Air transport, logistics, tourism and food

[Eric]

I've done my 2,000 words of translation of a novel for today, and the thought struck me: why is everyone rushing around the world and buying things from the other side of it? It takes me literally months to translate a novel, but when it's done I can send the translation of well over 100,000 words as an attachment to the publisher half way around the world in what amounts to several seconds, because of the world wide web. I don't need to get on a package steamer and train and then present the publisher in Illinois with a printed copy.

That's the huge advantage of the internet, although it has put postal services in a less stable position.

But what I mean is: why do people buy food from very far away, and choose to lie on a beach in Thailand when there are beaches much nearer to home (assuming you live in Africa, Europe, or the Americas)? Especially if this food or tourism involves air travel. Most people have no interest in the local language or culture, merely the sun, the beach, and the food.

We are incessantly lectured about our carbon footprint but then, on the sneak, lots of people start eating Asian food and going on those distant holidays. I like Indonesian (Indian, Thai, Chinese) food and think that for the price Australian wines are excellent. But ships and refrigeration exist, and although tourists don't like being frozen down for the journey and put in suspended animation, foodstuffs can be.

Obviously, these thoughts are triggered off by this latest Act of God, who seems quite grumpy of late, given the frequency of earthquakes and now eruptions. So this wave of flight cancellations across Europe will surely have the salutory effect that people will start thinking seriously about the less ecological aspects of globalisation, and the logic of shipping people and products by air. If Jens Stoltenberg can run his Norwegian government from a I-Pod or -Pad in New York, many things can be done without actually being there physically.

Although the London Book Fair will be rather damaged by Eyjafjallaj?kull, people can still get on the phone and do their deals by e-mail.

[peter_d]

Although my environmental footprint is quite large, I fully agree with Eric. Now that it is impossible to be transported physically from place to place, people (including myself) find their way to transporting just their images and voices from place to place. Unfortunately in certain parts of the world (e.g. rural towns in Cambodia and Laos in my case) the internet doesn't support an adequate video conference yet. But why don't we just reallocate the money from buying all the air tickets to improving the quality of the internet there. If this can be combined with the further development of 3D technology, we don?t have to travel at all anymore... The enormous commercial branch of travelling for professional reasons can be cut down completely.

I was completely unaware of the fact that there are 30.000 flights over Europe each day. THIRTY THOUSAND, for goodness sake! PER DAY! I couldn't believe it when I heard this figure. The act of God, as Eric calls it, opened my eyes... Hallelujah! Internet technology, praised be thy name!

[hdw]

I was completely unaware of the fact that there are 30.000 flights over Europe each day. THIRTY THOUSAND, for goodness sake! PER DAY! I couldn't believe it when I heard this figure. The act of God, as Eric calls it, opened my eyes... Hallelujah! Internet technology, praised be thy name!

We live within easy striking distance of Edinburgh International Airport, and I quite enjoy sitting in the garden and watching the planes dipping down into and rising up in the air from the airport. Something that rather amuses us in a Schadenfreude kind of way is that it's the most expensive houses in the poshest part of West Edinburgh that are right under the flight-path. We have friends who live about twenty minutes' walk from here, and sitting out in their conservatory with a drink, you have to fall quiet every so often as a plane comes in low overhead, shaking the house. I joked with them once that they must recognise some of the pilots by now, but I don't think they were amused.

There was a piece in the Guardian the other day about the unprecedented peace and quiet in the villages near Heathrow. Somebody remarked that the local amateur football team can now hear the referee's whistle and no longer have an excuse for misdemeanours.

Harry

[Refus de Sejour]

why do people buy food from very far away.


I'm no expert, but from my rough observations it seems most of the world functions on the following business pattern:

Country A is wealthier than Country B. Country B will therefore sell a significant proportion of the food it produced to Country A at a profit. It will then import food from Country C (less wealthy than B). Meanwhile, Country C is buying from Country D, which is again slightly poorer, etc.

Maybe this picture is inaccurate, but it's the only way I can figure out why all the quality fruit grown in New Zealand is exported, while the fresh snap peas at my supermarket are grown in Zambia.


Most people have no interest in the local language or culture, merely the sun, the beach, and the food.

Man, don't get me started on this; it's a pet peeve of mine. I spent 6 months travelling around South East Asia and couldn't comprehend all the Westerners going to the tourist hotspots and pretending it was the Caribbean - reggae, banana pancakes, etc. I listened to Muslim tapes bought in night markets, ate chicken rice for breakfast, and avoided my countrymen like the plague :cool:

[Eric]

My point is that the globalisation of the food market should, in theory, lead to the self-sufficiency of countries and regions. The West was colonial big-time until the 1960s. Now it's pulled out of Africa and Asia, but the reduction of the variety of products in each country, monoculture or whatever it's called, has led to, in effect, the developing countries always relying on the faraway West or China to sell things to, and never become self-sufficient.

