The Old Lucretius Plan

Welcome to the basement

This blog is no longer a live journal.  It covers the period 2004-2007, and has now been superseded by the new-improved Lucretius Plan.

This site is unchanged from the time when we were regularly posting to it, though it may now be a little musty in places.

It may be useful to people considering becoming international volunteers (for instance with VSO), or who wish to learn more about living and working in Indonesia.  It may be particularly interesting for those planning to visit Maumere in Flores. 

Brand new Ankermi

When we were in Flores, our refuge from the mayhem was Ankermi, a dive shop and restaurant run by our friends Kermi and Claudia. Just a 40 minute motorbike ride along the coast from Maumere, it was tranquil and relaxing. We both miss it enormously now we are back in the UK.

For the past year or so Kermi and Claudia have been building a new place just round the bay from the old one, and it is now complete. So, if your travels ever take you to Flores, make sure you book a few nights at one of the new Ankermi beach houses. Here is a PDF of their brochure: Download new_ankermi_information.pdf

Assume the position

To those of us who enjoy the questionable benefits of frequent flyer status in Indonesia, the recent announcement that all Indonesian air carriers are banned from EU airspace, and that EU citizens are strongly advised to avoid flying with them, comes as little surprise. If anything, most of us assumed that such a ban was already in place. What is more interesting (and depressing) is the reaction of the Indonesian government.

The reaction was in two parts. Firstly, the government expressed the suspicion that this was a neo-colonial EU plot to exclude Garuda (Indonesia's flag carrier) from EU airspace so as to shield indigenous carriers from the competition. I can imagine that BA, KLM and Lufthansa are slightly concerned about the lean and hungry Asian competitors that may one day come and steal market share from them, but I somehow doubt that the noble Garuda logo figures very often in the powerpoint presentations of the executives. Garuda's market positioning in Indonesia is predicated on that fact that it is slightly less bad than all the others, many of whom (such as Merpati) operate planes inherited from Garuda, such as the 1970 fleet of Fokker 27's and 28's, which have featured many times on this blog.

The second point made by the government was that it was unfair of the EU to focus on safety issues, when other factors should have been taken into account, The argument appears to be that flying Garuda (or Adam Air, Batavia, Mandala etc.) may be unsafe, but, hey, look at this free towelette. The beef rendang is pretty tasty too. No doubt a cynical anthropologist would point out that this attitude reflects Indonesian fatalism, that somehow worrying about safety is to lose sight of one's small place in the great cosmic plan. It is too individualistic, and, frankly, Western. This may explain why most of my fellow passengers to Jakarta recently, many of them on a transit flight from doing the Haj pilgrimage in Mecca, prayed earnestly for deliverance on take-off, and then gave thanks to Allah for their safe arrival in Jakarta.

I am quite prepared to give Garuda the benefit of the doubt on many things (is this beef rendang edible? Why does my seat smell of vomit?) but where safety is concerned I think a faith position is probably unwise. Where the Indonesian government misses the point is that they have consistently prevented the results of investigations into the many transport accidents from becoming public. This gives the impression that some kind of cover-up is going on to protect those with good political connections. It also encourages leaks and rumours which (as in the case of the recent Yogyakarta crash) causes distress for the families of the victims while a blame culture prevents the real facts from emerging. The Yogya crash may well have been pilot error, but often the airlines find it convenient to blame one pilot rather then admit to systemic maintenance problems and under-investment.

Our neighbour in Jakarta is an Australian airline pilot who flies wealthy Indonesians and politicians as far away as Los Angeles on a top-of-the-range gulfstream private jet. Private jet travel is a a growth industry in Indonesia, which has a remarkable number of very rich people who see no reason to share the risks that ordinary people must face when travelling.

Sadly, Government ministers are more interested in avoiding accountability when they should be hanging their heads in shame that Indonesia, now almost a middle-income country, is unable to properly regulate its airlines or place the safety of travelers over the comfort of the corrupt businessmen and politicians who fly by private Gulfstream jet on their frequent shopping trips to Singapore.

The Smell of Victory

"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end..."
(Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, Apocalypse Now)

I have spent the past few weeks working on a project to reform and revitalise Indonesia's forestry sector, which has seen so much unsustainable logging over the past few decades. There now seems to be an overwhelming consensus in the world that forest destruction is wrong, and so it is instructive to review a period of history when forests seemed less important.

I can recall that Agent Orange was a herbicide manufactured by Dow and Monsanto to be used by US forces to clear foliage in Vietnam. I was not aware, however, of the scale of physical destruction wrought by this chemical warfare aside from the thousands of Vietnamese people poisoned by the dioxin.

According to the UN, between 1962 - 197, 70 million litres of Agent Orange was deployed over 1.7 million hectares. 36% of the mangrove forest in South Vietnam was destroyed, and 20% of the natural forest, with a further 300,000 hectares physically cleared by tractors.

The academic journal BioScience concluded that:
'In those 0.5 million hectares of multiply sprayed jungle, these effects have been more drastic, permitting significant amounts of conversion to Imperata grasslands or bamboo brakes whose reversion to forest is not expected for at least several decades. Over 20% of S. Vietnam's 0.5 million hectares of mangrove forest have been sprayed, causing total annihilation of the vegetative cover without subsequent recovery for a time measurable in decades. The plant and animal communities have been totally disrupted.' (Westin, A.H., Ecological Effects of Military Defoliation on the Forests of South Vietnam in BioScience, Vol. 21, No. 17 (Sep. 1, 1971), pp. 893-89)

Our current debate about forestry seems to indicate that we would never allow such wanton destruction again, as L. P. Hartley began 'The Go-Between': "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." However, it does seem hypocritical of northern countries to criticise Indonesia over the current rates of deforestation, without first acknowledging the legacy of destruction in South East Asia perpetrated by northern interests.

