Tobakksfriprisen 2011 til Tone Bergli Joner

Professor Asbørn Kjønstads presentasjon:

Bestill boka (+smakebiter) her!

Jeg har den store glede og ære å presentere vinneren av Tobakksfriprisen 2011 -Tone Bergli Joner. Hun har ført en utrettelig kamp for å avdekke tobakksindustriens mange uredelige metoder, og for å gjøre dette forståelig for det norske folk. Det er flott at vi i dag kan krone hennes verk med den største herder som vi kan gi henne. 

Tones Joners offentlige innsats mot tobakken knytter seg først og fremst til de siste ti årene. Hun har utgitt to viktige bøker og skrevet en rekke artikler om tobakk. Dette skal jeg komme tilbake til, men først skal jeg framheve noe av det hun har gjort i sitt tidligere liv, slik at vi kan bli litt kjent med hvem hun er. 

Tone Joner har utdannelse innen psykologi, motetegning og dukkespill. Hun har også en mangesidig yrkeserfaring - motedesign, dukketeater, TV-serier med mer. Hun har skrevet ca 60 fagbøker om en rekke ulike emner, blant annet musikk, formgivning, hobby-virksomhet, barnesikkerhet og søvnproblemer hos barn. Hun skriver og synger viser sammen med sin mann Pelle Joner.

Pelle er biokjemiker, og den første tobakksboken skrev de to sammen. Den heter "Det store bedraget" og har undertittelen "Alt tobakksindustrien ikke vil at du skal vite". Boka kom ut i 2002, og jeg skal her nevne forfatternes viktigste teser:

1. I flere tiår har tobakksindustrien løyet om de enorme helseskadene som knytter seg til tobakken.

2. Tobakksindustrien har også løyet om den sterke nikotinavhengigheten som knytter seg til tobakken.

3. Tobakksindustrien har fortiet og underslått egne forskningsresultater og kunnskaper om skadevirkningene.

4. Tobakksindustrien har ved utspekulerte reklametriks lokket barn og ungdom til å bli røykere.

5. Tobakksindustrien har betalt forskere, politikere og journalister for å bagatellisere kunnskap om helseskadene og nikotinavhengigheten.

6. Tobakksindustrien har bestukket filmprodusenter og skuespillere for å gi de unge "forbilder" som røyker på film.

7. Tobakksindustrien har genmanipulert tobakksplanter for å øke nikotininnholdet og avhengigheten.

8. Tobakksindustrien har latterliggjort tobakksmotstandere og helseopplysning.

9. Tobakksindustrien har i stor stil smuglet sigaretter for å presse ned tobakksavgiftene.

10. Tobakksindustrien har bevisst satset på markeder i fattige land hvor det har vært få restriksjoner mot tobakk.

Etter min mening er påstandene i denne boka grundig dokumentert, den er meget godt skrevet, og boka inneholder svært viktig informasjon. Den burde ha fått stor utbredelse, og det var som utgangspunkt betydelig interesse for den i massemediene. Journalister som ringte til meg, sa imidlertid at informasjonssjef Jan Robert Kvam i Tidemanns Tobakksfabrikk hadde uttalt at boka ikke inneholdt noe nytt. Det var jo tilsynelatende et kraftig argument for at massemediene ikke skulle skrive om boka. Men reelt sett var det meget avslørende at tobakksindustrien hadde visst om helseskadene og nikotinavhengigheten i tiår etter tiår, og at den dertil hadde fortiet og bagatellisert dette overfor forbrukerne og statsmyndighetene. 

Hevede bed

Flott artikkel av Rob Avis om hevede grønnsakssenger!

Wicking beds are a unique and increasingly popular way to grow vegetables. They are self-contained raised beds with built-in reservoirs that supply water from the bottom up - changing how, and how much, you water your beds. In this article, we'll talk about how wicking beds work and why we love them. We'll also show you some great examples and leave you with ideas and instructions for creating your own.

Les hele artikkelen her eller her.

