pollute and destroy Vienna; but alternatives are out the cobbles and holes in the road make i t impossible to cycle there, and the authorities refused a permit for erecting a demonstration windmill at the ecovillage, since they had no regulations governing it. We put i t up anyway; i t didn't seem to notice the loss! The 'Alternative Forum' wasn't just kept under control by the state police (at the opening o f the official conference no groups o f more than 5 were allowed out o f the ecovillage). The authorities had impressed on the Forum organisers the responsibility they carried, so they behaved like alternative bureaucrats and police towards those they themselves had invited to Vienna, making a mockery o f the sign at the ecovillage entrance 'Everyone takes responsibility for him/herself.' Claiming that 'we are going to be put in prison i f you don't behave well', the organisers imposed, or acquiesced in the imposition of, the following 'don't

No parking in the village, so we stallholders had to risk leaving our bus in a public car park with 750kg o f books for sale in it;

No sleeping on site; sleeping places were prepared half an hour's travel away from the ecovillage; No 'flea-market' - at least, that was the excuse used to send away or hinder greatly those who wanted to get up stalls at the ecovillage or at the Vol kshochschule Margareten; Control (in our case) over the content of our bookstall, to get rid o f publications unacceptable to the Alternative Forum organisers. All with the wellknown argument o f authority, ' I f just anyone comes here. . .'

In addition, the organisers openly attacked many groups wanting to sell products and publications as "alternative capitalist! A misdirected and crude analysis; there is a danger o f alternative capitalism, but not in our case with all the costs o f bringing the books over long distances and across customs. Meanwhile, the Forum organisers were promoting selfmanaged industries; are they too to be stigmatised as 'alternative capitalism or do they only come 'after the revolm tion' (on this analysis, just around the corner) . . .? It's not nice, criticising your hosts, but we feel 'Alternative Forum' deserves i t because o f the way they covered up the chaos in their organisation. They at no time invited help from other countries, so as to share the responsibility o f running the event among every body. Their main office, given as a contact address for foreigners during the event, was often unstaffed, with unanswered phones ringing away. There was even plain arrc-gance, as when a declaration against one o f the authorities' threats to remove the tents was to be made. One of the organisers said, 'There are smarter people in the Volkshuchschule Margareten, let them write it.' The Alternative Forum i s d heterogeneous group, and it's unfair to condemn all of them because of the conduct of some o f them, There have been severa splits in the organisation; several groups and individuals didn't like the set-up and quit. But why didn't they explain openly these differences o f opinion to those not acquainted with the Austrian situation? Such openness would have made the organisers more accepted, not less, and would have created a better atmosphere from the start. We don't want to be diplomatic; although we know that all kinds of reactionary circles will misuse and misinterpret our criticism, we still feel that i t will have an important function for the movement o f people who are genuinely trying to get rid of suppressive structures. (Note: This has been edited, and translated from Dutch English. We hope the sense of the original statement has been retained; it, together with a critique o f the Dutch Government's conference paper presented at UNESCO, can be obtained from Het Fort Van Sjakoo, Jodenbreestraat 24, Amsterdam Holland).

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r .

Rick Hothersall shows f r o m experience h o w t o be y o u r o w n blacksmith.

forge. (These particular bellows were originally designed by A. Inversin of Lw.University'PNG). ' ' .. The fuel used.is c arcoal prepared,, y burningdebarked wood in altmitec pply of air. We juStiftac).,wood very, ghtly in a +,gallondrum $~?d:,~t-lt. . . ight. The process,isworking when . - :' ' '';? ick white smoke billows out of the . .. , top of the forge. .; .. '

-.,

Â¥Â¥

In August 1977 myself and some boys started a blacksmiths forge at the high school at Bereina in Papua New Guinea. I t was constructed entirely out of natural or scrap materials. From old truck leaf. springs and other metals we have constructed hand axes, knives, screwdrivers and many other items, a few of which we sold in the school trade store. The items we made - while not professionally finished or attractively packaged - were

ly soft.

be seen. Gently reheat theknd of the,,, screwdriveruntil the tempering cotour of:.dark yellowappears.Then cool (hescrew- :~: driver 'n water., . .. , . . ~,. . . (istype of screwdriver has proved.' .: easy to makeand doesits job without; . .; .! ~

Tools required

A heavy hammer a hot set (which is a chisel with a 306 blade angle) and p pair of tongs will enable you to do most metal forming..The final finish can be achieved with files or a grinding wheel. We made our grinding wheel from a cement sand mixture of 1:& An anvil is a help,'but you can use any heavy flatish piece of metal such asa cylinder head or a railway coach . . buffer!

START

Design of bellows for biac~smiuis ; 'fbtge . , To get iron or steel red hot y y WWW. Wesort.pf,pump. Below b (he . UPSTROKE .. ~

Undercurrents 2

Despite our scepticism of internationalcbferences, Richard Baker visited the FA0 f Food and Aarkulture) conference in Julv in Rome.. and conclude* although thin issues w& skated over, it produced more than F A

Is there really anything new to be learnt about the world food situation? The stark facts about the continuing imbalance between the developed and the developing world have been well enough known for a good many years to anyone who cared to enquire. Quite apart from the various alarming long-term forecasts,The official ' formation about the current situationis disturbing enough. FW instance, last November Edomrd Saouma, Director-General of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), reported to his Council that me 400million underfed people in the Third Worid i n 1969 had m w n to 450 million in 1974 and that later, incomplete, statistics -ted no improvement since. In July F A 0 officials predicted the next wodd cereal harvests o f about 75 million tons less than the last and that for the next 12 months the world would need more food than it produced. Another bad harvest could take the.world back t o the grave shortages of 1974. F A 0 blamed gwerpments for failing t o set up reserves as agreed in that year. and w on. One could quote such warnings going right back to those of Boya-Orr just after and even before Wqdd War ll.

So what could be gained by yet anotffer Conference. such as that on

ment convened by F A 0 in Rome which Iattended i n July. It was a vast assembly of official delegations from 160 states, all sorts of experts and interested parties, some 70 important 'non-governmental organisations' not to mention the radical 'alternative' gatheringsround the comer -the 'Rome Declaration Group' supported by such various people as Gunnar Myrdal and Oxfam, as well as others further to the left. This group regarded the Conference as largely a cover-up operation by the 'established dominant groups'. 'many governments hope to divert attention from themselves as causes of rural suffering'. m e root cause hf hunger in the "Third World -the tightenink of economic, and there fore political grip of a few i s intensifying i n the industrial countries, particularly the USA. Even to some others, less radical, the . Conference results must have seemed to amount to little more than the repetition of lengthy, generalised and much-qualified phrases o f good intentions Which bind nobody to do anything. And so indeed it could turn out -but only if pollticat action falls to follow up certain , information and pointers which were clearly evident either amongst the voluminous official conference proceedings or amongst the people and

Alien Asian

Tiiese pointers concern two closely related issues. The first is the internal rurallurban, agricultural/industrial imbalance within most countries, developed and developing, an imbalance as serious as the international imbalance between developed and develooins states. The second is the implications for agriculture in genera) and hral development on particular of present and future energy shortages - implications for many kinds of technology, agricultural, industrial transport, dp.Consideration of both these issues IS necessafyfor any understanding o f t h e prime problems posed illthe official onference documents and speeches The phrase Third World' was coin-, ed to emphasis the distinction from the two other industrialised worlds capitalist and communist. I t took some while for China to be appreciated as, at least till recently, something quite distinct from all these. Almost everywhere else the conventional wisdom, at least i n the nineteen-sixties and early 'seventies, assumed that the developing countries should 'develop' on similar lines to one or other of the industrialisedgroups, capitalist or communist

Revolutionary Model-making This assumption ignored facts which should have been obvious. First, the British Industrial Revolution of the Nineteenth Century was precededh by and founded u ~ o k h ~gdcultural evolution in theEighteenth Century.'

p4imSona tlnton,~w a wsed .on e^otoitatinn of undevelnoed -. the then .~..~. ywldand/or urfdeveloped or largely axricultural area within these counGbs themselves. If the Third World k t o develop iimilariy, what is Ifrft for them to exdoit? Third. the British

