Our new President: - The Founder

0 EDITORIAL & OPINION Tuesday 13 February 2007 thefounder
Oh-Mi-Pod
By Jamie Russell
Something in my journalistic conscience
(a contradiction in terms, I admit)
urges me to begin apologetically. The
ubiquitously marketed iPod TM is not
only a tired metaphor employed in the
low-grade ramblings of many a hack pawing for
the zeitgeist, but also tends to initiate the populist
writer’s well-oiled punning machinery. The
combination of these facts lays the groundwork
for a long list of wonderfully insightful tracts with
all too catchy titles - a list to which this article is
unfortunately appended. As much as it hurts to
say it, I believe the hype too. Afterall, there must
be something in it.
For one who chooses to play through their
library in shuffle, the mp3 player’s influence can
be almost biblical. We hope for a moment of
alignment between song and the quotidian march
of life - a landscape that washes right through you
to a 4:4 beat, or a lyric that one might easily wrap
around their day – and maybe allow ourselves
to believe that, at the very least, coincidence is
‘no coincidence’, as if some ethereal intellect has
talked to us. Of course, I don’t swallow my own
hyperbole. There is no community of deluded
psychotics wandering about heeding the voices
in their headphones, but there is, nevertheless,
a cue for some to take comfort in the arbitrary
sympathy of an mp3 player. Carrying around such
an extensive library is a security blanket – like
uploading versions of your self into a pocketsize
and tangible space, which, I guess, is what puts the
‘i’ in iPod.
So, though we may wish to resist the cloying
generalization that surrounds it, we cannot deny
the iPod’s very real presence in our lives. If there
is a greater philosophy in it, it might combine in
PHOTO: EDWARD DUFFIELD
us a sort of egotism and hope for clarity, for if we could
download each other, then we could come somehow closer
to actually communicating. But, then again, if that were
possible, why would we bother expressing ourselves in the
first place?
Today’s music lovers don’t just listen on the move, they
write their lives down to be kept in a safe place, though the
jury is still out on how real and safe a place it actually is. So,
in the meantime, keep your ‘i’ on it.
The Adored
Red, a humming, a drumming
It sings and yearns to fly
It yearns to saw, to catch the star
Awash your dreamy inner eye.
I would give you my heart
For just one kiss.
A single kiss, solitary caress
Adorned in a vessel of fermenting
Fruits, nestled between
Bulgingly bright strawberries
Over ripe,
Soft, sweet fallen mangoes.
Oh for that pressing of flowers
Ruffled petals, grasping stems
Upturned roots
Bursting buds
A single fragranced mouth full.
I present my heart burning my
Milk stained fingers,
My eyes wider, lips redder
Hands hot, dripping hotter
Take hold - my heart
In a wooden box, embossed
The clasp beating, thumping
Jumping, peeping.
Dressed in a bow deepest
I part my lips, for you and only
You, crack my dawn awash with dew
Where flowers grow, raise their
Heads and smile.
Your damp warm mouth
Your lips about mine
Your lips about my lips -
A swallow flitting, I caress its
Body hold it, feel it kick and writhe
Releasing, breathing in to touch
Catch it and cage him.
Anonymous
An Introdu
By Jack Perschke
On 06 Mar 2007 RHUL will be host
to a debate involving some of the
UK’s most important figures in the
sustainability debate. The Shadow
Minister for the Environment, CEO
of The Campaign to Protect Rural
England, a former CEO of The Met
Office and a Director of, corporate
giants, Diageo will be locking horns
in the search for a path toward sustainable
living. The week after will
see Prof John Lowe of RHUL give a
presentation on Climate Change. He
is one of the pioneers in the use of
ice-cores to create a historical record
of global temperatures. His research
has been ground-breaking and helped
shape the global climate change debate.
In the build up to these two
important events, “The Founder” is
serialising an article on sustainability
that should help inform, interest and
entertain. We hope it will help give
a background to some of the issues,
spark debate around campus and
help those lucky enough to attend
either event to offer insightful and
valuable contributions.
An Introduction to
Sustainability
Many readers of “The Founder”
will have heard the word “sustainability”
used. For some it relates to
self-sufficiency, to others re-cycling
and to few more it has something to
do with global climate change and
drowning polar bears. The truth of
sustainability is that, whilst it does
relate to those issues, it is a far more
wide-reaching and complex field.
In 1987 the UN convened a commission
to look into sustainability
and they defined it as a lifestyle
that, “meets the needs of the present
generation without compromising
the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs”. For most of
us at Royal Holloway I suspect that
sounds like a fairly sound ambition.
It fits with the traditional beliefs of
our society which include, inheritance,
supporting our children and
grandchildren, and appreciating
and protecting our environment.
Unfortunately, no matter how desirable
sustainability may be, it seems
humanity is failing to meet its demands.
Population Growth
The background to all issues of sustainability
is the unprecedented size
of the human population on Earth.
It took from the dawn of time until
the early 1800’s for the number
of humans on earth to reach 1bn.
Each extra billion after that has appeared
at an exponential rate. It
took about 250,000 years for the human
population to reach 1bn, the
last 200 years has seen our numbers
on this finite planet reach a massive
7bn. Population growth does seem
to be tailing off but, unfortunately,
it’s the wealthiest that are producing
less children, but it is also the
wealthy that tread most heavily on
the earth.
Ecological Footprints
Malthus famously predicted that, as
population is growing at a geometric
rate (2,4,8,16 etc etc) and food
production grows at an arithmetic
rate (1,2,3,4 etc etc), the human
population would run out of food
by the middle of the 19 th century.
Clearly we got to that point, and
subsequently saw a seven fold increase
in population, yet the majority
of us have had enough food and
resources. How has this happened?
The answer is that humanity has increased
the efficiency with which it
utilises the resources of our planet.
Fertilisers, pesticides and, soon,
GM crops have all contributed to
the fact that the last 50 years have
seen a population growth of 100%
but an agricultural land use growth
of only 10%.
And it’s not just food production
that is getting more efficient,
we live in cramped, high-rise cities
to preserve space, we travel via fast
transport to save time, we package
our food so it lasts longer and we
use electricity to make everything
quicker and easier. In short, we
have grown very adept at living in
an increasingly crowded world, but
with each innovation our impact on
this world is increasing.
The principle of an ecological
footprint is how much of the world’s
resources are needed to support
an individual’s lifestyle. In other
words, if every person on the planet
lived as you do, could the earth support
itself? The answer for the vast
majority of RHUL students will be
no. Typically, we live at a rate that
would require three earths if everyone
lived like us. This means that
each of us is wealthy at the expense
of others, we are using their allocation
of the world. Of course they are
not using it now, but every time one
hears mention of growing pollution
in China or Africa consider the fact
that the reason it’s so damaging to
the earth is because, up until now,
we have been using up their capacity
to effect the earth sustainably.
Global Governance and The Rise
of Corporate Power
The corporation has long been identified
as the bad guy in the world of
environmental issues. Be it Shell,
Nestle or Rio Tinto we all know how
they rape the earth without care or