A New Crater of Modernism in Downtown Oslo

Nb! This article contains several errors both for localizations and the use of different buildings, and major projects are not mentioned. I'll try to fix this later. Meanwhile I'll not recommend reading this article, but going straight to the new interactive map of all the upcoming projects of downtown Oslo, which is to be found here.

(The little quota from Alexander is of course worth reading, but don't go on for "les mer...")

People used to say that just as the twentieth century had been the century of physics, the twenty-first century would be the century of biology… We would gradually move into a world whose prevailing paradigm was one of complexity, and whose techniques sought the co-adapted harmony of hundreds or thousands of variables. This would, inevitably, involve new technique, new vision, new models of thought, and new models of action. I believe that such a transformation is starting to occur…. To be well, we must set our sights on such a future. - Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order

Boblesamfunnet

I denne videoen redegjør Eli Pariser for hvordan google filtrerer søkene våre på interntt, og at vi derfor mer og mer lever i hver våre internettbobler. Personlig tror jeg ikke dette kun er googles skyld, men fordi informasjonsstrømmen i dag er så stor har vi alle et behov for å filtrere informasjon. Det er da nærliggende at vi filtrerer vekk den informasjonen som ikke gir oss kognitiv disonnans, og slik går vi alle i stadig større grad rundt i hver våre filterbobler, eller virkelighetsoppfatninger, mer og mer fremmede for hverandre.

Anti-Empathy Training for Children

The researchers found that participants who played one of several popular violent games, such as "Call of Duty," "Hitman," "Killzone" and "Grand Theft Auto," set louder noise blasts for their opponents during the competitive task -- that is, they were more aggressive -- than participants who played a nonviolent game. In addition, for participants that had not played many violent video games before completing the study, playing a violent game in the lab caused a reduced brain response to the photos of violence -- an indicator of desensitization. Moreover, this reduced brain response predicted participants' aggression levels: the smaller the brain response to violent photos, the more aggressive participants were. Participants who had already spent a lot of time playing violent video games before the study showed small brain response to the violent photos, regardless of which type of game they played in the lab. - Science Daily

This is disturbing, as Empathy is the Most Important Survival Skill of the 21st Century!

Bartholow said that future research should focus on ways to moderate media violence effects, especially among individuals who are habitually exposed. He cites surveys that indicate that the average elementary school child spends more than 40 hours a week playing video games -- more than any other activity besides sleeping. As young children spend more time with video games than any other forms of media, the researchers say children could become accustomed to violent behavior as their brains are forming. - Science Daily

Our children get the opposite training of what they and our civilization needs more than ever: EMPATHY.

Read the article in Science Daily: Violent Video Games Reduce Brain Response to Violence and Increase Aggressive Behavior, Study Suggests.

From Stone Desert to Glass Desert

The new proposal for bringing "life" back to the area around Oslo Central Station

No doubth, my politicians and our architects are still stuck in a heroic city-destroying mode, destroying my beloved nation's capital city.

Jeg vil sitere en ypperlig leserkommentar til dette prosjektet:

Steinørken blir glassørken...Hva er det som er så utrolig stas med høyhus, er det et New York-kompleks? Høyhus er så gammaldags. Nå har vi nettopp fått opp barcode, i revidert utgave. Så skal det bli kamp om hvor høyt dette skal bli...Høyhus stjeler enormt med lys og er det noe vi ikke har overskudd av i Norge, så er det lys. Vi kan ikke fornye byen for å danke ut andre byer. Oslo skal fornyes for de som bor der og jobber der. Hver dag, hele året. Ikke for de som kommer innom. - Pelikan

The article in Aftenposten about this life destroying project, one out of a long list of new city destroying projects to be forced upon central Oslo and its sea side, is to be found here.

Where is The Salingaros Group? Please save my capital!