-,..tf~.>-t^^ni*,t.u^i^hl;pu\*Wd^*^,,_,)x,

Mi..M<tttÃˆtÃ‡!la~( +.iifeikune.utins

two with -... Conference -. . ~ jovialefficietky) ~ ~ ,Commissions told nie hftGoveri

~~~~~-~

in the developed countries. One of themst perceptive statements wis '; 2.' madein an opening paper by 'Wrniin ,, Santa Cruz, Secretary General of the Conference (a Minister in Chile till the hll of the ~ l e ~m oyepmih,

. ..

. ment hadlast yearhe1d.a conference'. o f a dozen black African sUWy to

discus in snullfcde pr* rural * ~ ~ ihe*dments l f o l ~ h d

~ ~ F .~~~7

that a'number o f rfsp@s&le people ., In FAOand In theThirdWwld are lookmgat t k m , including the Mole related question o f the us* of ~ I and/or mineral-basectfwtiliw$,flÃˆ> a v a t amount detriy rqyfn) to ))t explored d many vtfttd interwts

e r t m d hencefavour large pr&,&s': - anart- fromthe ..-.. .- extra -. - - enc* -..-. usf -. But much of the criticism ha$ until recently remaiaed unofficial and. ~

.- .

siveagricul~ureanda m q e rural.. orientedmety if they did notvri tice then doctrines themselvei. My C question evoked some sympathy from her and others at her press conference butshe said she did not know how such chahge$could be achieved in

nformation. Of part@uljir . tor- equipment, d~inaje,,financc+.'.: . . t-is the small water-born? :, commyicati,ons, supplies,qrk~tiqg, ,: Azolla Midi'theChinese . protection-from floods, .&wghts;:::.~. . rtain of their rice-fields 'pestsand diG.aSeS. Mucti.has been.:,;. . . they claim (through the . - .:.: .'-'done in the past byJandlords, co- , .: nitrogen thrdughassocia: : ,--: operatives, bapks,.communes, farm-? , . a certain ifgatsymbiont) ,. erst.asskiationsand so on. Much now.: has had the effect of more than . , '.. requires action by governments, toc-?, ; ubline the vietds of rice crops. in^. reaional and national. and internation'

majorad$at?i@ y e replacement o hoe by theheavjox-drawn moul

ed particularly by Europeans. but of the total nutrient intake of and abstractions'comm& in most artisan fishing with the traditional Chinese axriculture is derived from .. international ~~~.documents.z do . - - soell a ckOi3iThe revoi~tiCfh;hâ‚ lay on fit- ' ' " ,natural f t & e s andheavy reliance: lot of thidotit pretty.fully:.and hold: ting canoes with. motors making it . :on these will continue', kciwse!say : out some useful broad tonceptioniof : possible f o r t h e m p remain48 hours. . ~ the rural development.- i~cluding.eiJu-'.: - ~F . A 0 experts, o( traditions, , . . at sea. Because of this wenetted a , preferencesand practical conditions ., cation, c o m m u n i ~ t i ~rural, s , indus-' . catchof 368,000 tons last year". I t w * ; " i n china and the fact thatthe - tries. social welfare.,and.soon. ', , . . ' thii kind of detail $at, gavesome :' . :Chinesewould taki someti& to:,: , : whi&b&erpebple can usefully bu$d credibility tothe otherwise generalied . 'acquire a thorough knowledge of - . &I and which will, one hopes, .:.,:.: " . - .. statementsinthe Conference conclu:: , crop behaviour, soil quality +d . , stre~atf-en the hands of local and .. , . sions about meetingtherweds o f ; t h e correspondingfunctions of particular ,. . , nationalreformqrs. The major under. wpes of mineral fertilisr. . smallest andpooreitproducers: After. lying issues: however; are likely to;: '.. .. jiilius Nyere-hadaddres . / . , ; 'kquikmuch more revoltifion&y .. r Hart in it?;* . ferirtte very p o ~ r f u l l y thought and action @.an most people ~ ; essentlaHy political and factatiother weakness of the . . in-Rome lastlulv to .. . . seemed-anxious . . <natureofruralde'velopment-essential-.:.. ' 'Qnfeipnce was that little attention , . . , talk a b o u i ~. , ; ' - - was'vaid to.the future of theurban1 Iv: hesaid. a matter of 'transferof ~-

;

reet-fightingman

Ă&#x201A;

8 ,

another disgustingly tick, black vision from Simon,Watt. . values.are sanctified in our culture. "he ~ o r i e swe now delivering their native tothe public expenditure cuts Common hu+'iity tastes mawkish and theunrest of high unemployment iromised public expenditurecuts,have and dishwatery t ~ t h ideologists e of landed out private affluence to their anned street warfare. the Right who prize their sense of life's upporters, and have strengthened the . But we would do well to first under- . more bitter flavours/Believing in the orces of law and order.-The swing to, . stand our inheritance. Implicit in the survival of the fittest as the best i n he Right, a popular vote by one third Tory doctrines is the surrender of moral responsibility for the social consequenc.the best of all possible k r l d s , they are if the 'nation', brings the, blue heaven .deaf to the consefluences of their , es of economic actions. This takesits earerand enterprise is expected to . justification from the Protestant ethic move into an era of 'actions. ThgTories a r ~ t r y i n gto reverse lourish,.As acentury o f ifiduftnahsqti& and anti, and the history of i t s developmentis our low growth, measures for distribution business culturewitha technically own history since the 'idyllic' relations . and common humanity have apparentincompetqt businessclass in a world , . of feudal times. That theindividuals . '-(.become too expensive. Gradgrind should beconcerned solely withthemnd inseucrity will become the lot for , facing fundamental-changes.'Ihe unselves.justified and explained the fact of ,icreasing~umbersof the low paid as . . employment,resulting from their cuts , : may lead,* many fear, to social unrest, ye enter the Dismal New World of changed material conditions that followand violence. Suretyno legitimate , ed Europe's expansion -,an adyance that nublic poverty. The era of post-war ,~ onsins'K politics, of benign Keyneburst asunder.the rural bliss of the . . interest can justify the tremendous an measures to attempt full employmanor houses withttieir country gentry. destructions that civil unrest will lent, has finally been swept away by The emerging capitalism caused the produce? Can think of no alternatives . that he Tories'new-found belief in collapse of the social charities, i.e. will s a t i s f 3 b hunger 4"d tastes wnetarism'operatingthe hidden . ,..medieval public expenditure, thatmade of the Right yet still give priority to .. and. , ." those ingreatest need? Are all the life tolerable in an age o f scarcity. Mrs .; We inherit anunreformed ruling , alternatives as 'wet' as Mrs. Thatcher '..Thatcher is indeed appealing to first 1: lass with a pernicious ideologywhose principles. is reported to think? There-is an alter-

Undercurrents 31

Hell or the poorhouse? Not that the unbridled pursuit o f private interest was confined t o the nobility in feudal times -that would be asking too much o f human nature. RH Tawney quotes a monk o f the world who believed that you would go to Hell if you practised usury and the poorhouse if you did not. Marx's condemnation o f capitalism as an economic and ethical system was preceded centuries before by the Schoolmen who tried t o salvage Christian principles and fight a rearguard action against the new economic order; one dissident savagely condemned usurers who would piss on beggars stumps. The Protestant Ethic turned usury into a fine art and buried individual conscience. Poverty was seen as a result of personal vice and riches a reward ifnot for virtue, then for the need for order. Inequality was an ordained' fact of nature as the medieval mind recognised, yet there was no obligation on the rich t o help the poor. Economics left the realms o f moral concern and entered the market place shorn of social values t o reflect and compound inequality. These are not just idle reflections. We inherit the world view o f the Protestant Ethic and a ruling class that still thinks i t can operate on these principles. This is in contrast t o European countries where Conservatives feel obliged to call themselves liberal. I n Britain this strand of our culture, and our ruling class, unreformed by the pressures o f social democracy, has not been straightened out by history. I f we wish t o change things we must enter deeply into the ethical and aesthetic viewpoint o f the Tories as represented by the Thatcher/ Josepli school of thought. We must shift the point o f the middle ground o f politics that the Tories claim to have won iii the last election. We must propose a moral equivalent t o rank self-interest and competition analagous as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent o f heat. We must find some outlet for the ideologists of the Right who justify self-interest and inequality in their attempts to shift resources to a business class whose track record i s any thing but good. The Tory Party has been returned to power with a mandate to unleash the buried forces of private enterprise, to stop the rot and reverse the fortunes of the British economy after a century of decline. But with a world recession promised the small entrepreneurial acorn of Tory dreams is even less likely now t o grow into a transnational oak tree. And conflict between managers and managed, with most managers technically untrained, prevents the efficient use of the resources we do have. The Budget Hoes not appear to have helped matters. High interest rates push up the value of an oil-protected sterling, making imports cheaper and

exports dearer and less competitive. Many firms are likely to be driven o f f the market. Inflation is predicted to h i t 20% by the winter and unemployment 2 million plus. The estimated 4% real fall in income will lower Beveridge's safety net even nearer the ground. Severe tension and civil disobedience is a possible outcome. Many on the Left see this as the fuel that will power the classic engine o f revolution. But instead o f the political kidnappings and strife on the Italian model - whose leaders have been foolish enough not t o provide jobs for their radical bourgeoisie - we are likely t o have sectarian and race riots with working class communities the main recipients. Unemployment will be contained in the depressed areas away from Thatcher's Laager o f the South East. Speke and other blighted parts north o f the golden triangle will become no-go areas with no answers. The post-industrial society will be here with a vengeance. Things were different in the 1930's and the last major Depression. War finally created the demand for goods that provided jobs but war is now capital intensiveand cannot make many jobs. I n this situation street warfare provides the answer, triumph o f market forces that abhore a vacuum. The Devil thus will find work for idle hanus, civil disobedience being both labnrr intensive to carry out and contain. The ideologists o f the Right will not be moved by warnings o f this sort. They will claim history as a bath of blood. They will argue that mankind was nursed in fear and pain and that the alternative to unemployment - a pleasure and leisure economy-feminist, soft technology and the like may prove fatal and lead t o a society of insipid and ubiquitous inferiority. The taxes that people never refuse t o pay are war taxes and struggle is in any case a biological necessity. Street war may appear quite natural to them. And many on the Left will also see i t as the soul o f their romance as they court violent death. For disaffected youth civil struggle will be preferable to a life o f doles and degeneration. How then can we reconcile the culturally sanctified urges of the Right to punish the poor for being in that estate with the obvious need for increased public expenditure? Planned street warfare may well provide an answer. I n their publication 'jobs, Through Selected Growth' the European Agenor Group argue that increased emphasis must be placed on allocating resources t o more labour intensive jobs such as building with direct labour - they say that this i s the only way o f absorbing people shed from conventional industries by automation and saturated markets. Ulster shows the huge amounts of labour intensive work that street war

creates both for local artisans and the manufacturers of building products. It also shows the terrible misery caused by social violence. Planned street war on the other hand would allow conscripted gangs o f the unemployed t o play war games i n areas selected for demolition and renewal. Exciting guerilla raids could be made against targets that had been cleared o f their inhabitants and their goods. Other conscripts with their traditional officer classes would then achieve fame in trying t o stop them. Spying, intrigue, alliances, qualities of leadership, rabble rousing and rhetoric, would be of absorbing interest. Combatants would be taken out of action when cardboard stick on knee caps designed for the purpose -are shot off by putty bullets; these cardboard devices could flourish into a new art form showing the bravery and daring of the wearer. Actual bombs for the demolition work would be soft and harmless. To prevent passions from causing real injury hostages would be taken from each side - f r o m the conscripted unemployed and from the officer classes -and kept for a required period in cages. Injuries toanyone on either side would immediately be punished by visiting the same on a hostage opponent -an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth - which should satisfy the vengeance lobby. And the destroyed property could then be rebuilt by the Army using direct labour t o very high standards, being a more effective way of spending the defence budget than on capital intensive weaponry. As HG Wells wrote in 1908 -nothing is more striking than to compare the progress o f civil conveniences which has been l e f t almost entirely to the trader, to the progress i n military apparatus during the last few decades. Wells added that the military is one o f the few institutions that reward selfless concern for duty with promotion. Under the military, houses would never be jerry built. Part o f the massive defence R&D budget could also be shifted to develop the alternatives that Mrs Thatcher finds wet and may even get co-operates t o work under army discipline. Planned street war - the moral equivalent t o civil disobedience - would thus provide something for everyone. It would contain and direct the passions of the Right who fear social change like the death, and those of the Left who are obsessed with life itself. It would please the shareholders o f manufacturing companies in the building sector that by and large do not import much thereby reducing the pressure of imports. It would provide labour intensive jobs t o both the unemployed and the army; conscription would satisfy demands for law and order. The Dismal New World of public poverty could again become brave.

Simon Watt

'.;

. ,' >$

n g warm, i t is not worthwhile getting all the available methane out of the slurry because after each 'charge' of waste has been in the system for 10 days or so i t

wn Nhat took two people 18 months to build, cost less than Ă&#x201A;ÂŁ150got them ~p to their necks in pig shit, shattered lots of illusions, taught them a lot i f lessons about developing technology on a shoestring budget, and was all in the cause of a so-called Alternative Technology? Bill Evans' and Dick Stow's Methane Digester. Their spine-chilling account 2<y$c$ of the gruesome details now followsQv

,vf,-% We set about creating this monster in January 197.7 thinking i t would take & months, fools that we were! What had startedas a 6 month project in our final year at Poly ended up 18 months later as a working digester on the farm at Lufton Manor Rural Training Unit for mentally handicapped kids (run by the rational Societv for Mentallv Handicaoled Children who gave us a lot o f support ind encouragement). For the last year work was supported by all sorts of part:ime jobs. The first cup of tea brewed Tom our own 'home produced' gas tast!d great! ~ ~ ~ ~ $ ; .!%&\.

the Principle

,- %. *.,

&^SsffeS

Just a brief outline of Anaerobic Methane Digestion for those o f you who ire not familiar with the principle:Basically what happens is a load o f bacteria are fed the right kind of food, in the ight kind o f atmosphere, in return for heir by-product: Methane Gas. The Bacteria are the same as those ound in the rumen o f a cow - this is the .tomach that breaks down the grass and )ther cellulose type material that we :an't digest. So the idea i s to mi :onditions in the digester:- Fee )acteria a roughly balanced diet .ase Pig Waste (clean pig shit with the ninimum o f bedding material) which :ontains fats, proteins and starches and :eep them in an atmosphere totally with)ut air (that's the Anaerobic bit). The lacteria flourish under these ideal conlitions giving o f f roughly 70% Methane CH ) and 30% carbon dioxide (CO-)). h e bugs use up the food, so to prevent hem souring their environment the upply o f waste must be replenished and he spent effluent removed. This is where the problems begin, a ystem must be developed which:keeps the digester evenly warm; enables the loading and removal small amount o f pig slurry wi blocking up; collects and stores the gas for later use; , requires as little attention as possible;

s effluent is a black faintly tarry smelling liquid with slightly improved Nitrogen content over the 'raw' waste, making i t an excellent fertilizer. The CH41C02 mixture (Biogas) is useable and burns like North Sea Gas (which is nearly 100% Methane). This is how we set about doing

The -, Svstpm

Firstly this digester was developed specifically as a pilot plant for a larger farm scale digester for use with a 20 sov8 pig unit. Any of you hoping to digest sr er quantities of waste will find i t very ~ . $ difficult to produce a nett surplus of energy The digester vessel or provide such tiny and irregular quantities requires more energy keeping i t warm than of gas that i t will not be worthwhile. it produces in Methane. Digesters can be extremely sophisticat'Mixed' because:ed with sort o f 'spin dryers' for the spent 0 to get a high rate o f digestion the slurry which separate the liquid and bacteria must be mixed thoroughly t o return the solids to the digester, or very make sure any new slurry is rapidly simple in the case of the Gobar gas plants inoculated with bacteria; used extensively in India, China and other warm developing countries. Our system ' 0 to stop temperature stratification inside the digester; is somewhere between the two and is design-

The Digester System.

-----

agitates the slurry to prevent scumming up and promote bacteria inoculation. The results are w o r t h i t though. The

IUCKET flND GflS L I F T PUVP

------

DIGESTER VESSEL

(ehou" c u t away)

. .?.P

stop the dreaded scumming up on the ed for operation in our temperate clima+* . We opted for a 'High Rate Mixed Con- y t m : ; . $ f a ~ e of the slurry. tinuous Process!' -^~onf/'nuous' because the process is more 'High Rate' because work by various predictable i f conditions are kept stable researchers (see refs) has shown that if the i f no new slurry is fed in the digester quicksystem is to be energy efficient, that is ly starts to 'sour'. If left long enough i t will produce more energy than i t uses in keepkill itself. Anyway for farm use a constant

,~s".,~.,",#u#m...

arinpOt,fsJdea'far;smobtti

+.,,

-^ :.',.

. . . using;(tie;g*^',;

.,:Storing,* . . . .

.;;,\.,.

wy*;i%i

!.,.. .

WJreltXi . , .7Wi:$**Jt loade into the gester and the ,.Jbe,tiBÃaqharge of slurryi s kept in when,tfie gaswas getterataditpiftalrrfng40gallonsMie made up hodifester isknown as the retention time. through themeters and o h t o~ . u r q ;.. , withwwry pigwaste. . : . . . . . hr digester tank had acapaiity o f 8 0 b i d e r losing its (iondpbatlbd Mate v a il O f course we w,re not producing :' gallons, ,we settled ona 10 dayretention simple U-type kater-ttap! The gas holder any.gas yet, so initially the Natural ' t i & ~ ~ aqs . d .sWn&ryint. !hwe ioaded }was i mini cop$ o f a town gasometer, i t Gas boiler was,fired.using butane (at ' t w i t h 8 g a l l w p e t y to giveus y r took 3 attempts togetthe design uht.. this point heatingengineers put their '

&diyretenti~n(b gallonsa day of spent. -. .l . u. ~ $wefore w ~ discharged). ..

Die.,PflotPlant .

We tried to cuttop many cornersat first , and thefloatingtank 'crabbed' badly and .would jam on ifs way up o$doWl. .The whole system Wotessurised to 6" water gauge by a suit- - : able weight onto the TIM njppb af g ~ ~ c o r i l d ~ b e ~ : ~ a ,. b n for recirculation, fi~rtgTheM l e r an4 use ona nearby gas cooker. ,. .

, 1

.-.-.............

m.im. b o w channels,ail the gritto

Ã‡ lÃˆÃ<Ã‡Ã

l>ltÃ§.Ãthe inlet p i n s

The system was hitomatic except '\ . . for slurry loadir(g.' ' ' . . -.' , . Control Wasby time switches foi the ' gas recir6ulation (15,minutes every 2 hours) and bythermostat for the' boiler.. In practice the heat loss was so small over a'tw+hour period that, the boiler was only activated for the . diw 15 minutes as thew rwircula-.. .

'.'~.sin~,~,midde.. . pipe. k was 2" bore, m a i n t y w<;pff.we managid to get hold Of the free.,(theyare astrot)pmically expen,

, ,

Loding

.:! .

W&initially achieved a 2" bore 'rnon6' type slurry pump . which d f w slurry up froman old galvanised water tank buried in, the ground. The slurry profed to@ , much for this small diameter-pumpand we hadto go pver to gravity loading '

s$u%,Up

. .

Despite good advice from the ' boiler manufa@ it proved difficult t o h n the hier on B i i . The digester begincooling downslowly ,,r as we frantically begandrilling out" pilot jep i n the b?iir$tarKittiati, ' . ','..' 0.016"). Weweis also aving d i f r i l t y lqding & unloading I the d i r due @our 2','pipe,york -:we di n'tlisten when peoplesaiduse 6". So unforpn.. awly biforeiany meaningful result ' could be .takenandanalysed our ' j digester diedon Us f h t r only 3 weeks r-ing The Biogas-became to8 much W y t o e n a b l i us to continue with .',.', ! the conversionj'the loading became impossible and it Went cotd on us!,To capit all we were trying to attend'G8 it from 5 miles away and we knew ye

I,,,

, ,

The scouring a6 ion o f the slurry p*,;:';~':, i n g up thecentre k t the surface relatively -:free o f crud. The gas was recirculated usinga small twin.cylinderaehngine compressor (scrap) driven by a washing machine motor (113 h.p.) .The Only electrical' connection to the digester i w e thermostat. The w h o l e d i t waqthen laggedwith . .' about 1 foot of scrap polystrene.foam from a local packing company. Heatloss . .was therefore kept to a minimum, on irough c W w were losing3OF per 2 tioh. This alsosolved the p,roblekof ,h&rswtth.ewytMpg switched off, localised hot spots inside the digester , (6pFoutsi,de.temperature). as the heat,was only applied wmbjn-, , ,. . ed with, the stirring action. , . . . , , .. . , ,, , : ...

Theslow death ,

'> ,

heads into their hands, but honestit-:.workedquite well after a little plq@: ing ar und, although we doubt itwas that efficient). The d' $ter &as k i t e d up,and from a 6% ifart & hieved 95Â¡ "," w n in 3Jh&r". W& bad a hddeefull of gas (22 cu, ft) i n & hows by which. ., time we were jumping around with glee as the digester bubbled, squeaked, . and murmured automaticallytaking on eerie sense of life. We made our, first cupof'tea brewed $i* Biogas only on* old'katural.gai stove. It necessary to slightly restrict theair j . ..,gasmixture porttoget correct c o p bustion. Incidehtally thegas smellsof rotten eggsdue to trtrace Hydrbge" ;Â¥Â Sulphide.. . ' , As thedigester was using a Â£ ,cylinderof butane every 5 days, we had fo mom swiftly t o convert the ; 'boiler overto Biogas. ,This is wherepur problems began in earnest. -L 1 , * ' . .. , - , '

. .

.. .

The. bacteria vifhich do all the . dirty work in thedigester (Methane- . . bacterium ~ormicicumif you must know!) are present in very mall, quantities in pig wqtes, but for efficientstart up it is best to~nncku~

Â¥Hi complete Bitt protow

. . ,,." .. would ha& to p o w it soon. $0 wehad.~iochoicebut to let it, : die. We had.too many'problems to solve with thesystem active. Better luck next time1 :! - : ~

- cheaper - our Â£30+ newish stain-

The Lessons

' tes~ steel slurry

We learnt a lot about shoestring AT, produced our first Biogas and obtained enough operational experience to e n US to f i n the e x P o p digester vessel. Wf can still use the heat exchanger/control gear etc., for the next stage. Our lessons are worth passing , onto other methane egperimenters and AT. enthusiasts in general:When the books say straight 6" diameter pipe runs they mean it;

ent about making the right decision when using scrap components, gaining a 'feel' for when it is worth re-using something or buying new. Technical help -local technical college? are very obliging. Go shight to thetechhiclans, especially in the holidays. If you approach them with agood enough story, you will more than likely get some Wo from them (6.8. use of machine fools). Local firms who make something you need 1 for a project may help if you go to the technical department and plead your case well (tried with success a local firm let us use their machine shops in the lunch hour). Technical Â¥experts in the large firms that makc I equipment you might be using are more than willingto offer technical advice over the 'phone. They are interested in anything that breaks the routine. Finally people working related areas are usually more th willing to share their experience with you. Scrappers/rag and bone merchants are great for getting larger objects like tanks and respond well.to a friendly, enthusiastic face.

auction! mo Â¥wil

pump cost Â£ in an

digesters

Throughout the text runs, the assumption that di sters are a good technology. is going to be aeady adopted but by whom? Que to the fanwtic -omy of ae with digep ters.it i s going to be the big guns who adopt it first. Livestock production falls roughly

tion by t h ~ megaxiants. AT to the C.E.G.B. is Severn barrages, 1 Mw windmills across the; sottish Highlands, electric heat pumps and, according to Tony Benn, when energy secretary, nuclear power is aq A.T. to be lumped together with $1 of the above! Heavens maybe AT1s not the PI= t o st our fingers in the cracks of society? Neverthelesswe are optimistic and quite happy to continue 4th the development of soft energy tech-