If you know that Europeans will buy your flowers or avocados (or opium), there is never any incentive to diversify the range of products that farmers grow. The profit motive will influence all your decisions. Tourism also means continued dependence on the former metropolitan countries. It also adds to the inferiority complex of developing countries which continue to function as the servants of the West and China. Suddenly, as I read in the paper today, several African countries are immediately in crisis - within one week! - now that the supply lines have been temporarily cut. Countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia and Zambia are suddenly throwing away their rotting products which they cannot get to distant markets.

The developing countries - what used to be called the third world before the collapse of Communism - are now in a position where, to use a Biblical phrase, they have remained the hewers of wood and drawers of water for their erstwhile colonial masters. And China is also muscling it's way into Africa on a large scale to take all the Africans' resources, especially mineral ones. China is a totalitarian centrally governed Communist state with a colonialist, nationalist, and capitalist agenda. What could be worse for Africa?

But another crucial question is: why do the Africans end up with useless corrupt r?gimes? Can they run their own countries or not? They can't keep claiming, some fifty years after independence in many cases, that the wicked White capitalists are plotting against the Blacks. Look at Zimbabwe and South Africa. Their agriculture, developed by White farmers of European origin, has been ruined by the envy of people who fall for the racist ideology of their non-democratically-elected and corrupt leaders. Black ?lites are no better than White ones.

So I would suggest that this air industry ash crisis will have the salutory effect of making economists, politicians and business people think much, much harder about the way our global economy works, and how it should be working.

[Mirabell]

Nice. YOu answer your own rants. YOu are correct about some and incorrect about other things and correct yrself. I rearranged your post slightly


stupid Eric says


They can't keep claiming, some fifty years after independence in many cases, that the wicked White capitalists are plotting against the Blacks.

But smart Eric answers


The West was colonial big-time until the 1960s. Now it's pulled out of Africa and Asia, but the reduction of the variety of products in each country, monoculture or whatever it's called, has led to, in effect, the developing countries always relying on the faraway West or China to sell things to, and never become self-sufficient.

The developing countries - what used to be called the third world before the collapse of Communism - are now in a position where, to use a Biblical phrase, they have remained the hewers of wood and drawers of water for their erstwhile colonial masters.

[peter_d]

My point is that the globalisation of the food market should, in theory, lead to the self-sufficiency of countries and regions. The West was colonial big-time until the 1960s. Now it's pulled out of Africa and Asia, but the reduction of the variety of products in each country, monoculture or whatever it's called, has led to, in effect, the developing countries always relying on the faraway West or China to sell things to, and never become self-sufficient.

If you know that Europeans will buy your flowers or avocados (or opium), there is never any incentive to diversify the range of products that farmers grow. The profit motive will influence all your decisions.

Sound analysis, I would say. But the question is: who is responsible for this, the producer seeking profit or the consumer seeking unreasonably cheap stuff. The law of supply and demand is ruthless. If the poor dependent farmer wants to diversify his crops, the consumer will find another poor dependent farmer. The diversifying poor dependent farmer will become extinct. This leads to the next question: who should change behavior?


They can't keep claiming, some fifty years after independence in many cases, that the wicked White capitalists are plotting against the Blacks. Look at Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Not the white against the blacks, but the rich against the poor. From WTO rules, regulations, structures, procedures it becomes clear that some countries are more equal than others.


So I would suggest that this air industry ash crisis will have the salutory effect of making economists, politicians and business people think much, much harder about the way our global economy works, and how it should be working.

I hope it will. And it makes sense, because it is a well known law that in many instances crises trigger ingenuity, innovation and often also progress.

[Eric]

Mirabell, you could perhaps learn to stop labelling every opinion you disagree with as a "rant". Your two-word answers may not solve many world problems. Labelling is a totalitarian way of dealing with debate with your equals. You must expand your critical vocabulary in the English language forthwith.

"Smart" Eric is trying to understand why this potentially wonderful world (according to Satchmo) is in such a big mess, and never seems to get any better right across the board. I would be tempted to bring the concept of Original Sin into the argument. But then the utopistic neo-Marxists, some of whom have, of course, made brilliant attempts at turning the world into a tree-chopping paradise in Siberia, would say that they need just one more teeny weeny chance to regiment Europeans and Africans alike. Then everything will be all right. That's also what the Islamists say about the ummah: peace, but on our terms.

Africa is not a paradise. People hack one another's arms off in Rwanda, Congo, Nigeria etc. This is not done often in Europe. The West has some moral superiority. So it should use its leverage responsibly. The West has three unpalatable choices:

a) Let tribal and internecine warfare in Africa continue and do nothing. Let them all chop one another up and send them a few artificial limbs to keep them happy.

b) Pay the African states lots of feelgood factor money to make us in Europe feel better. The fat cats in the countries concerned pocket the money and leave their citizens in the same mess as before. But the West has done its bit, and we can polish our haloes.

c) Neo-imperialism. The West invades African countries, stops the carnage and takes (steals?) lots of resources as its reward. (The Chinese just want the minerals. They will pay till they've got what they want, then run like hell. No long-term commitment to Africa. I suspect that the Chinese are just as racist as some people in Europe.)

