Letters

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Last issue, you reported on South Lakes Action on Climate Change’s legal challenge to the government’s approval of the proposed huge new coal mine at Whitehaven in Cumbria. (PN 2664)

I’d like to add to what Friends of the Earth are quoted as saying about the climate and employment impacts.

Figures of 500 jobs in the mine have been contrasted with over 9,000 green jobs that could be created in Cumbria.

However, one figure submitted by Scientists for Global Responsibility to the planning inquiry has received no media attention.

Using an economist’s estimate of global climate-related mortality before 2100, the additional coal mined would lead to 50,000 deaths or ‘100 extra deaths for each mining job that the developer is claiming to create’.

Thousands of pounds are still needed to fund the judicial review.

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It was a great relief to read in your last issue the editorial entitled XR, ‘Don’t Overpromise!’ (PN 2664) It really was spot on. We are active members of our local group and are glad that the London events beginning on 21 April will, for the first time, involve peace and other campaigning organisations. But you hit the nail on the head in that title.

100,000 protestors never brought us nuclear disarmament and a million-plus didn’t stop the Iraq War. I’ve seen an XR online statement saying ‘The invitation is to all humans, all movements, all organisations to come together from 21st - 24th April at The Houses of Parliament, Westminster.’

That is patent fantasy. Even if the number of those participating exceeds the goal of 100,000 and surprises us all, many of those will stay only for one day or two.

Yes, governments have been overthrown by nonviolent uprisings, but those cannot simply be organised; and forcing governments to change their priorities is far more complicated.

I hope that as many of us as are able to will be there for whatever time we can manage. Let’s hope that we can swell the ranks of our movement and make our government think harder and do more. Let’s hope, too, that we will all learn lessons for the future.

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Gabriel Carlyle’s piece on Staughton Lynd (PN 2664) and his review of Adam Hochschild’s American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis (PN 2663) were both rigorous and important pieces of work.

His and other contributors’ ongoing insightful and careful work makes Peace News an essential read for serious activists and scholars.