appropriate,alternhe ,

,tÂ¡.~tleast-i per gallon at today s d u e -like any energy sourWBiogas , the moment,the dl is incompetition in a ruthless market aslee ,awaiting the next stage of place. The other category of farmers devekment wki a new i n j d p n of ;fie the intensivesquad - the battery enthusiasm. We have now moved onto chickens sweatbox piggeries, deep litter , thina,tf,at keepusboth busy. ducks of rile world. As m a t producNeither of ks have thatmuch timeito tion becomes more intensive it moves devote to the development, but we away from its traditional rural farm would very much like to build the surrounding and into the fringe suburMark 11. It will cost about Â£20and ban arras where the Smell problem of 1 month's solid work for at least 10,000 chickens or 500 pigs $hitting two people. Is'anybody interested doesn't go down too with G T's in helping? ~6 write to us at the on the patio werloo.king the golf course. ~ m b ~you o never w , know;one The deodorbingeffect of digestion will ' day mw -,into manufas- , give it an advantage. As the price of oil we can offer m! (cwp of rises and because of the economy of a farm to site it on, waste to fuel it; stale, it is these people who will adopt b on hand daily to rMn digesters first. it,and laboratdry and engineering What's this? An afternative radical facilities: technology being used to help Pay for Bill Evans and Dick Stow intensive meat production justifying 4 Cromwell Avenue i-tech farming? Thi~raisesall sorts of \ Highgate, London N.6. terestingquestionsabout the politics , -:the application of technology. We T h p 3 books together give a balanced wereall rushing around afew years view of D I Y and Farm scale digesters. . igo advqati the adoption of Digester Mawell P.J. Methane: Planning a this AT an& AT which we hopÂ£2.5 Prism Press 1976 ed would enable a more decentralishobson, P.N. and Robertson A.M. led, democratic and convivial society. ~

7 5 1974 D.A. Knox Publ..

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:in&~&in &nci&, urinecontains'a lotof available nKrc&#d .which the bacteria will readily use. .. ' y ' ' Thereare inanybooks andpamphlet: on thersubject of wmpost and heap, .'. building. Much ofwhat appears ;&theÂ b i g glossy gardening books fails to get::.. h e r me why and. h0w:b.f com,postlnij,'an all too.often onJy'a.p+ingccferehce is .~

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.!ÃKihg preachescompost ad gi@ & u...s e, ~ ,k m p i ~ ' a HHQ$& . , . . iarth'tChildren: - ,. . .:.. .. . . . , , . , .~. m t e is gtowi& awareness that . : , ,

misguided or just plain wrong (do gyden ')ing authors ktqally know whqt?&i- ;. 'post heap looks like?).' H6wever;fhe. ' . ,'.following bookshaves&xx+ thetestof m y Awn experover the past even : :'fca~hs.Oxnposting, W a n i t a t y ' . : : -Disposala~d:Reclatnatianof O r w c ' ... . ,zWastes;byHarold B. Go-, published, ;. . b y theworld Health,Organii+ti'pn. . , -.. fertility WithoutFertilisers by p&i 0.,Hills,published . bytheHenry DhMe,.

d e r n agricultural practices, particularthe *(or overuse) of chemical fefii- , mi might be -ng the soil.It seems My trulfthe lackof wt&f ring (K@~rwd'to the I is an important ictor i n the apparent general declineof iil structure and health. People are uestioningthe efficacy.of chemical ferti"zers and somedoubt their long-term effectiveness now that the l a y o f dimin- , " h i n g r e t w is manifesting itself :in'. weat harvests.In my own mind the , ;

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tumfcritsw iimple -short teen) -,; : w @ anI gain$. h o dhusbandry. Do'o ~ , ~ Ãsofl'as § ^ a sterile medium. . , s

Â¥hiohyodope with all the appropriate hefnidfefllisefs-and poisonsor do you *'the dl r i il c t v e p n s ~ a s Ã+,! § !.a self-sustaining l i v i d hi&..& allo& ourexlucncf? ' ,' Wecan at Ifqt apply thepriec" ,& f goodl~usbandryt o our oW!garderts; ,~$. ndallotidents. ,$h&in,@Ur Own sin@\.... ., s v o l u t i o n d ~ % ~ ~y t b a c k s on tfw. , hehicd &jmpanies.pe &st, W ' . ; illers, the .host tiveand benign, are , ur bands. Use t&(nin.tpnjunction with . compost heap and,~u:~illgain.in&pcn. ., ence fr* the chemical merchantsand : nprov~the. heaf* o f your garden. .,.. . . . f : .. ,^: 7 ; . :., ~, ., :.. , ,. .~~ .. .~. . )f ' , . , Havingjust paid yourrates and watchd the dustman carry off your weeds, do ou then trip down p Woolys'basement Euthen fl nd pay again for more compost? It's ?ashelp with ventilation. ,.~ ,, :rto wake your own and you can pat . . ourself on theback for not contributing ur'ther to the destruction ofthe Somerset . , retlands from where much 'English' Peat posers in theirhabitat, day Research Association. Common istolen. ,' . . Sense Compost Making by Mrs. M.E. In my owngarden the compost bins , . Bruce, published4yFab1 ., i e the second most important thing - . # . Of b . h , heaps and books . . . .~.. . . he first being the soil itself. Ifyou carry When you are building the compost (?f the "taking ,. ~'' ' ~ '~ 1ff.the weeds and dead vegetation so bins and/or the heaps inside them, think. lenying the hungrysoil its role within about the natural cycles and the processes . :A quick "how to do it'for those&, -. lazy to visit the library. Save for the '. he natural cycles as the chemical re- ' going on under your feet. Build up in ;ycler, you must provide alternative your mind a qualitative appreciation of. , , heap all%arden waste. Chop up and .,,: helter where mother nature's chemists , the natu$alforcesyou ate attempting bruise thick stems and woody bits. .j:'.,+." . an work. If you keep on taking, and . to harness: .. Kitchen vegetable waste. Animal manure nake noattempt to replenish the basic v, You add the muscle power when ' , .:;.: a n d urine. Almost any organic materia! ,. hemical feedstocks bound UP i n the. , building and turning the heaps but i t ' s .:: can be put in, but avoidmore than the. oil, after a few seasons you ain'tgonna the bacteria that getthe important job: :: . odd sprinkle of paper and sawdust which ie growing anything anymore, even done. Give nature's little dustbin men a : , takes too long to break down and may reeds. Nitrogen, carbon and oxygen are helping hand: A roof over their headsto actually rob the heap of nitrogen. Buildkeepthe cold rain out, warmth by ixed fromthe atmosphere by bacteria , ing the heap is best done, if possible, all . , insulating the bin, oxygen for their nd plants, organic molecules are built a at one go. I n practice the empty bin of. respiration by turning the heap over, a t h e pair is used tostore aicumulating ; P dyio&growth processes and used in . ipii Xiconsumers to build their own ' basic balan~ddiet^fvegetable material, matehal. Diseased plants and uscless apd 4 little water now and then to soften .timbershould be burnt and the ashes bdies,.finally deathfnd decomposition

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the-new stuff andany odd bits f r k t h e u t h e a p that need another do? ofthe. treatment Stir it all together to get a hoiilogeneousmixture of wet/dryil wdpdyrsoft, s%arse/fine. Now and then add a spade full of s% o ,li hii will contain all the bacteria needed.to start the h a p , and water if itfeelqdry. There.is 'no needto use thoseget-rich-quick +post makers that seem so attractive the supermarket $helves.' Turn, mix and water,if necessary, on the 3rd, 5th and 11th day after building. All that turning may.seem like .' hard work, but when performed as ,active rtiedjtationor as a m o t i o n - i t

Chris Hall ha* noticed that some environmentalists aren't ecological and are compr6misin~with existing life-style*. He wants nothing- lesi than full, bloodedn?)ecology.:. ' ! , generated. Using i sensible amount of : ~ i v i ~ in.&t ~ a inthe ~ b *iron\

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ment amongmost pxopte,was,minimal. . ' : . , m ,., '1. They had to ~ . p ~ e p e t p t ~takean interest Local pressoften repott@pents with thinly-vetltd amu&t. Nqw people regularly come forward with , .th~ughtfulsuggest'~>qd ed discusion. Even+idly organ* events can receive favourablec@erage.

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energy wouidmeanquite.:a radical change in lifestyle, whicffthe majority 'i . . do not want As it i s , t h e ~is a danger ~, of solar p'anelsbecomhganovelty to ' , show off, a demonstration of 'concern,, , ; In other words, just another gimmick , . for thdwnsumeristsociety. Insulationat leastsaves energy, but all the emphasis ison the money to be saved. Where does that money go? Back' 'into consumerism. Tlfe Government knew what i t was doing by introducing , home insulation grants: it was giving people more money to spend. Meanwhile, their homeswould be just as overheated,. and the way of'life is maintained. . . . Indeed, insulatedhomes will acquire . ; . , higher market values. Healthy food chains '. , . : . , ~

.;:. , , . ' - i better. : Ho?ver,,(Here may haye Been an environmental revolution, b u t w . hasn't hew an e m l o g i d &.~lth&gh me former is a welconje step i n right direction, it is the latter which the ?i: . world needs., . , m e only has to observe theattitude among many people who join pressure . , , groups, to see what is missing. It Is all too wmmontopeet someup fanatical- -, It is thesaw story withfood. Many Fy opposed to nuclear power,.but not w e e that our diet has,de@rior.atedbut : ' , really cmcerned &bout wasting resouri;- , ;the main result has been thatbusiness , . . qs,o ' r a keen cyclist demanding that '. , in health supplements .it.booming. There' cars be.$@t.intooblivion but who'd is atendency for people tÃˆ.%an$:t < . ..., lwnbj!eep over the demise of the whale. . . take pillsfor s o m e t h i n g ; . , a ~ $ ~ ~ k l,l . o n theother hand, ecological a&are-, , .k merely becoming displaced toward. , . , , vitamin supplements, allowing the health. :ness tells us thatall~ofthese are differing, . ~ O chains P Ã beCome abundantly . . aspects of one larger problem, and that healthy,- financially. the maby other problems of pollution, Equally utkewlogical is theneed to :: import maqy wholefoods, especially ' , @ere these ire the product of Third World eiplQitat[&.The 'mere mention. of vegetarianism is a good way to lose ,., , . , . potential supporters. Thfeatening.eco-systems A menti* must bertia$e.of:thegod &)taps moreieridus is thenatye of of consuperism. 1 have Witnessed arr . the envircyvieptal campaigningwhich environmental meeting whichbecame ' isgaining the most support: the type . a heatedargumehtbecauseymeone' which threatenithe, syitem least. Take ' daredto suggestoppositionto local .. . . . . , ... .. 'waste recycling: it is onlya short term road schenie. solution;itsat~actionisthat it allows Volumes have been Mitten and spoken on theinsanity of cars. It i s easy t o find the same "extravagantme of resour& for a little longer. It rather people whocomplain abouttraffic funks thanchinges the materialistic lifestyle. and noise. Most o f @em also contribute And this is what most peoplewant. to it Cyclinghas had:* lot of promotion Thereis a'slmilar problem with as an alternative, butthereal question,. , alternative energy; Tf(ie,the wind and . t h a t o f mobility,is generally ignored. the sun are tobe preferred.tBut.they Every town and villagewants its byhave aslim chance of meeting dur pass, every bend has tobe straightened J . {p let us drive faster) every motorway, presentenergy t$nsurnption, and if they d i d a vast quantity of raw miaerials lengthened.. Thelatest episode i n the . , would be needed to produce the , alle d oil crisis hasn't slowed the trend, ...n w e s a y solar iallectdr~~and wind- . Yet% the time many of these roads .., , ,

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exercise. Put on becomes li ht some insula ion and lower the lid. I t will take abouttwo months for the compost, to ipaqre inthe.sum?i+r, and all winter f o r an a~tumn~hiadeheap.. .. . . .-:.. ,, , . . ... :... . . ~ . . -.. . ' .. ~ ~. . . ~ .. . . , : . . . Of.theusing,:* .. . . . Dig it in atany tithe, i t should not make youfcairots fork or develop hairy roots as freshmanure would. Mulch around established plants for. weed control and moisture retention, mulch^ open groiind .for'n,odigging' gardens... : Natural wmpost provides nutrients, . holds wa& (:gxing?tike) inthesoil, ehcourages worm activity and hence aeration, improvesthe mechanical T structureof the soil, andaddsm the genmlreseryjirof organic matter.

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a new approach to environmental

try to make the engine cleaner and quieter. Weseethe same happening withnuclear power. The sensible , solution is toforget it before we become too heavily committed. The desirable solution to those in power is to carry on taking risks until,(they Ă&#x201A; hope) all the problems are solved. Smoking kills thousands, but we don't stop smoking; we try to make a 'safe' ' cigarette. As mentioned earlier, we recycle but forgetto question- use. The examples arc numerous.

which attricts interest.,

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Half

b cop "The Diceman M W d from e Woman's liwitute Jumble Sate changes your life. Set the W ~ nsqwres t as your options. Throw dice.

Abortion i s an a w k w a r d subject, being on t h e b o u n d a r y o f society's justifiable interference with individual liberty. It should only be necessary in rare, clearly d e f i n e d medical conditions; but such is not t h e case. T a m Dougan explains some of t h e implications of t h e latest m o v e to restrict it, which is d u e to have i t s third reading on 8th February 1980.

women seeking abortions are blonde, healthy, with cars. So declares H. McClaren, father o f seven, presbytarian and an active campaigner for SPUC - the Society for the Protection o f the Unborn Child. SPUC and LIFE are active (predominantly religious) cam. paigns which have implemented and backed the present abortion reform bill, using John Corrie, Conservative MP for Aberdeenshire as their spokesman. At present the 1967 Abortion Bill allows abortion below 28 weeks to be legal and safe i f continuing the pregnancy would be mentally or physically detrimental to the woman involved or i f the foetus is believed to have a high risk of deformity. This means that most fairly liberal-minded doctors would recommend an early abortion i f the woman wanted one. as statisticallv an abortion is safer than continuing pregnancy to full term. The 1967 Abortion Act was a concession to the liberal 60's, granted because more than 3,000 women a year were being admitted to hospitals with septic wombs resulting from the unhygenic conditions of backstreet abortionists. In 1971 the Government set up the Lane Committee to look into the workings o f the 1967 Act. The committee sat for three years and published a three volume report in April, 1974. Their findings were that the Act had relieved 1.1 vast amount o f individual suffering, and focussed attention on the need for widespread contraceptive advice and facilities. They criticised the NHS for not having adequate facilities to meet the demand for legal abortions, which often forced women to pay private clinics for their abortions. Although in the private sector some doctors had made small fortunes, there were enough charity-stiitir clinics like BPAS to make abuses of the Act relatively small. The committee recommended that the Act should not be changed in any restrictive way. This report was never discussed or acted upon by Parliament, and is not included in the wrms of reference for the Select 0mniittee on Abortion, set up after ames White's Abortion (Amendment) Bill of 1975. White's bill, which was similar in content to the Corrie bill, never received its third reading due to lack of Parliamentary time. Corrie's bill (which will certainly get sufficient time), will change the 1967

Act by: restricting the grounds abortion . , It will be almost impossible to net a doctorto do an abortion inless it can'& proved that 1) the woman's life is in grave danger. .2) There is a.$&tantial risk of-,.; serious dangd??to-the wxr+t%'s.. .' physical or mental health, or to ~'

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grounds of the "new" bill an abortion would not be available. Widening the conscience clause This would allow doctors and nurses to object to performing abortions for any reason at all, and not only for religious or ethical grounds. This would allow Area Health Authorities to use "unsympathetic staff" as an excuse for providing inadequate facilities. Destroying the abortion charities The bill says that there should be no financial relationship betweer inics and referal agencies, and t even pregnancy testing ntres should be licensed and n by a qualified doctor 01 rse. This would make the charities unable to continue. At the moment, about 25% of abortions are done through the clinics. This i s an approximate guide to the Corr Bill. Clauses may be added or changed b' the Committee, which has a higher percentage of anti-abortionists than any other abortion committee has had in the past. One o f the most important effects mi be that i f a doctor recommends an abortion, and i t is subsequently proved (with the benefit of hindsight) that the woman's life was not in "grave" danger i she had continued with the pregnancy, t will be liable to prosecution and could face a maximum penalty b f life imprisor ment. This means that doctors will be unlikely to recommend abortion in any circumstances. Methods o f a b o r t i o n

that o f her children. Reducing the upper time limit to 20 weeks A 20 week limit will mean that, in practice, no abortion will be done after the 16th week of pregnancy, as i t is difficult to tell the exact stage of pregnancy. There will be limited exceptions to this, as some tests for abnormalities are not conclusive until 20 weeks. However, in a case such as German Measles, there is no conclusive test, only a 60-40 statistical risk so on the

Up to 14 weeks, abortions are generally done by the suction method. The cervix is dilated and the contents of the womb are sucked out, under either a general or a local anaesthetic. This can b done using day-care facilities and is statistically safer than allowing the pregnancy to continue to term. After 14 weeks, the general method used is to inject prostaglandin (possibly with urea) into the amniotic fluid surrounding the foetus. This stimulates uterine contractions and so brings about spontaneous abortion. The process takes about ten hours and is comparable to childbirth in discomfort (usually an epidural injection into the spine is given

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*block the pain). , Rarety, a hysterotomy might be lerformed. This operation is like a 'aesarian section, and the scar substanially weakens the uterus, which could ive rise to problems in future pregnancies. Obviously, the earlier an abortion is lerformed, the safer andless traumatic i t Malthusian population theories are out of fashion, and family planning ifor the womanconcqrned. What this won't save the world. But ifs still a good idea, argues Debby Hyams. h i l l would do,.if passed, would be to ~riouslyrestrict a woman's control over There is a simple train of thought which is already visible - overcrowding, alienaer own body. She would face, if she goes - one child is nice, several children tion, social breakdown, pollution, povert hides sMe cannot raise the child herself, a catalogue of misery which the 'growth' are even nicer, large numbers of children he choice of a dangerous backstreet are very, very nice. Newspapers talk advocates seem to disregard. In the UK bortion or continuingthe pregnancy and about the birthrate 'improving'; wouldthe same voices proclaim 'necessary unaving the child adopted (assuming other be-grannies long to start knitting. employment' and 'more micro chips'; imily commitments allow her to give up 'more babies for Britain' and 'stop immiUnfortunately the truth for many er job). gration'. Such a manifesto ignores social millions of people around the world There is, we are told, a waiting list of : need (perhaps predictably) butalso ignoi is different - childbearing rea1ly.i~one iildless couples who would love to adopt area where you can have too much of es the fact that unemployment and . i d care for a new-born baby andraise i t inflation, far from being peculiar to .. a good thing. For the majority of the i their own. Itwould seem, though, that world's women children are a distinctly Britain,. reflect a world in which increasiry feware prepared to either foster or mixed blessing - a fact testified to by ing numbers of people are chasing ' , iopt any of the 94,200 (1975 figures) in decreasing resources. Overcropping, overthe fact that 1 in4 of all pregnancies ire in the UK. These children are someends in abortion. Nor is childhood itfishinr desertifiwtion - all consequencmesmentally or physically handicapped, self the carefree, innocent time that we In unu of poverty, i t i s the children of -1 F mixed parentage or difficult and firnilits whowffer mmL A study of milmight wish for children. For more than ' nouridied children found (hat 61% of the sturbed - the very ones that would. ,. half the world's population, childhood severely mdnouridied children studied were inefit from SPUC's "sanctityOf life'' ' .>, is a time characterisedby hunger, fourth OI IuterthadiCT. I t h u been ctlcuiat,,,;.,~ ,<~".. " , . :'>''. . >peal. .. &&at without any improvements in income. and poverty, sickness and hard work .> > ..*. u : : ,. ..: .,. , medical cueoi food supply., a 3-childfamily the number is growing. , woman's right to. choose. . . ., By the time a child born this year Women have suffered long from a .~ celebrates its 21st birthday there will be ale-dominated society,'and in our .' 3 people for every 2 alive today - an esent political climate i t appears that additional 2,000 million children and t will soon have to suffer even more. young people to add to the 4,000+ ith cuts in public spending, the first million which make up the present world ople to feel it will be working women . ., population. These are not wildguesses ith children, single parents and those the next generation of parents is already ost dependent on the welfare state. . . .born and i s so much larger than the last Jrsery places will be cut back, hospital -: that there is virtually no way the populacilities axed, longerwaiting lists for tion can fail to grow. In Latin America, ferrals and operati0ns:Education cuts . for example, where more than 4 out of , tan no or limited school meals, ove'revery 10 people are under the age of 15, owded classes etc. Women's growing the population will almost have doubled sedom b f opportunity has ground to a by the war 2000, and is likely to treble If and we find Ourselves in a position during their lifetime*.In countries where w e we haveto fight to defend the most people live in a state of desperate [hts we have now. poverty this may be disastrous, particularThe Corrie bill will hit hardest at the .: ly as more and more people drift towards Attitudes and f irking classes, therefore abbrtion i s not A m m the sprawling shantytowns and slums of it a women's issue but also $trade EOucmomI Status no. of Chifdrmi , o f Family Planning the cities, seeking the work that the 6.4 . BOX .~ . < Illitwu lion issue. Unions should fight for this ,countryside can no longer offer them. Rim"" whd so 1BX ~, .~,. . ~ . ;ht just as they fight against wemploy4.0': . .0.6% Swondiry Ă&#x201A;ÂĽchoo Heavy population Mnt or racial discrimination. Above all, uniwwsty 2.7 , ,< 0%' . is fight is against allowing a minority I t is of course true that a fairer distribu(source: wortdwtch h p i r n0.161 . . dictate their moral or religious views on tion of resources could solve many of the es of bverpopulation -are taking their problems of poverty and hunger that exist toll. In the words of Lester Brown, PresiI .. . in. the world, but the resources themselves dent of the Worldwatch Institute in ~bortion~am~aign are not infinite. Food production could . Washington, 'We are consuming the. ue committed to fighting for a woman s be increased tomorrow to cope with a biological capital along, with the right to choose. NAC was formed in 1975 to .. ,growing population - but the energy ininterest'. t the Jarnes White bill: They are at 3 ligh 4, Gray's Inn Rd., London WC1. Moreover, a rapidly growing populaIput would be vast, and future prospects (See the news pages for reports on the TUC for energy supplies on this scale are at tion makes i t difficult to implement demonstration at Hyde Park). new social and economic systems - per-:. best uncertain. This i s why heavy populaYou can helpby: tion density in the industrialised countries haps the best hopefor our children. ,. pftsslns resolutions againstthe bill at your Tiade Union, student's Union, Labour is at least as alarming as that in the third Hence the emphasis on family planning Pity, Trades Council, etc. world. A child born in britain might use in alcountry like China,.where populaWriting to your MP. SPUC are prolific up to 40 times the resources used by a tion limitation has gone hand-in-hand ., letter writers, and.8 your MP if pro-abortion, Bangladeshi child -and with expectations with social and economicdevelopment. He (sic) will be grateful to receive support to counteract the many received from antiWhile it is truethat a drop in the birth of higher living standards rising around abortion groups. the world it is vital to attack on two , rate often follows a rise in living standard Joiniw the National Abortion Campaign. fronts - t o limit the growth of population - in countries which are reaching crisis ,. Giving money to f i t the Conie bill. and to stop competitive economic 'growth' point it i s imperative that the two things TomDougan happen simultaneously, otherwise half policies. , The.evidence of failure on these fronts the devclopment effort may be wasted '

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Undercurrents 37