As a 'just-so' exercise, it is worth reminding ourselves that the Vietnam war was part of a political strategy in Asia to prevent the spread of communism and thus allow US interests to permeate emerging markets in the region. Suharto's violent coup of 1965 was supported by the US as it was seen as a way to asphyxiate the communist movement in Indonesia. It is interesting to consider that Suharto's brand of US-supported crony capitalism, the legacy of which still despoils this country, was also the main driver for deforestation in the 1980's and 90's, culminating in the structural and governance weaknesses that frustrate sensible forest policy today.

If Indonesia had been allowed to follow its own path, even becoming a quasi-communist state in the style of Vietnam or Cuba, there is a reasonable argument to be made that the forests would be in a better state than they are now. This would have had important implications for the rural livelihoods of 50 million people, bio-diversity and climate change, though shed a tear for the dozen oligarchs who would be a lot poorer. One wonders if there is any evidence, in Asia, Latin America or the Middle East, where it can be said that US geo-political strategy (often prosecuted with no regard to long-term consequences) has improved matters in the long run.

The sinner's new initiative

Indonesia is gearing up for the Bali Climate Change Conference in December. This will be the opportunity for the world's nations to plan the post-Kyoto framework for GHG (greenhouse gasses) reduction, perhaps extending the existing cap and trade schemes.

At least, that was our hope until George W Bush thrust his tattered codpiece into the debate this week with his tumescent 'new' initiative (was there an 'old' initiative that we missed?). Tony Blair seemed delighted with Bush's apparent conversion to the cause, probably on the basis of 'joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth'. Indeed, the fact that Bush acknowledges climate change and accepts that some action must be taken is a some progress from the craven stance of denial and obfuscation that has so far characterized this dire and corrupt administration.

However, the plan to sideline the G8 and UN processes with a US-led initiative is probably not a sound reason for unconfined joy on the part of Blair or anyone else. It rests on the idea of allowing a number of nations to pick a GHG emissions target for the next 10-20 years and then, er, hope it all works out. In fact the whole scheme seems to be fairly loose and relaxed except that the US 'demands' all nations to cut tariff barriers to the transfer of environmental technology from US high-tech firms. Meanwhile the US has once again re-stated its implacable objection to joining in a global system of carbon emissions caps and trading.

The scheme seems to be that the US can continue much as it is now, but can put pressure on developing countries to restrict their emissions and buy US 'clean' technology. There is nothing inherently wrong with hoping that technology will save us, but there is no evidence so far that it will. Furthermore, the thrust of US efforts has been to promote corn-based Ethanol (which uses almost as much energy to grow as it gives back), or float entirely hypothetical ideas about reflective crystals in space and so forth. Both these policy options have traction because the generate massive subsidies for special interest groups (namely farmers and the military-industrial complex).

I believe that the real reasoning behind Bush's new foray into climate change is to find a way to keep China and India in check. Bush referred to energy intensity (EI), which is usually measured by Tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) per million dollars of GDP (in purchasing power parity dollars). This measures the amount of energy that a country uses in relation to its economic output. For instance, according to the World Resources Institute, the UK had an EI rating of 168.5 in 1990, which had fallen to 141.2 in 2003. This was mainly due to the changing nature of the UK economy, which has moved out of industry (which converts adds labour + raw materials + power into tangible products) and into services (which converts labour + knowledge into intangible services). The US has also seen a reduction, from an EI of 272 in 1990 to 221 in 2003.

Where has all this industrial activity gone? Well, many US politicians argue that it has been off-shored to China, so we would expect their EI rating to have risen over the same period, but in fact it has dropped from 504 to 231, so it is roughly the same as the US. India has also dropped (250 to 189), and developing countries as a whole score 224 compared to 300 in 1990. So how will Bush persuade China and India to reduce their energy intensity any further when they are already fairly lean?

Another way to look at this is the C02 intensity, which measures metric tonnes of C02 per million $ of GDP. In 2003 the USA pumped out 556 tonnes per million of GDP, compared to 684 in 1990. China pumps out 658 compared to a massive 1374 in 1990. So in the 13 year period in question China became more efficient at converting energy to GDP (by 50%), while the USA became just 19% more efficient. And all of this happened while China was experiencing the fastest economic growth of any country in history, ever.

Developing countries as a whole produced 491 tonnes of C02 per million of GDP, compared to 510 in developed countries.

This means that the US rhetoric about the profligacy of those irresponsible developing countries going hell-for-leather for growth with no thought for the planet does not stand up to analysis. It is, as usual, the insatiable consumption of developed countries that is driving the boom in places like China, which will need to keep building coal-fired power stations to supply the demand. For the US to suggest that no deal on cuts in emissions is possible until developing countries cut their own emissions is merely a stalking horse to introduce non-tarrif barriers against those countries and thus shield US industry from competition. This painted fop is protectionism dressed up as diplomacy, slumped over the exhausted steed of American exceptionalism and entitlement.

Makassar sunset

Taken in Makassar, South Sulawesi, a place famous for its sunsets.