If any of you know a better solution, please tell the U.N.

*

Peter D. Poverty is one factor, but, for instance, tribal affiliations and loyalties seem to play a huge role in some African and Middle Eastern societies. The Hutu-Tutsi genocide was not only caused by poverty. Both ethnies were poor. And when the Shiites and the Sunnis massacre one another - i.e. members of the same religion - only some events in Northern Ireland resemble this within Christianity in Europe. Nor do I remember Yiddish-speaking immigrants to America planting bombs on planes to influence the foreign policy of the USA. Or the English trying to wipe out the Scots in the same way as the Russians do with the Chechens, just because they want independence.

I think we must get away from cultural relativism, and try to create a world where the same rules, rights, and responsibilities apply.

[peter_d]

Africa is not a paradise. People hack one another's arms off in Rwanda, Congo, Nigeria etc. This is not done often in Europe. The West has some moral superiority. So it should use its leverage responsibly.

Should I read this as The European man's burden? Despite his nobel prize, Kipling's poem nowadays raises eyebrows... I don't know about this moral superiority. Eric?s sentence "This is not done often in Europe" certainly wouldn?t hold in the past tense. Europe has seen innuberable wars with innumerable victims. It is only relatively recent that it is relatively quiet here.

[Eric]

European people invented most of the technology and government systems, whether to improve people's lives or kill them. On our continent, after the devastation of the First and Second World Wars, we have learnt to settle our differences without Katyn, Auschwitz, and similar ways of "tidying up" the continent of Polish officers or Jews.

We have a European Union which, for all its faults, does help prevent countries getting too nasty with one another. Germany has not yet invaded Greece to stop the conflict between low-paid workers and decadent and corrupt bureaucrats. We can ask why the Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese, etc., seem to end up with periodic bouts of fascism to tidy up the excesses in the other direction. But the EU is a civilised way of settling differences. Neither fascism nor communism will return if the EU holds together and bullies countries with anti-democractic tendencies into submitting to the norms of decency, democracy, honesty and fair play, by economic means rather than war.

So, I am stressing: Europe hasn't got any major conflicts now. The occasional shoot-out in Belfast or Donostia does not constitute war. Nor are there pogroms against Muslims. Never mind the Inquisition and the murders of the past now. We are living in the present.

*

And now Russia, Africa, Asia, and Central & South America. Count the conflicts to do with the drugs trade, Islamic fundamentalism, primitive tribal warfare, fanatic dictators, the envy of those who cannot organise anything except death, censorship, brainwashing and manipulation, and you will find very many instances.

Europe - which does not want to re-adopt the White Man's Burden on other continents - can trade with countries on other continents, but no one wants to invade them for very long. Even Afghanistan and Iraq will come to an end. Then the locals will continue to murder one another, but hopefully not us. The Shi'ites are quite good at murdering the Sunnis, and vice-versa, without outside help. Suicide bombing on marketplaces is not practised often by Europeans in Europe.

When Whites murder Blacks for reasons of racism, there are indignant articles in all the world's newspapers. But when you read, as I did this morning in the Times (not known as a fascist newspaper that distorts the truth) that 3,000 White farmers have been murdered over the years in South Africa, and that farming and other parts of the South African economy are near collapse, why is the word racism not mentioned when Blacks chop up Whites with pangas? Not only the provocative Terre'Blanche who may or may not have wanted a Black bum boy, but ordinary farmers whose skin happens to be white (or red, when in the sun too long). Land reform is useless unless those taking over the land know how to use it.

The Times article:

‘We’re in the final days of white life in South Africa’ - Times Online (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7116332.ece)

Who would have thought, a decade or two ago, that we would see such an article in a respectable European newspaper? In those days scorn was endlessly being poured on apartheid and how the Blacks were being treated badly by the White ruling classes. And anyone bringing up the subject of race was regarded as to the right of Adolf Hitler. But now that Blacks are ruining South Africa - not the Boers (aka Afrikaners) - who dares to mention Black racism?

Well, the local people now run Zimbabwe, South Africa, Rwanda, Congo, Sudan, Nigeria, Eritrea, Somalia, etc., but they don't seem any better at running their own countries than when the White imperialists did it for them. As decent human beings, often adhering to Christian values of long tradition, the Europeans keep on pumping money into umpteen failed states throughout Africa - but never ask how the money is being spent. How long will it be before Europe abandons these countries entirely and lets them all kill one another there? (Arms dealers from Europe will, of course, make huge profits from supplying arms to the genocidal tribal people in Africa.)

The West has got very tired of policing people who revert to genocide every time they are allowed to run their own countries. As we can't be there all the time, and are not wanted there anyway, why doesn't Europe and the rest of the West simply stop paying large sums of aid money to corrupt dictators, and just let the African peoples and nations kill one another in endless tribal warfare?

Globalisation and colonialism are not perfect ways of running the world, but they cannot, after half a century, still be the root cause of the utter failure of so many countries in Africa and the rest of the developing world.