Family planning permission

The two aspects family iflanning

and.social/ec~~omk Wopoient-are -

(or should be) the two sides rf the belopment coin. Brian Abel-Smith has written: 'People who expect their children to survive have smaller fantilies and smaller families aremore likely to , survive. The acceptance of family planning indicates a more equal status, of women. A more equal status of women cancontribute t o b n ~ m i c ~ Adults make kids.ill literally. John Dennis of the Unit for the Study development,and economic developof Health Policy examines environmental threats to kids' health. ment which results jn more women being employed outside the house Those with the Repo* society, so predictably, a wide range of m y contribute both to the $taus d h4* *wbs for a the fume indicators of health show pronounced and to the acceptance of familychildren (1) will recognlse the above inequalities.' It is this variation between planning. And so on.'* adaptation of its title. While members classes which leads some to suggest that Unfortunately we are s t i l l same way from yf^iÃ£ primafily many important health problems of this pro essivt cycle. In the third world, ed withtheh d h sewkÃ§necessary childhood are related to the environment ahout-1% babies are born every 30 to ensure that children grow up 'fit and are therefore susceptible to modera" seconds, and 10 of these will be 'dead for the future' my Own concern in this tiom Ish.Ã deal with four specific areas beforetheir first birthday. In sotre counbrief -iew iswiththose*inns before going on to a more general case. ~'kthe figure 1s twice as high- krents hi& inp m &ermine why, when and how come into contact with I who ex(>ecttheir children t o die have . large families as a safeguard -and inAnti-natal? accident and illness services. What advertelltly increase the incidence of factors are associated with illness or Firstly, there are the problems of infantand toddler mortality. Children injuw in ,-hiidre,,? development prior to birth, and of birth born ton dose together have a poor First, i t is necessary to get some itself. huch of the improvement in life the chantstart in life/-and also overall idea of the health problems expectancy s'nce 1850 has been due to es of survival for their older brothers children face. Data about deaths are the rapiddecline In infant mortality and sisters, may hawta maned the most solid information we have 1 rates. While careful evaluations of the before they are ready. Kwashiorkor * and provide some surprises. Of roughly role of modern scientific medicine in the deadly protein deficiency disease this improvement have demonstrated t h e 11,500 deaths under 1 year and 5,500 , common among third world children 1 and 15 in~ ~ ~ imoortance l ~ environmental d of factors (sa ' literally means the illness of the one ~ i K e o w n 6there ) is no doubt that and Wales in 1973, the major causes displaced from the breast to make way accounted for the fotlowing percentage obstretrics has also contributed. Howfor a new baby. Child spacing can give of deaths. ever this does not mean that to further children a better chance of survival, as improve childbirth we should turn well as, for their mothers from under 1 1-15 - freedom .. .~ primarily to obstetrics. In the first - - ,a^tatfrof rtnstaiStpregnarey. % % place, decreasing infant mortality rates alongside,the child spacing programmes Accidents 2.9 26.2 sometimes means an increasing number must be assurances of bet& health, Congenital abnorrnalof essentially unhealthy and severely and of reasonable alternatives to child22.4 9.9 ities handicapped babies surviving. In the bearinufor women whose procress is Respiratory disease -14.2 10.6 second place, there are worries that we . blockedby lack of education &d Sptus., Malignant disease 0.5 14.3 may become obsessed by the physical :. Familyplanning canncrt.tofvethe well-beingof the baby and mother at (From: Jackson2) world's problems, nor can it guarantee the expense of their psychological wella better future for our children. What it Under one year of age almost a being. There is rightly a concern with do is to provide the opportunity for quarter, of deaths are due t o congenital early bonding between mother (parents) ..other formsof aid to become effective,, abnormalities. Here, things like spina and her child - a concern which is com. toprovide the beginnings of liberation bifida, heart problems and hydrocephalus patible with some of the technological .:forwomen, and to give children at least (water on the brain) exact the greatest 'boxes of tricks' thought to be necessary . thechance of a reasonablestart in life. toll. Between one and fifteen years. on physical grounds. Some have suggest, ed (Smithells6) that we might move . . Debby H Y ~ S accidents are clearly the most important .. .~, problem motor vehicle traffic accidents towards thelFrench system of linking D*bby Hyam it Information Officer for accountingfor almost a third o f these maternity benefits to attendance of Population Concern, a charity sponsored by deaths. Such a grim picture is worsened ante-natal clinics. However, such a move tha FPA to raise funds for voluntary familv. by the introduction of social class. planning programme! around the world. might well simply further penalise die Thair iptcial proiffitsfor International Year Statistics from the Office of Populasocially disadvantaged and least he Ithy of $he Child include a Child Need tion Censuses and Surveys' (OPCS) and we should probably concentra e SUN& in Pakistan. If you can help, or show steep class gradients. For example, would like more information, contact on making ante-natal clinics much the infant mortality rate (per 1,000 live Po~ulfltionConcern at 27/36 Mortinrr more convenient and more friendly Strut, London WIN 7RJ 101-637 95821. births) ranges from 10 for females in places to attend. More serious attention . .. . . , . Social Class 1 to 35 for males in Social to the physical and social environment < . *!-ti,>, . Class V. Such differences are often before, during and After birth would World Population Report ;. 2&2 ascribed to parental fecklessness but doubtless bring benefits. . free W& PI& for people they persist even for congenital abnormal. Population Today . . Â£3.2 ities. .(â‚¬McQfw.pub~iye. . Play Dead As Morris4 comments 'Wealth and & W@rd 19791. . .:. . . Secondly, there is the problem .of , , income, housing and environment, educaThe ~ t c t i w in the ~irtfirtta: 55p play. This extends beyond the refatively! tion and social skills, status and esteem, t o w r d i a better quality of, . well-known difficulties of families in. ,, these major resources and conditions of lifÃ tB.Benjamin. Pub: Birth Control Ttwt 19781. high rise flats to the issue of nursery health are unequally divided in our

family

-~-..~

Undercum

lor

Education So what? Stephen Sterling argues that envianrnental education offers a unified approach that formal education ignores at our peril. So What? Well, environmental education is different. Environmental education is essential. Unfortunately, i t is also widely neglected partly because these two assertions are either not accepted or not sufficiently understood. The implications of EE are wide-ranging and fundamental to education and society. A brief article can only outline the 'difference and essentialism' of EE and this is approached through comparison with the bases of 'traditional' education. In my view, i t i s not just to do with looking at trees or studying pollution or even conservation. Instead, from an ethical base, EE re-examines our cultural norms and poses radical questions relating to die function o f education. But, first a little history. The term 'Environmental education' was first coined in 1965 at a conference concerned with 'The Countryside in 1970'. Born of circumstance, the far-reaching implications of the term, lent weight by the environmental consciousness o f the late '60s and early '70s. were soon realised. The sudden appearance of this new and relevant concept sparked off a series o f national and international conferences during the '70s which have generated much discussion on the whole theme. The best known and most widely accepted definition is that passed by an IUCN conference on EE in 1970: 'EE i s the process of recognising values and clarifying concepts in order to develop skills and attitudes necessary to understand and appreciate the interrelatedness among man, his culture and biophysical surroundings. EE also entails practice in decision-making and selfformulation of a code o f behaviour about issues concerning environmental quality.'

Guidelines such wide-ranging concepts are a cause of frustration amongst converts and an excuse for inaction amongst sceptics despite everyday indications o f the urgency of the task. Nearly a decade - - and many words - later EE still eludes a specific definition which i s incapable o f misinterpretation. But this is because the concept of EE is ultimately concerned with a fundamental level in our culture - the abstract sphere o f perception, attitudes and values which guide our actions in 'elation to the environment and to each sther. However, despite its intangibility.

a grasp o f the essence of EE - based upon concern for man and environment - points to a number of largely agreed principles which together form coherent and purposeful guidelines for those involved in EE. Translation o f these general guidelines into specific concepts - from the abstract to the concrete - is o f course open to differing interpretation according to circumstance, and this is to be expected. What matters is that enough educationalists understand the significance of EE. The principles or characteristics, which can be traced through the major national and international documents on EE over the last ten years, also indicate what EE is not. Environmental Education is not a new subject, i t is not another fringe demand on a crowded curriculum, and i t is not synonymous with environmental studies, rural studies or environmental science. Instead, EE is an approach which cuts across traditional attitudes to knowledge and education.

Desirable or Sane? Before looking further at the EE approach, let's examine these traditional attitudes. Firstly, consider an admittedly simple statement - that knowledge is basically that which has been abstracted from the total environment: and which has, in

some way, been tested by experience ir the widest sense. The 'total environmer can be described as being made up o f two intermeshed natural and man-mad< worlds - the biosphere and technosphe Human brains cope by ordering and classifying incoming information and this is reflected in our approach to knowledge. Thus a problem may be I cd at economically, politically, socio logically, religious'ly, or scientifically mathematically, geographically, histori~ ly, artistically and so on. The danger, o course, is that - like the five blind men who failed to agree on the shape of ai elephant by touching different parts. the true specialist is likely to perceive an aspect of the problem but unlikely t appreciate its relation to the whole, or worse, deny the existence of the whole. Thus, the intellectual divorce o f the biosphere and technosphere leads to inappropriate action in the real world of complex relationships. Moreover, the paradoxical situation often exists (parti cularly in r roblems of human ecology), where a mass of analytical detail can obscure a farger perspective. Another dimension of this attitude to knowledgi i s the elevation o f objectivity to the status of final arbiter instead o f being useful tool t ? be guided by ethics and intuition. But what is objectivity? A perfectly logical conclusion may be neither desirable nor very sane i f the premises upon which the discussion was built were suspect. Furthermore, the facts selected to support the discussion may presuppose value judgements. For example, decision or teaching on the site o f the third London airport is likely to begin from presuppo sition that a third London airport is desirable. I f we wish to nurture creative and critical minds, the value base o f 'beginning points' in discussion, decisioi or in teaching must be recognised and examined.

Creating behaviour Environmental education is given . -am -'

Some differing characteristics o f approach

tiawnfrthe Wst instance by its objecivesand approach, whereas traditional IiscipheG are primarily defined by the lature of their content. The goals o f $3 as stated by the UNESCO Inter[overnmental Conference on Environrental Education (Tbilisi 1977) will be nstructive here. They are a) t o foster clear awareness of, and oncern about, economic, social, tolitical and ecological interdependence rt urban and rural areas; b] to provide every person with ipportunities t o acquire the knowledge, alues, attitudes, commitment and kills needed'to protect and improve he environment; ' 0 ) t o create new patterns o f behaviour if individuals, groups and society as a AoIe towards the environment. , The contrast in approach between ame o f the characteristics o f EE and raditional education are summarised elow. This is a model - I d o not sugest that all formal education conforms 3 ffie pattern on the right.

Environmental Education

Traditional Education

Perspective 1. Holistic Specialised. Primary concern with wholes and The form o f understandin held in most esteem is vertical depth. Underpatterns before detail because all standing based on analysis. Uniprocesses interact. Understanding disciplinary. based on synthesis and systems approach, therefore multidisciplinary/ , , interdisciplinary. Perception o f overview encouraged, ' Interrelationships often not recognic especially within the ecological Subject boundaries defended. 'Relecontext (as the ultimate support and v a n y judged by limited criteria. No,,constraint o f man's activities) from critical acceptance o f socio-economic trends and 'conventional w!sdom'. individual to global level. a&Â¥?Much 'pure' theory unrelated t o complexity of real world qnciallv or environmentally.

2. Paradoxically, the 'stand back' perspective in 1 above allows and encourages participation and self determination. -Strennhened bv outof school work.

Stemming from 1 above, prevalent idea that a) man is independent o f life support systems and finiteness o f resources /even i f intellectuallv the opposite is known) and b) individual is

hvironmental education is essential Why? Stated simply, because all ridence'suggests that threats t o the qualy ' o f [if; - as a result o f our mode of vipg - are increasing. Description o f ie'causes and symptoms o f the environwntal crisis is n o t necessary here, but rejection o f trends indicates that human fe itself is threatened. Environmental ducation seeks t o provide an educationI'base that encourages and allows the idividual t o live a fulfilling life with ~iriikriumdisruption t o the ecosystem $at supports that individual. Clearly, i i s is a continuing 'ends' based philoiphy that contrasts with the 'means' rientated short-sighted pragmatism so fpn witnessed in contemporary x i e t y and largely responsible - unfittingly or no - f o r environmental egradation, The latter short term 'real,m' ignores the reality o f the ecologial context which underlies all activity. So, if EE is essential, How should it e implemented? It follows that an pproach largely concerned with ethics annot be taught unless the.teacher I familiar (and agrees) withthe basic hilosophy o f that approach*. Thus, ~stificationfor teaching a body o f laterial in many cases should go beyond imple answers such as 'because it's on i e syllabus' or 'because society needs i engineers'. 'Accidental' EE (i.e. outforethought by the teacher,) is ossible but not probable. Consider this imple model:

3. Recognition that interdependence between man and environment (and man's power to disrupt natural processes) necessitates informed responsibility and that many responsible decisions involve ethical dimension. Recognition o f links between the ethical, aesthetic and the behavioural.

Environmental education i s ultimately concerned with the step between 'Action' and 'Environment' and therefore also each essential preceding link. I would maintain that many teachers believe that their job stops at stage 1b, and the students are then free to some-' how form their attitudes from the 'value free' or 'balanced' material that has been given them. Teachers are often unaware that choice o f material , presupposes a value judgement (stage l a ) -for example, traditional economics as taught i s based on a series o f largely unquestioned assumptions. By contrast, environmental educationalists should openly and honestly set out t o nurture critical concern in their students for the environmentand quality o f life, based on sound knowledge o f environmental

.TeachingILearning Directive fieldwork ~eachir'sapproach la

Values often regarded as unnecessary complication t o 'value free' fact learning. Perhaps relegated t o moral education.

thinking, which in the post war period ~ ' ~ has been dominated by the impetus o f ' 'science, technology and economics. Ironically, these phenomena are but tools or techniques which per se have 'Â¥f"7 nothing t o tell us about the desirable ; . ,z extent or mode o f using them. I n the , last resort, the question rests on whether the education system should follow unquestioningly society's * dominant ethos, no matter where it may lead, or whether it should help %; shape that ethos, based on humanistic values which are, in turn, based upon .,:, >, the importance o f the relations between ', ourselves and between man and his z* environment. That's how EE i s different, The children o f today are tomorrow's decision makers. That's why EE is

' ~f

Nature and Natural Resources.

&This aim is the opposite of indoctrination which seeks to limit and stifle awareness of thinking.

3 EE does not seek to replace traditional patterns of education but to give it a new,

.. .

~ * ~ , ... ,,< . . .

' ,

of tfme ofupcoming 'surpass& . %?ippectionk mere was psik ":;, monv stating that workers used uranium for paper we&hts, threw i t around the rooms at each other, and even took uranium home to veto the children to take to school or 'show and tell'. One of the four plant supervisors, Jim Smith, branded the KM Nuclear Facility 'pigpen', testifying that security was so lax, workers could have thrown plutonium over the back fence or simply taken it , . past the guards by telling them it was I to be thrown out as waste. As to the question of the faulty fuel rods, workers testified that there were defects in both the stainless steel tubes that form the outside of the rods and in the fuel pellets put into the stainless steel tube$:One worker, Ron Hammock, testified that 'even though we rejected them, we would go ahead and ship them because we were too far behind i n . production.'>He said workers under orders from their KM supervisors would simply sand down the welds which seemed defective, which weakened them even farther.

...

The case of Karen 'Silkwood and the faulty fuel rods in. which Jim Garrison and Cla'ir Ryle tell how the waa kilted after discovering fault* in nuclear reactors. The evidence for which disappears

...

When Karen Silkwood was run off the road and killed on Nov. 13,1974, she was carrying documentation that she said would prove conclusively that the Kerr-Mc Gee (KM) Nuclear Corporation was guilty not only of gross violations of worker health and safety standards but of quality control regulations as well. She worked at the KM plutonium facility i n Oklahoma.%a lab technician; she was also a union representative with a special responsibility for the area o f worker health and safety.' As a union representative for this area, she had interviewed all the KM workers who had ever reported management violation* of the health and n rules; she had memorized'the Atom c Energy Commission (AEC) regulations promulgated to safeguard the health o f the workers; and she had conducted her own health and safety inspections of the plant during her free time, compiling a list of over forty serious violations. Her concerns were primarily because of the (act that workers were put on the plutonium production linqwithout i p y training in many cases; because of radioactive spills that were so large that dozens of workers were getting irradiated at a time; und W s e the KM management, i n order to meet production quotas, ordered the workers to stand in the contaminated areas and continue w01Wngwhile dean-up crews attempted to clean up the men around them.

fety

Magic Marker

The most serious violation Karen discovered, however, involved the fact that KM officials were knowingly 'doctoring' with magic marker, the safety inspection X-rays which, by AEC regulations, had to be taken of each plutonium fuel rod to insure that it was not leaking radiation through faulty welding. The AEC demanded perfectly welded fuel rods because, if defective, they could cause a serious accident in the plutonium fired liquid metal fast breeder reactor they were designed for. On Nov. 1 just 12 days before she was killed, Karen finally secured copies of two separate 'magic-marker doctored' fuel rod safety inspection X-rays, doctored by one Scott Dotter, the special laboratory technician who the KM management had specifically assigned to conduct the final safety inspection X-raying of the fuel rods. Silkwood discovered that not only was he doctoring up the X-

rays indicating faulty welds but that the mere number of the fuel rods he 'cleared' each week was itself a direct violation of AEC regulationsrequiring that no one inspector be allowed to give the final clearance on over a certain percentage o f the fuel rods leaving the

"On

the night o f Nov. 13, S i l k h o d was can-vine the above information to Steve~odka,a union official, and to Dave Burnham, an investigative reporter for the 'New ~orkTimes'.She never got to the meeting. As mentioned, she was hit in the rear, forced off the road, and killed. Her car was towed away, and the documents she had with her disappeared. -

",.-~.--

Callous Over four years later, in the Spring of 1979, afederal court case bro '" against KM by Karen's parents has proventhat what she was asserting con. cerning KM was in fact true. One of the witnesses, Dr. Karl Morgan, often referred to as the 'father of health physics' for his role in the setting of standards for radiation releases in nuclear facilities, testified that the KM plant where Karen had worked was the 'filthiest'nuclear facility he had ever seen in his thirty years in the industry besides the reprocessing plant in New York. He further stated that KM showed a 'callous' attitude towards the safety of its workers, pointing out that the KM training manuals made no mention of the fact that one could contact cancer from radiation exposure.

orm me}

plant workers stated under oath that their traininghad been so deficient that teenage workers, not even aware that plutonium was toxic, often played at who could get 'the hottest the fastest'. Workers said that plutonium spills were often painted over instead of cleaned UD if they keot happen'ing in the 5& place often \ enough, workers left the plant contamina. wrewarrteij, . ,.. p d , , % d p l ~ tsupervisors ~

Guilty After hearing these facts, the six person jury found KM guilty and decided t o award (10 million in punitive d a m ! to deter KMfrom continuing negligent corporate practices that endanger the lives of employees. The jury also awarded $550,000 for personal injury damages, making KM responsible for the , plutonium planted in Silkwood's apartment a week before her death and for the internal bodily contamination he suffered as a result. The Silkwood victory is sfill riot corn-plete, however, for the faulty fuel rods , she died trvine to reveal the facts about are slated be used in the plutonium, 'past Flux Test Facility (FFTF) before the end of the year. Loading of the fuel , pins is expected to start in November, 1979. and the reactor is scheduled.to 'uo critical' in the StJfin~ . - or Summer

of 1980.

Ownedby the Westinghouse Hanfo3Company, the FFTF is located near . Richland. Washineton. andis considered the current centrepiece of the long and so far unsuccessful campaign by the government and the nuclear industry' to commercialise the liquid metal fast breeder reactor (LMf BR).

Dream cycle LMFBR's are the nuclear industry's dream of the future and the answer to the industry's most-critical question: , where to getenough fuel to keep their plutonium economy running. Nuclear , power plants are now fueled with uranium but less thanone percent o f natural uranium is the fissionable isotope U-235 which the reactors need to operate. When uranium is mined, therefore, it must go through an extremely capital and energy intensive process to 'enrich' it to the desired icvel . of%-235 . generallybetween3..

. .,

,. .,.

Z "