Privat eiendomsrett, vår hellige ku

Et spennende nytt essay av James Quilligan, hvor han diskuterer den hellige kua privat eiendomsrett på bekostning av allmennheten. Jeg ble gjort oppmerksom på essayet gjennom P2P Foundation, hvor Michel Bauwens gir følgende strålende sammendrag:

This article focuses on the sacred cow of private property in liberal philosophy and politics and its catastrophic impact on the commons. Numerous liberal thinkers (mostly male) have attempted to base social systems, moral obligations and property rights in human nature using the laws of the natural universe. They share the blame for the devastation of the commons. No one has influenced the rules, institutions and concepts of modern individualism more than John Locke. It was Locke, the 17th century philosopher and political scientist, who formulated the central tenet of liberalism: that property should be organized through individual ownership by excluding others. Locke’s source code, both at the meta-level and physical level, is still driving our operating system. It repeats endlessly the ‘empirical’ story that nature intended the commons to be possessed through proprietary ownership. From the long view of social history and political philosophy, however, it’s Locke’s sacred cow of proprietary rights that has been devouring the commons, not Hardin’s hungry cattle or their poor herders. - Michel Bauwens

Les artikkelen: The Failed Metaphysics Behind Private Property: Sharing our Commonhood. By James Bernard Quilligan. Kosmos Journal, May 2011.

Felles(skaps)hage

 Videre lesning:

• Our Commons Future is Already Here
• Commons as a Different Engine of Innovation. Sammendrag her. 
• From Ownership to Relationship
• Conserving the commons 
• Rise and fall of a libertarian utopia
• Introducing the Third Commons
• Launch of the School of Commoning in London 
• Changing Models of Ownership
• Chris Cook: the Commons as a Corporation
• How to share land

Zizek: Is Charity Immoral?

In this short RSA Animate, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek investigates the surprising ethical implications of charitable giving.

Markets & Antimarkets

First of all, if capitalism has always relied on non-competitive practices, if the prices for its commodities have never been objectively set by demand/supply dynamics, but imposed from above by powerful economic decision-makers, then capitalism and the market have always been different entities. To use a term introduced by Braudel, capitalism has always been an "antimarket". This, of course, would seem to go against the very meaning of the word "capitalism", regardless of whether the word is used by Karl Marx or Ronald Reagan. For both nineteenth century radicals and twentieth century conservatives, capitalism is identified with an economy driven by market forces, whether one finds this desirable or not. Today, for example, one speaks of the former Soviet Union's "transition to a market economy", even though what was really supposed to happen was a transition to an antimarket: to large scale enterprises, with several layers of managerial strata, in which prices are set not taken. This conceptual confusion is so entrenched that I believe the only solution is to abandon the term "capitalism" completely, and to begin speaking of markets and antimarkets and their dynamics. - Manuel De Landa

Read the whole article here: MARKETS AND ANTIMARKETS IN THE WORLD ECONOMY

Further reading:

• Anti-Pattern Capitalism 
• The Ancient Taberna in a Future World
• Does smart growth reduce carbon emissions? Bet the house on it.
• Bernard E. Harcourt on the illusion of self-regulating ‘free markets’ 

Can Our Civilisation Really Change?

This meditation by Derrick Jensen answers the questions negatlively: our civilisation will never change and become sustainable.

So what do we do?

I don’t (necessarily) agree with the ideas presented here, but, it definitely forces us to think:

Further reading:

• Transition and the collapse scenario

Sea Water Farming

The two videos below are much about scaling up mangrove systems for sustainable sea water farming, done in a true permaculture spirit from which both people and nature benefit. Sadly this is in stark contrast to industrial aquaculture, where they throw cheap energy on unsustainable systems to maximize profit.

Today mangroves are disappearing fast. Thirty-five percent of mangrove ecosystems disappeared between 1980 and 2000, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Shrimp farms have been a primary cause of mangrove loss, as well as urbanization and agriculture. This is why the message from The Seawater Foundation is of such an importance, as they show how to change and provide hope for the future.

Greening Eritrea — Part 1

Greening Eritrea — Part 2