Wednesday 19 August 2020

Beddington Farmlands Nature Reserve Campaign Update

*Important Note: I've received some feedback on this post and been advised to clarify what I'm saying here. Just to clarify:

Viridor are creating the Beddington Farmlands Nature Reserve and Viridor have recently been acquired by a company called KKR and Co Inc, an enormous company with over $545 billion worth of enterprise value and one of the owners is the 317th richest person in the world.  Within such an organisation Beddington Farmlands is a microscopic consideration, so small that we could be invisible and our ethical and moral considerations may be beyond the sight of the owners and the organisation (this is what I meant by my first opening line- I used the word ammoral (incorrectly spelt too) in the context of a particular meaning (of which there are several meanings like most words some being contrynms which have completely opposite meanings such as bolt which means both to fasten down and also to leg it) . That meaning was the meaning of being unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something- and particularly in our context this lack of concern was potentially due to our microscopic size within such a large organisation. The term superhuman was a term I used from the book Homo Deus by Jewish writer Yuval Noah Harari (a DAVOS speaker who speaks to World Leaders) , who refers to the evolution of a global elite/oligarchy . I use this in the positive sense, I'm no superhuman but I do wish to be ruled by ones that are benevolent and consider our concerns. 

Only by making our ethical and moral considerations known can we bring our concerns to the vision of KKR- the super company and the super humans behind it. Most large companies work on a reactive basis where problems are invisible to them until complaints or protests/demonstrations bring them to attention. It's like we are pain receptors and need to communicate that pain to the brain. Only then is there a choice to address the ethical and moral implications. Until then there is indifference (maybe that is a better word than amoral?)  

Another point I raised in this post was that wikidpedia lists the owners of KKR as being from jewish families and are cousins. Now to be honest and I hope I don't get into trouble for this, I thought that was a great positive as the potential of a religious and spiritual aspect to this could be beneficial to this. Now I may well get into even more trouble now by saying, if 'we' were now owned by a Chinese company or a Russian Company with Putin connections or a Colombian company quite frankly I would have been overcome with prejudice and panic and literally thought our situation was now completely hopeless- I know that's unfair but as usual I'm being completely honest on here.

So I had a good chat with the Jewish Greens (part of the Green Party) about this matter and I've been advised to research whether this Jewish aspect is something that is even relevant to our situation. For it to be relevant there would need to be a trickle down of that ethos through the company and the companies they own and it would be wise not to jump to any conclusions before we do that research. The fact that the owners have religious connections could be of no relevance to us at all. At the moment it is just a hope in our overall rather hopeless situation. Indeed I agree with that 100% so will research the matter thoroughly. 

Also there is a bit of mis-leading information in my comments section- the Forbes report I link to was from 2010 when 40 of the top 100 billionaires in the US (not the world) were Jewish. That could be more or less today and I should have said 10 years ago and not within the last 10 years. Nonetheless they are an extremely successful minority, no doubt down to a strong spiritual and community setting which could be a benefit to us locally especially if we get the backing by members of that community. 

I'm also aware that making our concerns known and addressed when dealing with a large organisation does involve a good democratic spirit and to adopt a strong respectful contesting position- this is why i used the word opponent. In the positive/democratic/debating sense. 

Well I hope that clears that up, I was a bit ambivalent / neutral in my original post because I didn't want to draw too much attention to my positive excitement that we are not owned by the Chinese, Russians or Colombians! Sorry!!  

Here is the original post:

A couple of bits of big news on this front, the first is good news the second bit is into the realms of ammoral all powerful superhumans beyond good and evil, right or wrong, good or bad.  

The good news is that Beddington Farmlands now has a new nature reserve warden, a guy called Charlie who has come over from Walthomstow wetlands. Bless him, I'm not sure he knows he has walked straight into the battle for middle earth South London style.

The second bit of news  is that Viridor have been brought by the 317th richest man in the world and his partners MORE HERE and profile of KKR HERE . These guys are Jewish global oligarchs HERE and HERE , multi billionaires and like most billionaires they have been getting richer and richer thanks to the pandemic. It's such a small world that we should now have superhuman opponents involved in our patch campaign! 

So this is a real game changer, we've gone up a level and this is level boss. We now have a real shot at 'changing the world' if we win the Battle for Beddington Farmlands. The odds for us have got even worse! 

Following the final extirpation of our Tree Sparrows this year, the next species on the extinction block are our Lapwings. With 100 acre and south east corner being decommissioned and the wet grassland being delayed by nearly 10 years, we are fast running out of habitat for this surviving population. This will be the final iconic species, we've lost Yellow Wagtails, Redshank, Reed Bunting and out of ten target breeding species, all but one species (Reed Warbler) have failed  (Little Ringed Plover showed some signs of recovery this year) so we have to throw everything at saving them. 

Extinction Rebellion groups from across South London are demonstrating on 29th August to highlight the plight of the Lapwings and we are also organising other public events to bring this to public attention. If anything if sadly it comes to it we want this final extinction event to be in the full public gaze, an example of an ecocide at the hands of billionaires and their facilitators (the council, corporations, malleable community members and consultants). It would be good if we can stop it before it comes to that so will be throwing literally everything at this. Hopefully we can escalate this fast to a national extinction rebellion issue. We need rapid escalation- we've potentially only got six or seven months to ensure there is breeding habitat for them next Spring. 


5 comments:

Meropes said...

Out of interest, what is the relevance to conservation (or anything else, for that matter) of KKR's owners' religion? Matt Evans

Peter Alfrey said...

I think an Ethnocracy is relevant to everything that it rules over.
Any type of oligarchy has different implications for its subjects and how for us to engage with our oligarchs https://www.popoptiq.com/types-of-oligarchies/

Meropes said...

OK, but what's a global oligarch? I accept that lots of people think that the world is controlled by a few, very rich, people. But I still don't get the Jewish reference. What's a "Jewish global oligarch"? Doesn't that suggest you think that the world is ruled by a small group of Jewish people? Maybe that's what you mean. but perhaps I'm misunderstanding.

Peter Alfrey said...

No the world is run by one percent of the population as everyone knows and that global oligarchy is made up of many nationalities and religions (which seem to be united by free market, small government ideology). Jewish people do feature highly in the billionaire class with 40 out of the top 100 billionaires are jews in last decade- https://forward.com/schmooze/131574/jews-dominate-forbes-rich-list/ so it's a well represented minority group within the oligarchy. Our particular local oligarchs that own our nature reserve are Jewish so we hope to meet them with a community delegation and if practising it's worth us preparing and maybe bring our local rabbi etc
A part of my family are Jewish (my great grand mother)

Meropes said...

Thanks for bearing with me and taking the time to explain. Matt