fGAf^ investiffator finaflv . stated and 4%?Theinherent inefficiencv of .-.~r~the 7 , ~ . . troohic. for a Lult) fuel rod ban cause a disturbance in ,the flow of the sodium .4, obviousby recommendingthat e.& this process, however, coupled 4th skyrocketing prices for both the coolant. If .this itdone, then thtl.Iiquid : . and every fuel rodbe. checked. The : sodium mi t not reach a portion o f s uranium itself and the energy used t o Department of Energy, however, has resisted this recommendation 2nd bas thine, mill, enrich, fabricate, and - , the fuel i n mean tocool. This blocktransport it, is threatening the entire age can lead to what the "experts', refused to even let an indepcdnent industry with economic bankruptcy. euphemistically call a 'core disruptive investigative,panel undertake a study ' ' The answer given to this problem accident*. In plain English this means of the fuel rods:The official reasonfor a nuclear explosion. Unlike nonnal is not the obvious one: that the this refusal is,that any such study wouli . reactors which, if there is a meltdown nuclear fuel cycle be shut down and be 'prohibitively expensive*. When the recycled into alternative energy release larger amounts of radioactivity plant was proposed in the late 1960!s,. schemes. Rather, government and in the fprm of a cloud, breeders, it was expected to cost $87.5 million: the nuclear industry assert that what because they work o f f plutoni Now that construction is complete, ,<' must be done is to build huge breedet go supercritical and eiplode l ipcdn ' costs haverisen to over 2647 million. reactorswhich will produce or 'breed' nuclear bombs. Inserting the fuel rods and firing up the new plutonium fuel even as it burhs As earlv as lanuarv &f1975. the reactor will bring total costs to over the fuel i n its core. This is accomplishwestinghouse ~ o r p receiving . KM $1 thousand million. Wtth the livesof ed when atoms of abundant but fuel rbds stated that 57 of one particupeople all over the northwest part of otherwise useless Uranium-238 absorb lar shipment were not 'free of all the United States at stake, we must ask neutrons which are produced in the visible oxide, scale, splits, laps, cracks, the Department of Energy)whether this fissioning of the plutonium. The seams, inclufions and other defects.' is the time to start cutting costs. breeder thus turns into fuel part of Thirty-eight of these were eventually Time is short. The fuel rods are the 99%of the natural uranium which accepted by the Department of scheduled to be fixed into the core this Energy, however, because i t 'determinordinary reactors do not use. month but they have not yet actually ed that the defects were minor', started to do. this. Local ant/-nuclear according to Leroi Rice, a quality conorganisefi around Richland, Washingtot trol official at the project. A May 1975 have asked for national aqd internationreport from Westihghouse indicates atsupport. They have asked thatletters that a quality assurance supervisor be sent t&certiin key senatorswho was using scotch brite on fuel pins have expressed interest in holding hearas having clad inclusions. ings.on the matter, If hearings are held, ugh the inspector was toldthat the'fcurrent schedule of fuel rod inserFailure point pins would not be shipped, they tion +illbe postponed indefinitely. shipped the following month. The two Senators are Sen. Hart and various designs have e n proposed Sen. WtfieldT Anylet& sent t o Sen. -fo^bfeedws,^^^rt theniwmhiclrh* Hart should ask specifically that he been selected for development is the call for in-depth hearings on the LMFBR so called because it uses" FFTF through reviewing the material. liquid sodium rnetolas a coolant, and The letter to Hatfield should encourage because it relies on fast moving . . him to continue the inquiries into the w o n s for breeding. 1.' Nuclear Remlatow Commission ' The Westinghouse FFTFhas been.,' recommendations to the Department designed as a testing facility for future ' Appeasement of Energy on the safety issue concernbreeders: It is not designed to generate ing the FFTF. HeAad stated that if KM engaged in a production speedelectricity; instead, the 400 megawatts he is not satisfied with the Departup' around June 1974, as well which 'of power it generates - an enormous ment of Energy's respoqst he will ask accordingto worker testimony in .3an)ount'fora 'test' facility - will be the GAO to hold hearings. At this the Silkwood trial led to a situation dumped into the desertair o f eastern time the GAO appears to be the only when even inspection of the fuel rods Washington. Nor will.the F f i F breed branch of the US government that is ceased. When the speed-up was a* plutonium, asthis is unnecessary capable of holdingobje announced, thev no Ionizer examined for its experimental purqoses. In all the sidesif fuel rods, only the tvery other way, however, it will , fide visible to t h e m A later report by . operate exactly like a LMFBR. . I h e Department of Energy, who : , . . 'the Energy Research Devplopynt . Aeencv confirmedthis : ., ,ERDAl - ~, contracted the Westinghouje Corpora- . ,although~Grepliedeat, . ' tion for the facility, plans to push tions didnot requi'ka , some,fuel rods to their failure point: ~. , Washington, D.C. 20510 examination.The workers It also plans to place in test position?,,;,:, ted out thatvisual examination fuel tbat is known to be defective. .,:, Senator Hatfield t reveal defects on hidden . Aidoug1' the 'experts' insist that there 1401 Dirksen To appease the public and tt no danger i,n this, they base these, Senate Office Building eir regulatory responsibilities, assertions on 'mathematical modelling* Washington D.C. 20510 ERDA did eventually evaluate some fuel and computer predictions. They expect rods from one particular lot and had the FFTF to "verify'these predictions. LOCAL CONTACT PERSON: two of the rods examined through cross B u t what if their predictionsare Creg Darby sectioning. ERDA's findings were that wrong? If they are, the people living , Hanfor4 Conversion Project therods examined were acceptable. A near the facility will be the realexperiP.O. Box 524 report by Batteile laboratories in mental guinea pigs. Pasco, WA, 9930 Hanford three months later, however, , / . asserted that one of the fuel rods ERDA Supercritical FOR MORE INFORMATION: hacLexamined contained a laree defect 7. that had not been detected inprevious Claire Ryle, Jim Garrison Nor.is this all. The 9,000 fuel rods RADIATION & HEALTH INFORMA/&at the KM plutonium plant produced* . examinations. TION SERVICE, ire as - to .. be - used ~~ ~~. .the . 'driver' fuel which 9 Marion Close willpower the reactor. Faulty fuel ;. Cambridge CB3 OHN , here are acknowledged even by Protest npw! 0223-350917. . [ hgovernment to be potentially catas-' A Government Accounting Office '

the

Undercurrents 37 V

Feeling mental ill-ish?Worried about your nasty habits?Stand on your own feet and cure yourself says Kieron O'Connor. Behavioural psychology has a considerable contribution to make towards self sufficiency and alternative autonomous life styles. Many people reject behaviourism on ideological grounds. A little misinformed prejudice goes a long way, and so a lot of useful discoveries are being missed by a large number of people. Most behavioural techniques are geared towards self help and self instruction by people themselves and away from reliance on centralised professional institutions, and these techniques can be valuable in helping recognise, influence and extend psychological and physiological capabilities. Practically, the principles of behavioural self help are simpler and more effective than other, dore formal, psychotherapies. But, just as important, behavioural principles work with the current conscious wishes of an individual and so advance the self determination of personal experience.

Philosophy The principles of behaviour therapy differ from those of the other psychotherapies (Freudian, Adlerian, Rogerian, gestalt, primal, transactional, humanist, psychosynthetic etc. ad infiniturn) because the 'models of man' with which they work are derived in different ways. Behaviourists, as the name implies, employ systematic observation o f human behaviour as i t is conducted in the world, and from this method have built up a taxonomy of environmental cues, contexts and contingencies that accompany both the maintenance and acquisition o f different behaviour patterns. The behavioural model is thus situational. When we do or feel something i t i s in response to our immediate psychological environment. We all act differently in different environments and i t is from the specific cues we perceive from moment to moment that we decide on our actions. So i t seems reaponableto propose that a course of action should be understood in the context in which it takes place. Other psychotherapies, however, reject the value o f current environment in contributing to an understanding o f current experience, and instead seem t o derive their working principles variously from three sources: personal charismatic anecdotes, broad dogmatic assumptions, and divine inspiration. I t is not surprising that models plucked out of thin air should attribute an invisible rather than a visible genesis to human behaviour. Thus the Freudians see the motives behind behaviour firmlv locked awav in the

unconscious, and controlled by a mediaeval mystery play of good and bad instincts scurrying between different levels of the inner psyche. The more 'humanist' oriented psychotherapies simply refer t o vague abstractions of the inner self which we must seek and work towards, though invisible to the naked I.

Rape There could be reasons more sinister than conceptual conviction, as t o why psychotherapists prefer to talk about the beyond and behind o f experience in the world. I f the therapist i s the only one who can interpret your behaviour correctly this decreases your own independence o f thought and action and increases the therapist's mystique of authority. Also i f therapeutic efficacy cannot be referred to any tangible effect, there is no measure o f its benefit, except the therapist's own criterion of your 'betterness', which i s a product of his experience rather than yours. The psychotherapy rip o f f is most evident in psychoanalysis where a dogmatic cloak is thrown over subjective experience and individual differences in experience reduced to a few uniform complexes. Whatever the person complains of, that, by definition, i s not the problem. The problem lies at some deeper level with the real or unconscious self, and people are actively encouraged t o distrust and alienate themselves from their current feelings. 1 find this ominous as it involves moral judgements about what are and are not 'true' feelings, and for such therapies I would suggest inserting a gap between the 'e' and 'r' o f the therapist, to give a more accurate description of therapy. I t is no coincidence that most psychotherapists are medically trained and indoctrinated with the usual medical 'medoctor you-patient, 1 know best, you know least even about your own mind' megalomania. (See Brown's Radical Psychology.) Psychotherapists, o f course, accuse behaviourists o f being narrow and superficial in not going beyond the world in an experimentally based enquiry into behaviour. The answer is that behaviourists do not wish to go beyond the world since that is where the action is and where i t should be acted upon. Man is the product o f his own and other's enterprises rather than external force, and we do not walk around driven willy-nilly by untamed inner forces surging up like green pus from a mediaeval cess pit in some undefined corner of the mind. Behaviourism rejects notions o f the unconscious, or

tSrt<^l^i

the inner man, or the self you really (really) are, as these detract from analysing the specific effect of social context. 'Existence precedes essence', 'all consciousness is conciousness o f something', and 'all action is reaction' are three philosophical cliches (Sartre, Husserl, Nietsche) which abbreviate behaviourist philosophy quite well.

In Practice So: i f a guy says he i s screwed up because he cannot find a girlfriend, or cannot go out on his own, or cannot stop smoking, though he wants to do all these things, the behaviour therapist looks for something about his present patterns o f sexual, social and smoking behaviour that precludes him finding a girlfriend, going out on his own, or stopping smoking. Launching into 200 hours of verbal psychotherapy will not explain why' present behaviour patterns are maintained. It is more effective t o go over the mundane intricacies o f coping in appropriate settings and practising alternative ways o f handling the situation. This will involve working through specific targets, either in the imagination or the street, so that the vicious circle o f blind, engulfing panic is faced and replaced with a broader repe rtroire o f experience. The effectiveness of such treatments is proven; even vehement anti-behaviourists admit they work well (e.g. Wheelis) and, as numerous studies have shown, they work well and better than verbal psychotherapy on criteria provided by the individual having the treatment, including ratings o f empathy and understanding (see Sloane). An objection consistently raised t o behavioural methods i s that by acting on the individual they deny freedom t o change the situation (Rowan, UC 28). This view is surely based on an erroneous Newtonian definition o f situations. They are not static entities separated in time and space from the individual, they are dynamically defined by their means o f social production (i.e. people). Altering the strategies employed in a social setting alters the nature o f the social setting itself.

Walls - I scream Take the case ot some one who is unable t o make any form o f social contact, or who dares not venture past the front porch from an acute fear o f open spaces. In both these cases the person's behaviour, embedded as i t is in a restrictive social nexus o f signals, dictates their environment, they have no choice but t o go home alone or spend their time within four walls. Only when such phobias are overcome is a person free t o choose and change their environment. Part o f discovering alternatives i s recognising the limits o f the present environment on behaviour. T o admit that my behaviour is largely dependent on the circumstances is neither to impose a

Undercurrents 37

- until a friend offers advice -

type of controlled exposure to

Soon John is enjoying an active

ausality about which comes first -me, or the circumstances - nor t o restrict in my way my free will to change those :ircumstances, provided I have the skills ind capability. Behaviour therapy offers h e skills. The problem comes when reople use circumstances t o deny freedom :o others, by, for instance, manipulating Â¥ewardand punishment in the interests r f one group t o influence the behaviour r f others. Whether this is performed in the lame of science, religion or the politburo t is always in the interests of power, and l o t of the person. Unfortunately such power relation- , hips are very much in evidence in psychiatric institutions, which is why it is NOimportant to move to a community pasis for treatment. One of the most powerful behavioural challenges in recent /ears has been to the prevailing medical iystem o f 'diagnosing mental illness'. according to this system a specific action xcomes magically transformed into a itate or class of existence. People are not ieen as Acting psychotic or feeling depress;d in a particular setting, but become lepressives or h v e schizophrenia for ;ver and ever, amen. As a behaviourist I want t o know the specific situation, the ubsequent labelling as

treating all behaviour as an operant'of the jetting in which it arises i s a very optimistic ipproach to life, jince it implies that iverything is changeable. People are not objectsat the mercy o f past history but ;apable at any moment of an expanding .ange of future behaviour. This descrip.ion of behaviour does not only include p s s movement, which we can easily observe, but also the fine physiological Â¥eactionwhich make up any response. rhough we are mostly unaware o f it, the Ãˆd is a sensitive monitor, of the situions in which we are involved. We think ind feel with our muscles our heart, our 'yes, and our sweat glands as well as our >rains. Identifying and distinguishing the body's idiosyncratic responses i s mportant to integrate them into our iubjective consideration of our own xhaviour, and achieves a 'somatic solidirity' between thought and action. To show how involved bodily reactions r e in our psychological states, try tensing lour muscles, screwing up your face. and jenching your teeth and you will soon eel in the mood for worrying. Alternativey try smiling, relaxing your muscles, and reathing slowly when you are worried ind you will eventually feel less so. This lappens because you have effectively ;rested the environment that is associated with a certain mood response, by adopting he appropriate physiological responses. It is interesting that for such modification t o be successful the physiological ~hangemust be related t o a very specific, stimulus; for example, modifying blood pressure in response t o a stress. One of the

problems with attempts at alpha brain wave feedback is that no one knows where alpha originates, or what its function is, so that i t is difficult t o be precise about what conditions control it. People who have tried to raise or lower alpha abundance independently of situational demand have been largely unsuccessful; showing again our dependence on environmental factors. Bio behavioural techniq es have demonstrated that many somatic activities previously thought t o be automatic reflexes can be brought under stimulus control and modified t o advantage. Altering facial expression, tension level, or heart rate pattern in a situation is altering the way that situation is approached and so also altering its meaning. Sophisticated gadgetry is not always necessary t o achieve this. The dowser's rod is a simple device that amplifies muscular activity under certain conditions and dowsers, after they have identified and learnt the 'feel' of the reaction, are often able t o dispense with the rod and rely on other cues.

Heavy breathing Breathing patterns are also easily monitored. When we attend t o anything we usually hold our breath or breathe in a very shallow way. Over a long period o f time this is not beneficial t o either eye movements or concentration. Pay attention to your breathing habits whilst you are reading, try breathing more regularly and see the effect on your perceptual powers. I am not here suggesting for a moment that physiological states determine feelings a n d attitudes, any more than the muscles thatguide the dowser's rod and pendulum are the source of the reaction, rather than the brain activity that precedes it or the -.nies change in environment that :. it. Behaviour is both mental and physical activity represented in an integrated preparation to respond in a certain way. It doesn't surprise me in the least that changing the way I stand or s i t alters my appreciation o f a drink, or that the type of music to which I listen affects my posture, or that the way I am breathing influences what I feel like drinking. It's the way we are made, but we can help i t none the less.

Becoming Self-conscious Expanding the boundarie~~of behaviour is the first step in changing the environment, as it frees us from the habitual constraints of the environment. But first we must become conscious o f the way we habitually respond to a given state and situation. This is best achieved not by introspecting and guessing about our actions, since this merely produces cultural expectations about what we think we should be doing, but by careful self monitoring. The options to adopt alternative strategies which change response experience follow

f r o m this.

Try It For Yourself Supposing that you have a habit which annoys you, such as smoking, stuttering blushing, or just saying "y' know" a lot conversation, and you would like to reduce the incidence of, and your dependence on, this habit. The first thing t o do is t o monitor the cues from the environment which precede the behavioural event i n question. This is b1 done by systematically keeping a diary over a period o f a few days. It is also important t o note the intensity o f each occurrence. So, for example, if you are noting down when you smoke, you mig notice that your craving for a cigarette much higher when watching a film than when you arcdiinking a cup o f coffee, vice versa. You may also notice that thc are times when you don't feel like a cigarette and when you wouldn't think smoking. All thit should be noted dowr Monitoringmakes you more conscious the cues from the environment t o whicl you are responding. Now, by cornparin] your different smoking rates, you can pinpoint the trigger signals responsible 1 the maintenance o f your habit, and y o i can try an restructurethe relevant cue in the situations, so that they don't hav the same effect on you. A good way o f doing this is t o pay attention t o other new aspects of the situation that you hadn't noticed before. Think o f a setting that you really drt to encounter, for example taking something t o a shop t o get your money back Now list aspects o f the setting that mak you not want t o enter it. Your list migt include: being anxious at causing troub afraid o f being laughed at or causing a nuisance. Now list other more pleasant things that might happen: the manager might be pleased t o get feedback, you might be respected for being assertive, ' might get a better deal on something el you buy, you might make friends with someone in the shop. Of course YOU don't know what is actually going to happen until you get into the situation but there is no reason why one possibil is any more certain than another. If yo1 try this you will find that you do not brainwash yourself into a new viewpoir rather you are able t o grasp several perspectives on the same situation. Thi doesn't in any way stunt the intensity I your feelings about a particular outcon but prepares you to respond in differer ways should the eventualities arise. If you define expectations about people and things in a very fixed way, then you define yourself in a very fixe( way; as any obsessional will tell you. Kieron O'Coni Books Brown, R. Radical Psychology Fromm, E Art of Loving Meurleau-Ponty,M. The Structure of Behavi\ Sloane, R. Psychotherapy vews Behaviour Therapy Wach tel, P Psychoanalysisand Behaviour Therapy Wheelis, A How People Change

&rson/~limet, neod& Roszak, Gollancz, 3771Ãˆp Â£5.95 '

"WHATEVERBECAME OF THE ' . cOUNTER&ULT'URE" has been& . . common rhetorical put-down for quite a while now. Where have all the flower;, gone,'indeed?So how shrill must the . , auhtion be for Ted Roszak. whose The Mailing o f a ~ounter-Cultu&first an&ar^d in 1969 and for whom the ~ o s t -ternbegan with regular phone calls from the news weeklies, starting just three months after publication! A decade later, Rpszak's own perceptive and surprising answer is the starting point of his fine sequel. Irecall my own mixed feelings when I was allotted that first book o f his as a seminar.topic in late '71. "Reflections on the technocratic society and its youthful opposition" was the daunting subtitle; with 300 piges, footnotes, appendix and chapters like 'The Dialectics o f LIber- ,. ation" aqd "The Myth of Objective. Consciouiness'. Ididn't fancy reading it! Then, when deadlines finally forced me to flex its mine, 1 wlIember, the beautiful meaning and energy that the book conveyed to me; echoing, amplifKing, sorting my own half-voiced hopes and fears for . . technolow, and Purpose; and giving them honourable ancestry too. Here was areal contemporary historian at work, seeing the Sixties whole, and knowing the dissent as deeper, stronger, stranger , than its surface of anti-War demos, acid and campus politics. ' Maybe I!d never heard of alienation before, for what technocratic education includes it?But I'ddrtainly experienced . it. Roaak opemd my mind and turned , my head, and I've never lookedback, or the same, Since. Six months later I'd brought my first COW of Undercurrents at newly discovered Compendium, and successfully applied to drop out to anAT, research commune. No regrets!: , Iknow I'M not alone in having been so influenced by The Making of a CounterCulture; and, for me, Person/Planet i s just as imoortant and a better book. Much less academic in tone, withoutfootnotes or appendices, i t i s superbly written withqts prose often close to poetry. A heartfelt, deevlv versonal work. it seems to me to stiupen and advance the cutting edge of AT quite some way - taking AT to be' that whole area of overlapping concerns reflected by,^say, a season of Resurgence and Undercurrents. On.the first page Roszak i~troduceshis central connection between two normally

even a living creature" in its.othe%se unaccountable survival-maximising shi of chemicaland climatic equilibria. Not without opposition from uneas readers and members of its editorial collective, Undercurrents has been drawn into this personal growth territory over the last few years in various articles pondering the root causes of friction or failure in otherwise competent co-ops and communes. And it i s this "personalist" exploration which Roszak sees as the major expression o f countercultural values, now . widely diffused Into themainstearti, with their spreading American presence . confirmed by the socio-pollsters. In Britain too there exists that substrate of positive protest "against the human under~. development that has for so long :. . . . characterised urban-industrialsociety .:.':".:' A yearning for growth, for authenticity, for largenessof experience which finds . "' itself thwarted by the cultural orthodoxies that have shaped us all into'this diminished. , ? .. .. .. ,,.,, . separate fields and nervously compulsive being called. "This book erns itself y$ Me, . modern 'man." ' pointat With arealitythat shihes through the ' human psychbbw aria natural ecqlogy meet. ,purposeit, irtevitable psychbbabble and (.piritual ! to suggest that the environmental, huckstersof the growth marketplace, the an$uish of the Earth has entered our spreading personalist ethos is,for Roszak lives as aradical transformation of "charged with all the moral power w a r :, : : human identity. The needs of the, find in such high ideals of the past f,i .:.'.-: ' planet and the needs of the person astherights of man, the assertion OC,:.~::.,? have begun to act upon the central ' human equality, the belief in wordly: :.',, ;.; institutions o f our society with a force progress, the struggle for social ''. ,,. L ' . i. mis profoundly subversive, justice. The secret o f thut power i s (j(e? which carries within it the pr'omig of spontaneous convictionand wondet .'.? cultural renewal." that self-discovery brings into the life . so headed deep intothearea of of every human sould it touches." person,4 gr~wth~chg-tge, and the search Fully half t h e book i s spent examining for existentialmeaning, Elegantly and ho* "creative disintegration" mightmake tentatively, ~oszaklinks this to Jaines our crucial institutions - home, school, Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis of 1975, in work and the city - truly supportive o f this demanding labour of the spirit which" the counter-culture has loosed intoour society. And to the cries of "bourgeois ' , individualism" and "selfish cop-out" from politicq who have read thisfar, Roszak has some profound answers. TI.., question is, have the politicos the choice to read them? ConsiderAT's buzzword, alienation; it has.both a social and a cosmic level. And when the last expro~. priatq has been expropriated, that spiritual disconnectedness will still be with us. I f we, shying from the journey of self-discovery, draw our boundaries short o f the personalist adventure, then AT will prove to be no more than the '

