Tag Archives: Trump

Profits vs warming

Grumpy isn’t really a mobile phone person, and has to admit to never have taken a ‘selfie’. [In fact, for nerds, he is POP3 rather than IMAP based, and doesn’t even have access to e-mail on his phone. He uses it to , errr, make phone calls.]

However, from time to time he needs to install an App (for example for his alarm system), but on seeking to do so is informed that he should install a later version of Android. His trusty Samsung Galaxy S3 currently runs Android 4.3, however, and it cannot be updated, so no App.

Similarly, his iPad, an alternative vehicle for the alarm system App, gives a similar message; however, that too, running IoS 9.3.5 also cannot be updated.

So he owns two perfectly functional hardware devices (which in all likelihood have the potential for many years life in them) which have to be replaced. They are now effectively worthless, and their fate is inevitably disposal i.e. trashing. How can we, at this time in history, design (or even allow) commercial strategies deliberately calculated to create unnecessary waste?

There is a mismatch here between the mealy mouthed platitudes of corporates and governments with regard to their ecological credentials and the reality of policies which drive enforced obsolescence. If there really is an “emergency” which is shortly to result in the drowning of New York and London, and instigate global mass migration on a scale never before seen in history, it does seem anomalous that as a species we permit policies which are specifically designed to drive unnecessary mass consumption of resource, including the precious rare earth metals used in electronic devices.

The bottom line is that, whilst large swathes of the population pay lip services to the implications of climate change and cheer on Greta T, they are simply not prepared accept the radical and truly unprecedented changes to our way of life inevitably implied by it. Sadly, Donald Trump recognises this, and thus finds willing followers for his actions to roll back the tentative steps to mitigate warming already made in the USA, without whose full acceptance warming will take place whatever the rest of the world does.

It does not bode well.

Huawei leak – the US ?

Grumpy has heard rumours that the leak from the National Security Council that the UK government was to use Chinese company Huawei within the planned 5G phone infrastructure, originated from the Americans. They of course have the whole of the parliamentary estate bugged, and when they discovered the technology for a 5G roll out might be of Chinese origin from Huawei, they were concerned and upset.

Firstly, it meant that US manufacturers would miss out, and Trump was determined that that should not happen, both to protect his business buddies, but also because it was bad optics.

More importantly however, by getting US technology implemented for 5G, it would mean that (a) they could hold the UK to ransom and (b) it would be even easier to spy on the UK government, companies and citizens.

Trump thus authorised the leak, knowing that Huawei would be binned in panic and under pressure, and some poor cabinet minister or civil servant would get the axe, because even if the powers that be knew the US bugged the National Security Council, they couldn’t possibly admit it, and therefore a scapegoat would be needed.

This is fake news. I’m puzzled as to how the Department of Media Culture and Sport will, under its announced plans, be able to detect it and effect its removal. What law might Grumpy break? For him to be guilty, it would have to be proved that it was false, which in objective terms might be difficult. They say it’s false, Grumpy asserts it’s correct, and would use the “they would say that, wouldn’t they” (to quote Mandy Rice-Davies – qv, youngsters) defence.