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' Sili Con-trf LIS Report, The New Technology, managerial control over blue and white Counter Information Services, 40pp, 75p. collar jobs? Nothing of this appears in the Report. ONE of the most comprehensiveand considered pieces of work on the chip and its incorporation into new systems in the office, home, and industry. The reoort (once aeain) tells vou what a microproce&r is, and what its main features are. But more importantly it attempts to b look at a number of major applications and implications. + The use of the chip and related new . , technologies in the office, in the Post . , Office, in the Press, and in computing are detailed in clear, and usually adversarial terms. The report however also examines HM Government's role in their marketing, and looks at how companies use these new technologies, especially the multinationals' increasingability to shift production, capital and jobs around the world. All this Ts useful stuff, but the section on trade union responses not only reflects the unions' inadequate responses, but condones them. Perhaps it's expecting too much, but the good diagnoses of the employment implicationsof this new technology sadly lack any considered response. We still seem to be discussing numbers of job losses, alluding, in particular cases, to increasing management control over fobs, and wavering over Governments' 'go for broke' attitudes to investment in new technologies. pet theories about this in what is after all First, we do ourselves a great disservice a review, but the point remains valid I b y accepting the concept of the new think. But to even begin to analyse what's technology, when of course the chip i s to be done we need to know what's being simply a new concrete eqession of the done, and this Report deserves acclaim fight against the declining rate of profit on that count. Mike George if it wasn't the chip it would be something else. Secondly the chip is only a part of new technoligies, thirdly we haven't even begun to diagnose the nature of control engineering design. This new expression of technological I development in the service of capital seems to have come like a bolt from the blue -did we really believe that techUsing the Media, Denis MacShane, Pluto nology progresses along some smooth Press, 218pp. Ă&#x201A;ÂŁ2.50 linear course?Technological development in the past has always taken the form ot POLITICIANS AND ENTERTAINERS step function changes, admittedly with have long been aware that the news intervening development curves. This is media must distort facts'and events, and not to deny the extraordinary change in therefore that special measures should be costs, flexibility of application etc. that taken to ensure a propitious story emerges. accompanies the chip, but it i s crucial for Whether through make-up, lighting, tone our response to understand that the of voice, timing, or white lies, presidents history of technological change did not and pop stars, corporations and gwerncommence a year to two back. ment institutions increasingly employ The Report condones the unions'call experts whose sole task is to formulate, for a halt to new technological intropresent, publicise and maintain a favourductions into the workplace, whilst we try able public image. to cobble together some sort o f response, Because the mass media is controlled but what is that response to be? Can we by powerful men. anxious to retain their for instance guarantee a few million new power, gwernme'nt and industry have an jobs in the next decade to pick up the ally in their task. It is natural but ironic, technologically-displacedcasualties?What that alternative and anti establishment can we say about the rapid advance of organizations'- those who ha$ no power

-- -

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Grab the Mike

but their news value to wield,and the most to gain from favourable public image -generally know least about the tactics. Denis MacShane's Using the Media is a fine attempt to correct this fault In nearly 200 well-presented pages, MacShan explains how tfr system works (who own what? who does wllitt i n the media?), how to use the system (writing press releases; holding news conferences), and most importantly, how to manipulate the system (detailed advice on interviewtechniques; circumventing normal channel to put a message across directly), and how to avoid being manipulated by the system (counteractingbullying reporters; ins~ring~no editorial distortions). The book is terse and comprehensive, and offers recent, specific examples of how techniques were used. The advice given is ~ u s e f uto l a national spokesperson o i a local shop steward. MacShane goes into considerable detail on various interviewing techniques for newspaper, fadio, and television. While this may be very usefulfor those who are interviewed regularly, the DOSand Dont's areso numerous and contradictory (Be alert! Relax!) as to boggle an inexperienced activist And how helpful i s advice on how to blow your nose dbrini a radio interview? MacShane's experience as both a journalist and trade union president (NUJ enables him to talk authoritatively about media coverage of strikes and demonstrations. Possibly his most useful advice i s or how to establish links between trade unions and local NUJchapels. ' If there i s one major lack in this excellent guide, it is the exploration of the value of specific images. Perhaps it is inevitable in so general a book, but the , trade unionist who faithfully obeys the advice given would not be noticeably different, in either appearance or action, than the hardened politician or management P.R. person whom they are fighting against! It seems to me that arertain amount of roughness - candidness, openness - is expected from the public towards trade union officers and political and social activists. I have read that community arts and charitable organisations generally stay away from glossy paper in brochures, though it costs the'same: it looks too , flash, as if their money is being spent on the wrong things. Similarly, by polishing up their acts,. trade unionists and community activists may be destroying their most potent media image: absence of artifice. Modern advertising has fostered suspicion on anything or anyone too smooth. MacShane's book should be included in any trade union or political activist's library. Although the jacket blurb offers it to community workers as well, I feel that another book is needed for.them, including similar information, but geared to the special problems of apolitical charities and community groups aiming for local support and publicity. Jonah Isaac Salz

Bommunity Technology by Karl Hess, Harper and Row, 107pp, Ă&#x201A;ÂŁ3.50 MYONE WHO describes Undercurrents is amBritish masterpiece", as Karl Hess does on page 83 of his new book Community Techndoay, can't be all bad. Mind you, anyone who's worked as a ipeechwrlter for Barry Goldwater, p r a l d Ford and Richard Nixon can't be lit good, either. And although Hess now fcscrlbes himself as "part of the left wing" of American politics, he seems to have become something of an enfant trriwe among radicals in the appropriate technology and community technology vycpents there. Even David Morrls his l o p e r co-worker (and co-author, of ~/ghbourhoodPower, Beacon Press, 1975) his felt obliged to publish a iqrowful but scathing critique of Community Technolow in the May-June inye of Self Reliance*, the magazine of the Washington-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance where Morris now works. A t this point, a little background information may be useful, especially for those Undercurrents readers (the hioritv?) whose memories don't stretch $a& a s f a as UC 12 and Karl Hess's article on "Community Technology" in Mat 1975 issue. In Copmunity Technology, Hess begins by qttaloguing the failures of large-scale institutions everywhere to respond t o people's needs - a critique that will be familiar enough to anyone who has read *ll,ls Beautiful. But people in small chnmufiities, he says, can reclaim control of their own lives by devising and building new, human-scaled technological and political systems which can serve their needs much more humanely, efficiently and ecologically than existing large-scale, centralised, bureaucratic institutions can. Hess then describes the Adams-Morgan district of Washington DC', where he grew up and where he and some friends established, in the early 19705, an organisation called "Community Technology Inc." which attempted to develop technologies to help the mainlyImpoverished residents of AdamsMorgan to meet their needs for food, energy, transport etc., in a way which would decrease their dependence on social welfare payments and increase their self-respect. But these experiments, as Hess admits, met with only limited success. Lccal residents seemed unable or unwilling to put much energy into making them successful. Eventually, faced with harassment from vandals, neighborhood apathy and the threat of eviction, Hess and his wife Therese moved away to West Virginia. There, they continue to try to implement their ideals with somewhat greater success, it seems. A vestige of Community Techn~logyInc. still survives in the

Community Soap Factory run by Hess* former co-workers, Jeff Woodside and Esther Simgel (see UC 20), but community involvement in the ~roiectstill fails to measure up to the Goup's early expectations.

was simple: buy the houses from the landlords: "The pool of money needed to buy our neighborhood would have been relatively modest, the weekly equivalent of a carton of cigarettes or a bottle of whiskey from each member of the assembly. Of course, it would have mear . ~. . But as Morris points out, the money raised by such sacrifice would only be enough to buy a few houses a year - ani anyway, such an exercise ignores the batic issue of peoples' rights to own houses when, in most cases, they have been paying high rents for years to. profiteering absentee landlords. , At root, says Morris, Hess ignores the central issue of power and institution building, giving us the, message that getting from here to there i s nothing more than convincing our neighbors - to lend a hand." Morris agrees that "the strength of the Community Technology movement is that it can harness our vast scientific and engineering expertise in moving toward! small systems. Its strength lies in the way It encourages average citizens to begin transforming themselves and their communities into places of production." :

stops.there," Morris warns, nerate into a cynical, ' ' ed voice, criticising those whodon't. everything to raise,fish in the base-

, "The group decided to experiment . with bacteriological toilets, when the "we need to reach out, to build neighborhood saw no need for them. I t coalitions with labor unions, city govern. decided to.raise-trout which, ifsuccessprofessionalorganisations, state fully raised, would have cost almost twice legislatures, machine tool shops. ~t is that of the fish or chicken purchased in , h e n the movement can link scientific stores inthat neighborhood. The group , knowledge to political power, only wher decided tobuild asolar cooker, rather it can acknowledge the larger context o f . than storm windows or solar collectors, of small-scale living, that it can .(his revival even though the cookerwas really design- . haye a substantial, permanent impacton ed for non-industrial tropical nations. ourway of life." The trout died before reaching dearly, Morris is right. , .maturity. The solar cooker never I, too, found a lot to criticise in : operated reliably (if at all). The bacteriaCommunity Technology. it is,all too logical toilet operated so poorly that it obviously, a cobbled-together collection fell into disuse after afew months. This i s . of previously-publishedarticles, many 01 not to say the projects could not techthem from the Washington Post. Ifound it annoyingly imprecise in all sorts of nically have worked. But theory and practice are two different things." ways: strong on rhetoric (Hess stillwritf Secondly, Morris takes Hess to task for like a speechwriter) but weak on facts failing to take enough account of the and substantiation. It has no index, nofact that Adams-Morgan is part of a much nts page, no4hapter headings, and: wider economic and political context: nexcusably, no references or even Local residents, far from being apathe ing list. have fought long and repeated battles t 1 still have a soft spot forKarl over the years on issuesthey perceived He's obviously a fine "ideas-man" , important. Community Technology In good,.practical technologist,' says Morris, "never addressed itself to despite his apparent political naivete:. what the community perceived to be its Godfrey ~ o ) primary concern: housing. Solar collectors, * Self-Rellanqe, $10.00 for 6 issuesa trout farms, community gardens, even yeat, from thelnstitute for LocalSelfcredit unions or self-managed businesses, Reliance, 1717,18th Street, NW, mean li tieuntil one controls the land." W h i n g W CK 2 v , USA. H e s s ~ l ~ ~ to t ~the o f hou~ing i shortage . . ,, . .. , ~. ,. ;. ~. . . ~ . . ., ., . . . .

. ..

- St:-.---~ificationfor --Rural Resettlement Handbook, 2nd which'examines earning a living is Edition, August 1979. Rural Resettlement particularly improved since the first Group, c/o The Mapor House, Thelnetham, edition, as is the listing o f contacts who"'*' Diss, Norfolk. Â£1.8 + postage. can provide advice and information. It is sad that so many o f the people WILL THE NEW CITY FOLK move i n t o moving out,of the urban areas will never regenerate our villages? Will the parish see this Handbook, will make so mahy o f council,plus potato blight and building inspectors stop this brave move towards theself-sufficient lifestyle for Mr & HÃ§r Resettler? The Rural Resettlement Handbook looks at the drama o f life in villages, se n through the city dwellers' eyes. It is about thousands of people's dreams o f country cottages and a patch o f land, yet not itself researched or written by dreamers. The second edition o f this essentially practical reference book, published privately by the Rural Resettlement Group in August, has demonstrated the awareness o f i t s compilers t o readers' comments after their first edition a year or so ago. It is now much improved. the same mistakes, suffer the same heartThe compilers explain that they are -breaksps the individuals who have helped concerned simply with information o f use collectively t o write this book. 1 hope to those moving into the countryside to they enjoy some o f the same successes live and work, but they recognise that too, in that case. Somerset welcomes "rural resettlement implies a commitment many hopeful smallholders, small busito changing the present structure o f nesses and city refugees each year, some society with its bias towards centralisation of them very rapidly settling into the local and urbanisation". Whether this political scene as contributors to the quality o f commitment exists amongmy many social, artistic, and recently also political neighbours who have recently moved into life. (There is strong support for the Somerset I'm not sure -they all seem to be escaping city life rather than constructing a decentratised utopia. ' This is a book for the pioneers, perhaps, but not in the Wild West sense. Ways o f adapting t o village life and distilled The Weaving, Spinning and Dyeing Book. experience o f those who have recently Rachel Brown. Routledge Kegan Paul. moved out o f the cities are major parts of 1979. Â£5.5 (softback). Â£8.9 (hardback!. the Handbook. The arrangement o f THIS IS A N EXCELLENT BOOK for contents is thoughtful: Where are you anyone wishing to understand and execute going to move to? Choosing a house. the dhole process o f fabric production Looking for land, and the question o f from fibre to finished article. For each whether you hope to live by working that step of the process it describes different land. Education and training and the need types o f equipment available, from a to possess se era1 work skills are considersimple Drop Spindle to a sophisticated ed in turn. d e tourist and craft goods. Treadle Loom. industries (for the satisfaction o f all the In the weaving section each chapter is would-be resettlers in the cities) are based on a type o f loom, including Hopi briefly assessed..Then for me the most belt loom, Navajo loom and treadle interesting section; the tales o f success loom, amongst several others. Chapters and o f failure, the shared experiences o f follow on finishing, spinning and dyeing planning permissions, business partner(both natural and chemical) and also a ships, smallholding and community living. pleasant, unpretentious section on design. The final sections are o f most use to the rural resident, as a survival guide, An unusual and welcome addition is a although by necessity only covering a chapter entitled 'Making a living at it' sample o f topics. The parish council is which, though perhaps a little optimdemystified, car sharing within the law is istic, gives some useful ideas. explained (yes, it used to be illegal to Throughout the book instructions charge your friends for a ride) plus a very are illustrated by beautifully clear and brief section on fuel, health and village easy-to-follow line drawings, with a few organisations. The aspect o f the Handbook pages o f colour photographs which must

in the latest wave o f rural whether or not the existing populatio welcome the newcomers depends upon who you ask. The retired couple who arrived i n the 1960's don't approve o f younger people actually working in these

quaint cottages, while the older establish ed local families may be jealous o f the newcomers' ability to buy property whi< their own children cannot afford. Having seen the contribution made by lively newcomers to many villages with ageing populations I welcome their arrival, and any help this Handbook may give them . but I'm a rural resettler myself! Rhys Tayla

Spinning a yarn

inspire the readtr. Rachel Brown lives in New Mexico ar is obviously infhienced by Navajo Indiar techniques. She gives instructions for a wide variety o f finished articles, many o which are based on Navajo tradition. I would thoroughly recommend this book to both beginners and experienced weavers or spinners wishing t o widen their scope. Celia Chaffer Radio Activeby the Cheetahs, Zoom Records, 1979. ' "I DON'T WANNA BE RADIO, ACTIVE" go the lyrics to this antinuclear single, distributed by SCRAM I (2a Ainslie Place, Edinburgh 3) and ARISTA records. Backed with 'The 04 One'and 'Minefield', this is all pretty predictable new wave oriented stuff, but it's good to see that bands are getting int the nuclear issue. Maybe Undercurrents should start a Nuke Hit Parade chart? I'd put NUCLEAR WASTE (see UC 34) by Fast Breeder and the Reactors (Virgin Records) top.

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HltchÂ¥HItier' Manual Britain Vacation Work, 9 Park End St., Oxford.

A t which ~ o l n L the two mldes begin to converge. 1s It Belgium th ie planet

Â£1.75 Zra where cohabiting if under 21 and Hitch-Hiker'sGuide t o the Galaxy by unmarried is punishable by three years in Douglas Adams, Pan, 80p. )all? I s it Vogons or Danes who are "bad tempered and bureaucratic"? Perhaps all One o f these hitch-hiker's guides is extremely useful for hitching with, full of of them. Anyway, the British manual has a huge thumb on the back, for use as'a helpful hints; the other is a good iaugh,to .sign when your real one Is tired. The read on the journey, Which is which Hitch-Hllwr's Guide to the Galaxy has on depends of course what planet you're it the Immortal words - "Don't Partic". from. If you happen t o be, say, a. Betelgeuse national on your way between Which would be good advice to anyone reading this and not an initiate intq the Kria and.. somewhere else (you wouldn't want to be on Kria long anyway secrets of the best radio comedy show for years. Much of what such ignorant - the Azgoths of Kria apparently have the second worst poetry in all the Galaxy), people have just read wlll seem like gibberish. The story, then, begins wlth knowledge of Slartibartfast the fjord the demolition of the house of o m enthusiast. Marvin the Paranoid Android Earthman, Arthur Dent, to make way for and Colon LollUDnid'S dimroot of God a new road. This is shortly followed by would probably be a lot of use. On the the demolition of the entire earth t o other hand, someone from the speck of make way for an interstellar bypass (the mud called Britain perched on the notices were of course oosted on Aloha utterly insignificant blue m n la net orbiting that small u&giided yellow sun . Centauri). Only Arthur Is savtid by hii-~ friend Ford Prefect, who takes him on : far out in the uncharted backwaters of various adventuresroundthe Galaxy, the unfashionable end of the Western' mostly connected with the Galactic Sorial arm o f the Galaxy, wouldfind a President, Zaphod Beeblebrox. By now, guide to hitching points on motorways of course, the other part of my readership and on the roads out of most British towns considerably more use. The seco d willhavegot bored, knowing all this derad') (whid~,as Marvin the Paranoid "Hitch-Hlkr's Gut&.', gives you the f i i t Android would say, just showsyou lot o f knowledge, culled from a wellknown radio ierles; the firstgives you the can't please everyone and isn't that terribly depressing?)Infact, the book second. Or the other wayround, dependdiffers from the scripts in a number of l n g on which dimension you (and this ways; it leaves out the restaurant at the reviewer) are in, end of the world, with which the author Let's deal with the guide t i t h e amazingly unimportant bit of ecosphere. , wasn't happy, and instead explains how Big Z stole the ship wlth the Infinite Many human readers wlll be familiar with Improbability.Dr1ve. Occasionally some the experience of trying to hitch out of the soulless shopping centre of some w d - paddingw shows, but otherwise the book is at much fun as the radio, . . forsaken provincial watering-hole (36 record, film, musical, theatre, chatpubs - all closed - and n&eatre or : , show etc. ever were or will be &(>ending cinema), and putting up with the jeers On which point in time you're looking at. o f passing van drivers for three and a half hours, till the only non-xenophobe in the , I n fact, the two books demonstrate nicely the fact that the opposite ends of the entire area grudgingly stops laughing at long enough to tell you you're on the 6 a ) a x ~are also the same point. So good, , hitching -of whatever transport. And. wrong road anyway. Some humans are stupid or st~bborn~enough to regard this . be kind to mice. . Steven Joseph ai all part of the fun. This bookis for the?ff^;"y- * cowards; the weak and sickly, those who $;j&$$i cin't take humiliation and thrbe hours In . the rain. For you poor miserable wretches, this is ideal. The bulk of the book lists hitching points on motorways and out of towns. with notes on how to get there (public transport from town centres for Arthura&Clement/ne. Adela Turin and the really weedy) and star rating (the Nella Bosnia, 32pp. Â£2.95 more asterisks the quicker) on rough ' The Real Story o f the Bonobos who wore waiting time. An introduction discusses ' Spectacles. Adela Turin and Neila Bosnia, both basic questions about hitching 32pp. Â£2.95 why bother in the first Place?- and the The Bmdtlmf Story. Adela Turin and more esoteric questions, discussed only Margheflta Saccaro, 32pp. Â£2.95 among the hardened hitching fraternity, Sug~plpkRose. Adela Turin and Nella who are distinguishable by their pleading, Bosnia. 32pp. Â£2.95 downtrodden, poverty-stricken The Fire Wires o f Sllverbeard. Adela Turin, ippearance. These advanced questions Francesca Cantarelli and Nella Bosnia. include: should one carry a sign? Are 3 2 ~ Â£2.95 ~ . wops, dagos, eyeties or frogs most likely to stop? Can one, hitch boat and alr trips? ~ ~ , ~ f $ ~ [yes). children, which aim to oresent amusine

and colourful non-sexiststories. The illustrations are a nice combination of fantasy, animation, and parody, with little reminders from real life tortoises (which are very slow animals) wear wrist-watches, pink elephants are festooned in bows and booties to make them more feminine, also Father Raftigan, patriarch o f the large family of rats. tells us how he has found his niche in the rat-race as Honorary President for the Society for the Contrt o f Rat Traos. The stories are parables, in which th< female charactersgraduaily learn that it Is much more fun ifyou make your owl decisions in life, without heeding what their loving (or not so loving) malestell them. I n most of the stories, the husbands and fathers are forced to give up theqld comfortable style of living with the women doing all the work -attired in pretty but impractical clothes. They either accept their newly liberated and contented women-folk, or lump it. * ' Every story delights with its inventiveness and humour, which with their gay illustratioqsand excellent format, make the series a welcome alternative to the usual content o f children's stories. Catheryn Lobbentx

''-A

J- ---

- - JII

Wood Heat by John Vivian (Rodale Press Â£3.50) Woodstoves,~How to Make and Use Them by Ole Wik (Alaska North West Publishing Co. Â£3.75 available from Compendium Books, 234 Camdep High st., London NWI; woodBurner's by jay and Andrew B. Shapiro (Vermont Crossroads Press 1. We also take a brief look at the only British book we have come across on the subject, The Woodstove Book (Broad Ley_s.Publishing Co.) WHAT YOU GET out o f a particular book depends largely on how relevant it is to your situation, and not everyone is as ideally situated as we are at Laurieston Hall to make use o f wood as a fuel. We have immediate access to about 20 square miles o f forest on our doorstep, from which we collect as much dead wood as - we want, and we live in a house with 50 rooms, including 5 kitchens, all o f which offer almost limitless opportunities to experiment with our heating, cooking and hotwater needs. So i f you live in a small terraced house in Holfoway, your woodheating needs are going to differ from ours.. . In cities, a bit o f preliminary research will always find you sources o f unwanted wood -from demolition sites. ~ a c k i n e cases, pallets, tree lopping. w he main problem is likely to be transport and storage. There would certainly be a problem of fuel shortage if everybody suddenly decided to heat their homes with wood, but in contemporary Britain that j 1st isn't going to happen, however , you might feel about the desirability o f such an idea. However as Jay Shelton points out at the beginning of the Woodburner's Encyclopedia, serious environental problems have hit some p?rts o f world, noteably India and Central ica, due to the population's dema xceeding the firewoUd.supply, ing t o denudation o f all highly opulated areas, with accompanying soil rosion and the use o f dung for fuel her than as much needed fertilizer. elton's remarks about why the same situation wouldn't happen in America mostly apply to Britain as well:ifaried natural resources; suitability of the climate to tree growing; and "environmental concern". Jay ~ h e l t o nalso writes about the ological advantages o f wood over fossil els. Wood is simply a very conveniently red form o f solar energy, and is renewe in ways that fossil fuels are not. The cess of burning wood merely accelerates e natural chemical processes in which it on the forest floor. Complete m m o n results in virtually no air pollution -all that is released is the same of carbon dioxide that would be by the rotting process, and the left in the woodash can be returnsoil anyway. However, most fires don't achieve complete ion and do emit chemicals in the smoke particles, and Shelton admits that not enough research has been done t discover ifthis pollution has any a d a s e sffects on the environment.

L rting the Grate

.-..-J , <

1 k c k into Britain :-

One point mai needs,clearing up, and is not mentioned'in any of these books, concerns the legality of burning wood in city areas. Woodsmoke does not actually appear t o be covered by the 1956 & '68 clean air acts, (not being a "black smoke") but there seems to be an ambiguity about whether wood can be burnt freely. If in doufo, check with your local authority. Otherwise just do it and leave the initiative up to them.

John Vivian's Wood ~ e aisl a very solid and impressive-looking book, but is well enough padded with illustrations (not all o f them very useful or even necessary) to make it a fairly easy read. A lot o f it is written for the total newcomer to the idea that a lump o f wood can keep you warm. and so covers eround that should be

An 'open fire o f any sort will send several times as much air up thechimaw as a room needs for ventilation, drawing, cold air in through cracks round doors ar windows. This is why a closed stove is so. much more efficient at [eating a room. The best answer is an underfloor draft, preferably bringing air direct from outsid the house to a grill in the skirting board4 the floor close to the fireplace. Woodstoves are a fire hazard if not.., , properly installed, and WoodHeat g i v y very clear advice on how to do it safely, as well as on repairing an old chimney or installing a new flue. There is virtually nothing on building your own woo$lshvf although Ole Wik's book more fha~IfiHs that gap. Woodstoves - How to Make and l& Them. bv d i e Wik (which I actually don'

sei

ve ry comprehensive in i light-hearted and hoimely sort o f way, and gives a good ov erall oicture. but nersonallv I could do without sections onhow to decorate and spring clean a woodheated home, or Louise's wood-cooked Yorkshire pudding. Louise, by the way, features in text and illustration as the wonderful little woman about the home i n a way that sets feminist teeth on edge, and makes me question Rodale press's image as an 'alternative' publishing company, as many of their glossy books seem to be aimed a t the shelves o f the up-market weekendalternative folk. However, Woed Heal is the only one of the three books that deals comprehensjvely with fireplaces. A grate designed for coal is unsuitable for wood, which needs two or three times as much space to give the same heat. A good woodfireplace is tall and broad with a shallow firebox, and forward sloping fireback. The glowing charcoals tend t o fall through a grate, since wood produces hardlyany ash to support them.

w I first part o f the book is about wood and woodstoves in general - not asspaciously comwrehensive as lohn Vivian's book, but' certainly quite adequate. In the second part he writes about making stoves, startin] from his own experience as a total amatful There are photos and drawings o f over. thirty stoves, built by the author or friends of his, out of the hundreds o f oil barrels left behind in Alaska after the oil boom. Their ideas go well beyond the barrel on its side with a door at one end and stove pipe coming out at the other. Some incorporate ovens, hot plates and boilers, and bear very little resemblance to the drums from which they were mad A serious gap in this book is in the areas o f installation and safety -the single-walled stovepipes he describes as being suitable for a small cabin are just not adequate for any permanent installations unless replaced frequently, and although he stresses that any.stove shout; be 'safe distance' from combustible material, he doesn't suggest what that sa4 distance is. , ,

~n<lercurmts37,~ *,

p e h o d b u r & $ Encyclopedia, 1 unlike the personalchatty accounts o f the : other two books4 is a dry, factual, academics-resfarched treatise, but '' surprisingly, fftates fascinatin'g reading for ' anyone really into woodstoves. Freud for Beginners by 'A & Z', Writers The first section, by Jay Sheldon, it an and Readers, Â£1.95 174pp. "hf&rmation source of theory, practice ~~~~d forBqjnners isanothercartoon and equipment relating to wood as book from the Readers and Waiters enew+., without any frills or padding, PublishingCo-op, of Marx/Lenin Nuclear and rathef poorly illustrated. PowerIEinstein fame. It gives a tlear He describes the process by which complicated presentation of some V ~ W &@is broken down into charcoal and notions that Freud evolved from his m-ifer*s gases, k r ~ ~ w as n pyrolysis: , work, and also informs you about "generally, the quicker the heating of own life and problems: his the m d , the larger is th%vfefd of Bases his ~e two wars he and tars, and the smallerfc the Y ield of roughly edmate *awfial ,+one that in typical wood fires between 113 and 2/3 of the energy content o f the wood is in th? gases and tar droplets, which are normally burned in the long flames." -Thesegases need t o be mixed with thrw or four times as much air at a Â¥(Bnperatur of over 1Q0O0F in erder. to bum. He shows that preheating the air, as some styes attempt to do, is unlike& w haye signffuant effect, shnPlY because 4w volume o f aft required Is Ã§grwt itr ywlation to the temperature o f the flambs. I 'It is much mor& important, iffdesigning Â¥aefficient stove, to introduce the air where the flames are flattest, and create sagreat deal of turbulence to mix i t with the fuel gases. If you ate $ststarting out on exploring the possibil'itibs o f using wood as a fuel, don't start by reading , Ms, or you will probably end up being sp confused by all the conflicting theories and numerous facts to be taken into consideration that you will lose any confidence you had that instinct was a ^good basic guide. But for the enthusiast, the designer, and the searcher after Facts, i t is a book to treasure. The second and third sections, by Andrew B. fihapiro, offer an uncritical I catalogue of woodburning appliances and their specifications. The Woodhurntng Book by the publishers of ~ r a c t i c a l ~ e l f \ to return to an inanimate state. What A & Z choose to ignore is the controversy Sufficiency is a much better source for anyone living in Britain, with detailed that raged in psychoanalysis at the time over this formulation; thefact that many information on over a hundred stoves, clinicat workers have since rejected i t cookersand water heaters available over here m e brief introductory section both as an unneceisary explanation of clinical evidence and an untenable discusses different sources of wood, with s o p dowh to earth tips on cutting and notion theoretically; and the fact that amongst clinical workers it led to a splitting togs. Appropriately enough, it also advice on planting trees and reactionary conservatism about the prospects of mankind. The philosophers managing a wood lot. No British book on woodstoves would have managed to make the death instinct be complete without mentioning the fit a revolutionary perspective. The Rayburn. At Laurieston Hall we depend , clinicians those involved in the day to *onthem for almost all our cooking and , day investigations and research of domestic hot water, except when we are psychoanalysis have not. invaded by hundreds of people for a Those who hold to the death instinct conference. There is a great deal of tend to be conservative both in their satisfaction, lying in a bath, the water practice and in their political views, for Which has come from the burn, seeing their main task as t o strengthen a heated wkh logs from the forest. When weak ego against the vicissitudes of we pull the plug, the water goes back a instinctual forces - an ego that can only tittle lower down stream, and the ashes go operate in the service of the status quo. 6ack to the ground. We've merely interGiven that A & Z deal with Freud's far less important splits with AdIer and lung, i t is curious that they ignote his split with Rejch - the only split that was over the

Who's afreud?

revolutionary and political Implications of Freud's work. Reich rejected Freud's theory of a death instinct. He argued that the creative and orgasmic forces within Us were Suppressed and repressed by a patriarchal social system which, when internalised, brought forth all the neurotic and psychotic symptoms tha Freud's amazing clinical work first uncovered. This also tod him to develop a, complex theory of the roots of fascism. a

1 ,

Use Reich in order to make their political points. They quote His wellknown work Listen Little Man in one of the cartoons, without acknowledging where they have lifted it from. (Freudian slip?) This distorts both Keith's and Freud's very different understandingo f +a mass psychology. The issue of the death tnstinct and o f exactly where the revolutionary core of Freud's work lies, is a complex one and perhaps not one for 'beginners'. The controversy s t i l l rages both amongst the practitioners of psychoanalysis and its philosphers. But the problem cannot be overcome by presenting Freud as more radical than he was, nor by adopting philosophical interpretations o f his work as a solution. However, although we th'mk the sociopolitical part of Freud for Beginners is inadequate, i t is important to say that as a first introduction to a very complicated subject it i s probably without equal. Most definitely a book that's worth having on 'your shelf. John Southgate and Rosemary Randall

flte Earth, John Berger, Writers and

Readers PublishingCooperative, 213pf-,

Â¥'

Oink Oink .

PIGEA RTH and the circumstances i n which It was written and vroduced are lather unusual i n comparison with most

boob publishedtoday. John Berger, a

well-known and respectedwriter and critie whose reputation depends so much on -communications of various kinds TV, film, newspapers and journals, books etc has forsaken die metro~olltan-bisedcultural arena in order to live and work in a small French peasant -unity. While fully reJUngthat he is, in same ways, a "visitor" to the community, he Is doubtless a sincere and committed participant In all aspecrural IMe in his chosen new residence. However he is himself a h r e o f the differences which separate him from the "peasants", and he sums these up in a list on page 7 of the book. These include such cultural areas as religion and language, but also mentions more basic differences such as economic resources and potential and physical make-up. The peasants, of course, have developed . physical attributes to cope with their ' everydaysurroundings in a far more efficient way than the ^crger family. Already in this l i t thy, some main issues o f Bener's project emerge strong points as well qweaknowi. Merger's '- - ' honesty and commitment are nowhere in ' doubt, but i t Is auestionable whether he everokrcomes his a "professional" myths, as opposed to the natural, integrated function of narrative and . he ~ m w l s3&ing c & even& describes in t e everyday speech of f native members of the community. Of

. .

.. .

hash and heroic struggle, the small .i'/' individual or family unit as its own n t a $ F etc - in other words the small propertyowning peasant fanner not the ru I proletarian. Berger is in fact pleadingfor

chapters in the book tend to emph&ise family life or community labour rather than the more solitary, personalised viewpoint of the poems. Yet i t seemed to me sometimes that the themes were so cliched, so obvious, and ha been encountered so many tirtiefbefore in all sorts of books about country life. It doesn't actually make this book very different from many others because it happens to be (i) sensitively written and (ii) followed by an "Historical Afterword", of which more later.

fanner as opposed to productive forces the disa oearance of the peasant Qf course the ways in which collectivisationl has been forced onto rural populations hi

e "natural" languageÃ§arecounting of

.r...... . ~ ~ ~.~ . . . in South East Asia are dire warnings td arratives of country life, urban realities and 'international crises, socialists, b t it is certainly reactionary discount al1)oisibilities of planned , . are mentioned as tansntial to the,counw socialised rural labour and to plead people, who are passively presented in relation to this world outside their everyinstead for the preservation of one. particular kind of rural economic day live;. Bergermentions at one point in his Historical Afterwafd that he views the organisation - that based on the small, peasant economy, as "n economy within independent individual, badgered by 1 an economy". He alsoseems to follow - . tax-men and.heroically rebelling against the "system", suspicious of new machiti-' the main premises ofthe traditional rustic, ery etc like the characters in Pig Earth. rural myth by presenting peasant life as a little world of its &n, almostentirely, Iam not suggesting here that Berger's own attitude is reactionary in a strict cordoned off froift the economic, political anctsocial pressures of the outside world.. political sense, because his, book is not a work of political polemic; but a workpf, This is not his intention, I think, but such literature. However, i t seems to me that is the historical and cultural force of his chosengenre, that his Marxist intention it is imprison d by many outworn and, . : backward-loo ing attitudes which are has not transcended it successfully. part and parcel of the constructed rural/' ' . The Historical Afterword is, to me,the ' most interesting but at the same time t h e , rustic myth, itself a product of the growth of capitalism. I t is no accident , ; most irritating section of the book. Berger obviously wants to integrate a . that Berger has renounced metropolitan life and the mass media for the essentially Marxist view of the peasantry with his literary of which' this book is the:deceptive refuge from alienationwhich he now locates in the peasant life-stfle. he makes some very Yet the book is well worth reading if generalized, abstract statements about only asa symptom of this change of the peasantry, as if all peasants were the . direction in the career of a prominen, w e the world over in all stages of capitalism, and as if their identity as rural :, left intellectual. In many w makes clearer the humanist dwellers was stronger than their economic ~

s stem is still

d its

on such themes as death, birth, growth, seasonal changeetc. ~

of the peasant as the repository of elemental timeless bonds

The poems and prose do, i n fact, share values such thp "me concerns '"' nigh,f. -'--

.jÃ§

. .

ROMAN ORKNEY IGHTHOUSE

undertaken; every case must be judged individually. Let us keep track of our our Eddy in UC36 entit objective, and ensure the ecoxrgill's nuclear war, me freaks do not lose for us the wellie Orkney Heritage Soci ich a context that one might "I earned credibility that the campaign had gained." link they were an antmuclear ^:* .aL+z oup, or in some way gave Sadly, the views expressed in ipport to the anti-nuke that letter are typical of the ovement. In fact nothing could prevailing attitude towards those i further from the truth, as the who are simply and directly eritage Society's 'No Uranium' against nuclear power. The 'emmpagn, withthe support and freaks' referredto are the Dunters aimed leadership of local group, made up in fact of mainly mncillors, politicians, and other middle-class English 'ferryloupers' nportant persons', has (dialect for incomers to the cceeded in channelling the islands, particularly those who immunity's libertarian spirit don't fit in) who would, in turn, id its resistance to outside shy away from the only other terference into hierarchical project up here which is (indirectlvl ., rms of organisation whose against nuclear power. ' iders are against uranium That is Orkney's alternative ining in Orkney (for reasons of press, the Free- Winged Eagle (of ire self-interest) but otherwise which I admit to being editor), ck Maggie's nuclear power which hopes, by encouraging antiogramme to the hilt, and authoritarian attitudes, by vocate the exploitation of The disseminating republican Ad World, or the world's last federalistic ideas. and hv ~-~ ..,-..-., maining areas of wilderness, to advocating autonomy for Orkney, set our uranium requirements. to provide indirect aid to the antiie following extract is from a nuclear movement. ter which appeared in the local The situation is not helped per. The Orcadian, and is any by the fact that it is mainly ' ected mainly against a very incomers who are against nuclear tall local group called 'The power, while redneck locals are inters'-Orkney's environmental held in awe of its 'benefits'. The ncern society CDunters' is the I English are fairly unpopular up dect word for eider duck, a here; they come up here looking ides popular in Orkney but for 'self-sufficiency' crofts and eatened by North Sea oil think because it'sorkney they Uution), who have been trying can rip-off the locals price-wise. point out that uranium mining There are already whole islands )art of a cycle that involves which are entirely populated by ier processes just as English people, with not a single icceptable as mining. local left. The traditionalorkney culture is under strain-it will be 'e have had a valid, factually interesting to see where and when ied, well organised protest a breaking point is reached, but .inst surveying and eventual the outcome may not be too ning of uranium ore here in pleasant for our English friends kney. Now the radical elements livine here. o formed part of this protest Ross Macgilchrist im that the mandateobtained Centick Head Lighthouse n gives them authority to Longhope, Stromness Ă&#x201A;ÂĽsutheir private vendetta Orkney KW16. inst all things nuclear. How many of those who FROM A TROUBLED ported the 'Hands off Orkney' vement would similarly support READER ~ t aanttnuclear l campaign? At 37, Undercurrents, your midIY those who live in the cuckoo life crisis seems to be hitting you i of alternative energy, and worse than most. The magazine ild rather see our landscape wears a jaded and weary bloom ered with giant windmills, and these days, and its arrival meets children out on daily searches with yawns and listless leafings cow-pats for the fire. . . through its bog-paper pages, Quite simply, we are fighting rather than the excited curiosity :eep Orkney green. Ore mining it could once provoke. hese islands is just not suitable. What is happening to you, oes not mean, however, that Undercurrents?Why is it that ?here else should mining be your pages have become all but

empty of vitality and enthusiasm? lsn t it lime you re-appraised your aims and directions? Undercurrents used to carry a lot of practical articles in its heady early days-when the AT dream was young and a windmill symbolised revolution-and for many this was the attraction of the magazine; the combination of practice and theory, accessibility of information, demystification -these formed the bedrock of the whole AT movement. I think it's true to say that the dream has had some pretty radical restructuring of itsown, and the picture now, if not quite a confused and nightmarish vision, is much less clear about, for example, the positionof AT with respect to future possibilities. Liberation lies no longer in the construction of neat gadgets but in a far more complex compendium of activity. Perhaps your current flounderings should be seen as reflecting this state of as-yet unresolved direction but it should be the role of a magazine to recognise and define trends-not to be the victim of them. You seem to have found no comfortable position since the unacknowledged abandonment of your early aims. The theorisings continue, the middle classanalyses but where is the energy and excitement that comes from accounts of what people are doing and achieving in simple personal terms? It may not be building windmills that occupies our best energies any more;where they certainly are exercised is, for example, in creating chiidcare groups, in forming and operating co-ops, in self-help activities at every level. in alternative arts projects, in grass-roots political work, in skills-exchange networks, and in all forms of direct action, whether it bea mass anti-nuke demo or a single person confronting him or herself. 'Radical alternatives' isa vast field to cover, but you could at least transmit the enormous potential vitality 'that it encompasses. I find your appearance tatty, Your logo dated and your pictures few and boring. Rethink Yourselves. Undercurrents, please: it would be sad if your decline turned into demise. Postmenopausal therapy might be needed, but there should be good timesahead. Chalky White London NW3.

FROM A FOSSIL-FUEL FREAK Why has Undercurrents said nothing about the huge expansion planned for the British coal industry? There has been no mention of the massive Selby field now being opened up, and the Vale of Belvoir enquiry currently proceeding seems destined for equally scant attention The contrast with all the fuss over Windscale couldn't be more striking. Yet the Leicestershire coal field is of vital importance: Britain's coal reserves are important to our energy future for a number of reasons. Despite the CEGB's clumsy cover-up, a cover-up seized on enthusiastically by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, coal already provides the cheapest electricity to Britain's homes and factories and, unless you want nuclear power stations in towns, coal is the best : fuel for combined heat and power systems-perhaps involving fluidised-bed combustion-until : schemes such as waste burning are fully developed. Likewise, in the longer term, coal can ease us through the transition to a time when sun and wind are able to meet our energy needs. Let's not forget that in 1914 the British coal industry produced about as much energy as Britain used last year. That positionof strength has been lost, though not irrevocably, to oil, and the question is whether Britain &s thedetermination to restore it. If not, other countries will reap the benefits: US oil companies, for example, are investing heavily in coal. Will the Tories resurrect Sir Keith Joseph's scheme to sell off the better coal pits to private enterprise? The restoration of the 8 coal masters would seem afitting complement to that cornerstone of Tory education policy, the reestablishment of the secondary modern. So why not more about coal? Or has Undercurrentsbeen taken over by the rural utopians, unwilling to trade off a little landscape despoliation against the security of our fuel future? Does the NFU rule, ok? Chaa Trevor

Upper Street London N1.

t +

., THE BOOKS listed below are available by mail order from Undercurrents. Prices include 1 which in many cases has beenabsorbed within the normal shop price. All orders must be prepaid.

' i

THE POLITICS 01'- NUCLEAR POWER Daw Elliott (ed). . .. Pat Coyne. . . Mike Geonse. Â¥RoLewis a very U ~ U bIoo;, one which de~$$ be widely read and discussed, by trade unionists, environmentalists, and all those other 'ists who makc! up our disputatious society."' Writ PatlEmm

". ".

SMALL-SCALE WATERPOWER Dennott McGuigan '

Â£2.9

SMALL-SCALE WINDPOWER Dennott McCuiian

Â£2.9

'THE BAREFOOT PSYCHOANALYST Rosemary Randall, JohnSouthgate, Eraaces.Tondinson Â£2.9 ' I t isabout the psychoanalysiswhich people cando for themselves.. I t is intended to be of value, to people who arc disturbed (or) to anyone who neverthelesswishes to discover more about thcmselves."

.. .

PRACTICAL SOLAR HEATING Kevin McCartney

Â£2.

' , . .a masterpiece DIY text, of which authors and publishersof other so called D I Y -texts w d well take note. I t seems to satisfy all the . .

FRESH FROM Tm.=ATEsz NO NUKES:~Vfi~yoffi's Guide to

Â£4.00

~~~l~ power

Anna Gyor6y and friends.

Thae friendly folk at the Clamshell Alliance have produced what is evidently meantto be the definitive book on nuclear power: a giant tome packed full o f information. analysisand campaigning tips, together with some excellent cartoons and illustrations'. . Dave Effiott '

RADICAL TECHNOLOGY Godfrey Boyle, Peter Harper Undercurrents Â£4.2 (Bulk discount for 10 or more copies Â£3.70) "For those who still think about the future i n termsof mega-machines and all-powerful bureaucracies.Radical Technology will be an eye-opener. There is an alternative!' -Alvin Tofflu

Undercurrents' central committee criteria; ; plain, jargon-free = technology fullyde-mystyfied, put in a bit of social context, ami construction details so complete barely artwist of a spanner is omitted. There just uen'tmy. cracks for a reviewer be&n i priae apart.

ENERGY PRIMER Richard Men-ill (Ed)

LAND FOR THE PEOPLE

Herbert Â£1.4 ..... ...Girardei - -- ...led) , A manual o f radical land reform; i t covers: roo( remurcebklf-sufficiency. enclosureb clearances and the Diggers, Highland landlords,! . lessons of resettlement, land reform and revolution, new towns, new villages, and the ! revival of the countryside.

Issue numbers 12 to 23areavailable for the BARGAIN price of Â£3.60 numbers 24 to 33 for'f3.00 and the SET for a mere Â£6.00Single wpie. 60p. We like to think that Undercurrents is not so much a magazineas a growing collection of useful information. So t o c k UP with back iques now.

(WMTEKlNationai A T CentreIOrganic GardeningIFree RadioIBuilding with Rammed

19 Limits to ~edicinelIklitlcs ,of Self-HelpIBabes in the Ward/ Guide to Alternative Medicinel Anarchist Cities/Future of AT/ Findhorn Community/National Land for the People/General Centre for AT RevisitedIDanish Systems Theory/Alternativa Anti-Nuclear CampaignIAlternative Cultures Part 1. .Z.'**ÃˆHistor . :. of England. 10

I T &the Third World/ Chinese Sclence/lT & Second Class CapitallSupermacker/Lev Hunting1 HydroponicdLucas.

Solar Collector

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12 . Lucas Aerospacel~iofeed.'& toack/Community Technology1 /r?^' COMTEK/Windpower Part 21 ""Â¥Ã§Â¥ Alternative Medical Carel j-,:fe:f Alternative Culture Part 3.

20 Tony Benn on the Diggers/ Farming: Chemicals or Organic?/ Control of Technology/Cambodia Self-Sufficient?/Solar Energy ReportIPaper Meking/Annan Â¥& Report > on Broadcasting Assessed.

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13 DioaersIEnerov& Food .Productioi/lndustri and the Community & ATIAlternative England &Wales Supplement/ Planning & Communes/Methane/ ~ltanatiie Culture Part 4.

14 Jack Mundey on Australian Green BansIAT Round the World/' Building with Natural EnerflvIDlY IniulationIAT in IndiaIBRAD Community. 15 Insulation vs Nuclear Power/ Towards a non-nuclear futurelAT & Job OmtionIProduction for Need/ Diodynamic Gardenmg/DC/AC Inverter Design. 16

Garden Vilteges/Wood Food Guide/DlY New Town/SelfSufficient Solar TerraceslLifespan Community/Bypassingthe Planners/Citizens' Band Radio/ Free School.

17 Computer Ley Hunt/Dowseit-Yoonelf/Kirlian Photography/ Saving your Own Seed/Women & AT/Terrestial Zodiacs.

Fascismand the CounterwltureIMotorwav Madness/Nuclear Policy C h t o s l O r ~ n eEnergvlFree Broadcasting/Good Squat Guide/ Iron Age Farming/Laurieston's Magic GardenIPrint-it-Yourself,

Paranoia PowerlWindacaIe Background/Crofting/Food Co-ops StonehengeIFishing Limits/Primal Therapy/Italian Free Radio1 MethaneIFish Farming.

Nuclear Weapons Accidents1 Electronic SurveillancefiMakina Cheese & CiderICompost & Communism/Small-scaleRadio ~ransmitterPart z / ~ e g i c

MushroomslForestrv/SWAPD/

MedicineIChicken's bb.

~motional'Plague i n Cooperatives1Compost & Communism Part 2/Water PowerIFindhorn Reviaited/Oz Community Radio/ Car-sharinglsaving Enefgy/Thai Dilemmas.

AT Davs that shook ~ortugall~rowing Dope at Home1 Croftingin theOrkneys1Community Ham RadioIRenairina Boats1 Newcastle AT ~ r o u p i ~ u c a s Alternative HardwarelRussians Weaponry.

Seabrook Anti-Nuclear Demo/Nuclear Power & Trade ' Unions/Herman Khan Interview/ DIY Woodtove/Fortean PhenomenaIDlY Solar Collector Design/Srrmll-scale Radio Transmitter PlandAustralian Citizen' Band.

Soft Energy: Hard Politics/ The Fast Breeder Enquiry/Not So Small Tools for Small FarmsIAnti Nuclear CountermeasuresIFree Wheelin'lHull Docks Fish Farm1 Shaker Communities.

Torness DemoIAfter the Windscale Enquiry/The Tvind Â¥Windmill/PrimaTherapy at AtlamisIBasque Co-ops/AT i n the UK & CanadaIBehaviour Modification.

31 Factory Farming/Food . Additives/Commodity Campaigns/ Wholefood Co-ops US & UK/ Common Agricultural Politico + ExplainedIPotato Politics1 Feminism & FoodDrganic Farming.

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The British Road to Ecotopia/Larzac

Economics/Wind-poweredCouncil HousingIAtom Scientists

' Resettling the Countryside/ City Wildernenes/Country Parka/ Living on the Lend/Special Status for British Islanders?/Workingo n : Organic Farms/Collector Design. .:

1 I

The Co-op Lesson: Learn! the Hard Way/Crabepple Revisited, AT in PakismnlCounter Revotutio, Quarterly/DIY Radio Piracy/.' Feminists and Nuclear Power/ ' Brazilian Atom Scandal/Futureof British IndustryIWhales.

he NorthlThe Geography linked?/Windscale ~ i ~ i t / A n t i - N u c ~ e m DanceIFeminists Against Nukes1 Woodstove DesignsIRoad Women & ScienceIOn Roles1 Women, Work and the Trade (Community Technology) UnionsIWelfare Services & The ExplainedIGreeningMilton Kevn Agribusinks Colleges. Control. 1 , . , 3 6 Kids can C h a w the WorldIDaughter of Alice . I ~. , ..,A , :i CartoonICity Farms Threatened1 ,>~,cNews from Prograuive and Frm 30 Barefoot Soci'l,,~,*%~~ Alternative Nurseries/Solar Schools/Educationa it Could CaliforniaIAT and State Money/ Be/To Cram or not to CrÃˆmf Ecotopia InterviewINF CounterCommunity Se~ice/Education measures1Parish PoliticsLEcologv Outside the Classroom/Hunt and Faminism/WindswleScandal and Hassles Inside it., '.'

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Z4fMct wr cornmunards herel SntaU Ads at special giveaway price: I p pqr word Box Numbers Â£1

. .PUBLICATIONS

looking for lpart-time worker

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COMMUNITY

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OVER the nut four y e n w will YOUNG woman nÃ‘dÃ to iMcone uviliaga. h o m e a group to c r ~ a surrogaf motfwr for de~peiring ~ i t Community. e It will boa childlwcouplm. Substantial wkga of various hounholds, reward. Please write for details to sharing r ~ o u r c to u mÃ§ka .Box No. YW commonndth, and sharing the *work andcottap industries. , i , . ' next meeting is et 3jo'clek -Â¥.';. . help needed. Poaceful :An 28 N o ~ e m ~ . l ? ~ @ $ J t t ~SOuptly ~ ~ " ' ~hwse ' ~ ih WÃ§Cork. Look afterSimon Ã§tc% I can work. Patchwork Office,@%Islington ,. ?;" +st-drive something,, like animals. Ptrk ~ t r e + ~ ~ ~.;~o n ~ p ....i ^ ^ ! ; $ $ ~ t o n w vou m a olus I w i l l ha able ~Ward. Apply: Allmir, ~ i l ~ BRIGHTON i n d London. I Ã ‘ n LMP. Co. Cork, Eire. tocontact people who went to live cdtactiveiy somewherdbetween. : No bighmbitions initidly except ,. " SMALL AT dasign & prototype workshop soaks another worker, toga7 . on well. Wecould move .. must be skilled or have experience onto the big ideas afterwards. Ken in metal work and light angiwring Godderd, c/o 95 Chert$ Drive, :.', prepared to get into AT Canterbury, Kent. ': .. . .. . , < . &ands hhawork. Thiscannot at fimt -... to* a ~ ~ u l Ã paving § r i job. Conttct CANADIAN FAMILY +k OATW, 88 BulllngdonRoad, fommunity within 40 m i l t Bristol into AT andSS. Bob a wandv. 19 ' Oxford. Grow PÃˆrkRoÃ§d.'Brillinato ~ . . . Bristol. . ., . , VEG TARIAN, non-wnoking .. m o r r i t f i young dwghmr woks INTERESTED in twining a i k domÃ‘ti *lDWWt. Orivn. opÃ§tmivvilliÃ§communit Rides. Seperam Â¥eccrtiqWxktion preferred. Boxno: JW (ZOO+)? Please write, even i f you . . @dbqfoib, enclosing we. , RADICAL parion intocolltctiwi. Altomotive Community . , information'Exchange, ' . We an a mixed.coll&tive running . Aborgwanlais Mill, Cilyc-, . a ~6mI'nUnity cafe m d wholefood: ,*: Uandovwy, Dyfed. shop. Wemnwd someone who .-*' . ddMh't i 4 low.wqj@ I'M ttitÃ

GENERAL

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THE COMING AGE: magazine of tho mptriarchal tradition and virituel lif.ntYle, 45p, Lux M u h i i IUI.40 St JohnStmot, Oxford.

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1WO CALENDAE. lllustmttd fully, packedwith infomiation on natural foods, oi~Ã§nicflÃ§r<lÃ§iii 12 recipes and much morel SOP. SurreyIHants border. Friendi of the Earth, 30 Flowia),Road, Fleet, Hampshire. Bulk reductibb. Fleet 3144 eves. THE CAULDRON nagon i w r n t l of the Old Religion. Simple cow 26p (blank postal order) from BCM, Box 1633, London WC1V

6XX. ,

RURAL RÃ§<tttloinqnHandbook: wcond edition mi& and enlamad. 220piÃ§of practical, financial, IN-1, Ã§ociemd p w o d information on rural rtttttfmant. Â£1.8 from Rural Resettlement Group (U), Manor Hour, Thelnethm. Dils, Norfolk.

CARING for trÃ‘ ahd IndBM. woodmdmanagemont. ~ ~ p p k i a p-tion. prop* from Ã‘ Ãˆ.cuttingÃ wood turninn. Winur of fruita mmnity trew. Urban t-: -tion o m ; ~ ~ n w r v o t uwt. ~ o n Woodland nature r e w m World Pomt Campaign. A &day courn on john Seymour's (Â¥Â¥rnbrok-h farm. January 7-11 (Man-Fri) or ' F&-,,Ãˆ 1-6 (wiTuÃ‡sÂ£3 incl. full bomd SAg for details: FachMgle I f f <a), Newport. mfed

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CENTRE for Almrnatiw Technology, Machynlleth. POW* Wdentiel w M k d c o u m in practical wlar heating, watmpower, w i n d power, food growing, lowcost building, insulating, compost toilets and lot* more. SAE , RECHARGEABLE for *milt. BATTERIES , EDINBURGH. Visit Pint of M w bookshop, meeting place, exbibition TRADE ENQUIRIESWELCOME .gallery, 4S Niddrv Street (off Hi Street). Tal: 031-556 6863. Full range available. SAE for Feminitt, a&hin, environmentatist list& Â£1.2 for booklet Nickel etc. books, hkinu, bedim. Own

of m w w andpduily aonq I'M 27. male, ex-teacher and T i l * . .~, c~:lectiwexpui*. Kxnetimks biol&t, trying tt> find, treditional &rob fatomd to thÃ‘ will be primully invwW.thÃ§ PEACE NEWS for mn-viol-rt community in. the countryside pn-christian wordi Tan dfftefnt practisingyogÃ§,,r,yditetio q d . organiwtion and runningofÃ§h rwo~ution. Rtportt. J M ~ V ~ S . Mm c a d for Â£1.60 Normm ~lm. 381 encounter. I haveexperienceof , . . . Â¥"w but we hope fiat they will of non-violent action f a social organk,gir&ni"gknd fanning in.' . alw be prepared to work in the.^. change, building attcrmtivet and Irgland.Riply to: . R o n ~ , ~ n o ! l , cab: Further information from I'M a Friendof the Earth T-shirts. resisting the rnrqp-rochina. 29 Gmmville Rend,,Bleckr~k, : : URURU, 35 Covuley R e ., Oxford Available from the Environmmf) Dublin, Rap. Ireland. TeF$; TÃ§lOxford.48249. anti-militarism. rtxual politic*. InformationCentre, 16 Goo-, .:. Dublin 803124. , ~,;:*, ecology, demntraliwtion, etC 20P Nottingham. Yellow, blue, whlta , , ,; , , . whilefo+ shop in fortnightly; 0 - W f o r a yw'inib. or red (5.M + LI. Â£1.9 nch, phu WOMAN and m a i f e e d ~ ~ ~ g i ~ ~ rWell e ~established a n d . in growth from 8 Elm Avenue. ~ottingham. af". Living dCC0mmodatiCfI. 2Bppostage. ., people interestedin jointpure . . Of London house. lm@matin . 1,:. ' .reaÃ§onabl rerit. Â£6,00 ono plus IKON prints on wood. mounting feminisn and theenvironment; I, . , stock. Boxno. EM. for your prints, car& SAE for .I would help. Box no. JR. ; ,. . .' . .' ETCETERA ,. ' . . . . . . . JOIN self-hdp Community Cultural &uils/n.otf: EIKON IUICI. B2 ., WANTED. Couple J*M4 on i ., ~r~j&t.'~pporttinity for nun/ England HOLIDAY wtth a differencl. We Weinen (16+1 to work alonSIid9 our small-holding(7%aereal':in .:; , W an 0 r ~ n i c farm situwed in C o m d . No mod cons; P i m r f t i f '1 Filled tradesmen m site and join WESTCOUNTRY 'fdwisim -- ..beautiful N Devon countryside M r i t useful, senw of humour :,:, . Â t n kidÃ§/K*JlucultumProarmme progremme wks locally' bÃ‘ and often honaridihg, cheese. Pmvioua exmriance of ! (sound, film end printing). dswlopmnts in w r o p r i m nuking,'butur-nuking h ginning. M a l *not necÃ§star if willing to . Accommodation providad, technology, energy conwrvhon, SAâ¬ ‚ ,V@r!~o Oatlev, Butler; contributetowards food. Smelt learn. Previous community farm, Chlttfehamholt, ~mberlei~h, and Ã§lfmÃ§tilifm styles. Box k. wage negotiable after six months. experience an advantage. We are PJ. N Devon: Great Gmirgn Project, Great , , Lynn and Tony, two individuals Gtotga StmÃˆt Liweipool 1. Tel: mho live together with 3 dogi and FEMALE wants canpmion(t) tor UNIQUE holide on organic - 061-7098109. 4cats. If interestedpleen write trip to l s d , vie North A f r i i smallholdingwith 77 acres for details to LakÃ Farm; Living early Decembw. C Walton, woodand nature rtttrva. 6xm& I(educator-kale-26 years) would Trewidland, Likkeard, Cornwall. 4 Bill Hill Ride. Ounfiald, National 8ark.Sea-4 miles. Eight like to work in England from spring I f rtomply i t means wi are camoufltoedcarmans. Modem 1980yÃˆiinn 1981.1 want to inundamd withJttter; andcan't toilets. Fresh produce. Sump ,. join in an alternative project: for afford the postage-don't just turn p~eaw for' m. ~ o w t e ywood, ASTROLOGER of<*nÂ¥ccur UD. W willthink this i s untooather 9xampleÃ‘education ecology; ; P w r a c o m Z ' k w m . p o r m b o pmnond birth chart and c h w c f r feminist group; anti-kcle6~ ,' analysis, Â£ includingfutun trends 200. movement or in non-violent action 8 y w or 12 months. AImriMthrIv . . movement. (I'm working in similar #and for d t l l s : John Willmott, CHILDREN'S country holiday groups in Germany). I'm looking 'i,,.: EXPERIENCED professionti' .. house end grounds ~ g i l a b l e &ring Millbram. Bunion, Mull, Arwtl. for a group or soma people who I ' '. potter with skills in engineering term-time for courses, conference* can live withfor the first time or and Mif^ufficiancv woks a place etc. Wholefood cooking. Clow to all the time. If you are interested in working with others preferably in motorway network. Also largamy offer, please write me a letter acommunity with an established Â¥ol wholefood outside w r i n g . to the following address: Kirsten potmw-Chris Southall, Upper Callow Hill House, Monmouth, Burgher&, Weidenhauser Str. 33, Bishops Court Farm, Belltugh, Gwant. 0600 3233. D-3560 Marburg. Ide of Man./ . . ,

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Call for higher incomes for people aged o v a 75

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Learn about a highly viable alternative to bedsits and the nuclear family. Find out about communal child-rearing, interpersonal relationships, income pooling, and how to integrate your life, work and interests.

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There are thousands of people all over the world living in economically and social successful communal groups.

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We invite you to take a step towards building a more sane future for yourself. Write for more information to Alternative Communities Movement (MAS), 1.8Garth Road, Bangor, North Wales, enclosing an s.a. e.

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; 1 Some current usbmtwr-vacancies: *.

Varioqa personnel for new programme: Engineers of all types; Agri/Horticulturists; GPs, specialists Nurse-tutors and paramedics; Technical teacher trainers; Maths/&i&ce Teachers.

, WTSWANA:

For Brigades (community h h h g cenixes):Managers, Act- Admirth Textile cuhiiser. Also Rural Craft Enterprises Animateurs to stimulate and ndustay, Manager for co-operative dairy farm; BoatbuiIder (or experienced iESOTBO: farmers andMarket Gardenern and General Technical ('Jack of All Trades') ievelopment project; Weaver and a B w k s s Manager for weavers' co-op.

8WAZSLAND:

&nerd Technical person for school of Appropriate Farm Technology; Cooperative advisers to train secretary/managers; Occupational Therapist for hospital in Mbabane.

the above on volunteer terms. Details and epplicatigm form from:&?mWn085, IVS,53 Regent Leicester LEI 6YL. J

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',During the last several years Resurgence has been one of the poles around which disciplined radical alternative thinking has taken shape' IVAN ILLlCff, Ã

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FREE special offer to the readers of Un

I wish to take advantage of the special subscription offer for Resurgence with . ,f^ IÃ‘ free copy of the Schumacher Lectures 1979 (Â£4.) ,\d ,Â¥"*,I

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To : RESURGENCE, Hartland, Nr. Bideford, Devon, U.K. p . -