Wame Molefhe profiles Botswana, where prosperity has morphed into corruption and inequality. But... A few fragments from the surprising history of equality, by Danny Dorling. Countries to the right are more unequal, while countries that are high up produce more waste. New Internationalist co-founder Peter Adamson dives into the perils of basing ‘fairness’ on meritocracy. Relatively low petrol/gasoline use in the UK, Singapore and Israel shows that very unequal countries need not necessarily use huge amounts. Comments are welcome while open. “There’s a concern that if you tax capital, capital will move out. US emissions per person are almost twice those of the Japanese, and more than three times those of the French. We are encouraged to be aspirational, to better ourselves, not for the greater good, but for selfish reasons – ultimately, to be able to get all that stuff. Can male volunteers help break the cycle of womens’ political exclusion in Kenya? New Internationalist is a lifeline for activists, campaigners and readers who value independent journalism. "The idea that somehow it’s taxes and high capital costs that are holding back investment — that seems to me to be an absurdity in the era of zero interest rates," he said. “We have good systems – they need to be protected and expanded, not cut – it’s under constant threat,” he said. A visual poem for those affected by the tragedy, by Julio Etchart. Wayne Ellwood investigates. Summers said he believes that in the U.S. the constant push for tax cuts and the erosion of union bargaining rights has led to greater income inequality. Catherine Yeomans reports on how to tackle the issue, Sian Griffiths reports on a no-nonsense movement which is reshaping traditional solutions to chronic homelessness, India’s ‘Smart City’ plan stumbles over slums. That choice was again affected by economic inequality and the beliefs associated with it: that individual aspirations should trump the collective good and that ‘the car is king’. There should be no reason for a wealthy person to help a poor person, unless the wealthy person is offering a job to the poor person so they can earn money themselves. She’s survived cancer, two heart attacks and even fractured a few ribs on stage. “We have lots of ideas of what to do about it dating back to the 1990s,” Myles said. The fear is that the world is developing what one expert calls a "Downton Abbey economy", with a small wealthy class – the 1 per cent – and a large class of poor workers. Between 2005 and 2014 it failed to freeze over five times, every other year. But it is worth noting that no relatively equal affluent country consumes more than half as much gasoline per person as Canada and the US do each year. Yes the rich do have an obligation to help the poor. The acclaimed journalist talks to Nick Dowson about how to get out of the mess we’re in. Give a copy of the ground-breaking book The Equality Effect by Danny Dorling to a UK politician. UK General Election: Why Theresa May’s approach to social mobility is incoherent, Simon Chandler analyses the Tory manifesto and May’s speeches, and explains why their efforts to tackle inequality are a facade, Why we are sending this book to Theresa May. The most important benefit of the equality effect may be that it leads us to behave in ways that are less environmentally damaging. In the first 250 years of the priests’ recordings the lake only failed to freeze over three times. In conclusion, affluent people should give a certain percentage of their wealth to help do away with absolute poverty in the world, because people are not only living beings who have a right to healthy lives, but because it is wrong to allow people to die when helping them live is well within your means. The preliminary conclusion based on these natural experiments is that the more economically equitable countries tend to perform better across a wide range of environmental measures. All the same, it is clear that some rich countries are substantially more unequal than others, ranging from the most unequal – the US – to the most equal – Denmark. Comments on this story are moderated according to our Submission Guidelines. Rank them sky high by paying them many times more than other people and they can become so conceited that they more easily treat others who are less well-off poorly, with no respect and with little empathy. In its December 2015 report, Oxfam found that the greatest polluters of all were the most affluent 10 per cent of US households. But ordinary people were very affected, losing their homes because of the dodgy mortgage business and having their jobs threatened. Tobago’s music legend Calypso Rose talks... Ian Neubauer reports from Bougainville, where rebels chased away a mining company 30 years ago. The “mortgage debacle” should never have happened, Galbraith said. Rank them sky high by paying them many times more than other people and they can become so conceited that they more easily treat others who are less well-off poorly, with no respect and with little empathy. The responsibility of the rich to help the poor is not a concrete law and is nothing forced, it stems from long-developed social expectations driven by feelings of empathy and a desire to improve a nation’s society. But the general trend is pretty clear. The amount of crops that have to be grown and transported to feed the animals that we eat is far greater than the amount that would be needed if we just ate the crops themselves. These theories remain unproven, but what we do know is that people in more economically unequal countries in general eat more meat per person by weight. 'Globally, the CO2 emissions associated with individual lifestyles are due to the actions of the richest tenth of humanity'. In these three cases there are large dense urban areas that can only function with good public transport such as underground trains, buses and trams. Those people seemed not to be affected by the economic downturn that resulted from the 2008 bank failures and subprime mortgage crisis, although it was poor banking decisions that triggered the global meltdown. If the correlation between the two were perfect, they would all line up along a line drawn from the bottom left to the top right. Hannah O’Neill and Louise Donovan report. There are many different records of global warming, but the Lake Suwa records are the longest and most striking. The advantages of equality are clear, while the negative effects of widening inequality in some countries become apparent. “At the high end, it’s a very small number of people who have been scoring very big. Got it. Bear in mind also that the figures for the very rich are probably an underestimate because so much of their income and wealth is hidden, especially in the most unequal countries. This article is excerpted from his new book, Slowdown, published by Yale University Press in April, 2020. With a new podcast, eBooks, tote bags and magazine subscriptions on offer, Wealth is meant to be earned, not to be given. India's $15 billion grand project to transform cities into models of tech and infrastructural innovation is already in trouble.... Finding home: Lack of affordable housing is a crisis across the West. But the tendency of the more unequal countries to produce more waste is still striking overall – and would be even more so if the 50 US states were included separately as smaller circles. That’s why this has to be done in a spirit of global cooperation,” he told CBC News, adding that there is a movement at the G8 and G20 to move toward more taxation of capital. Obesity rates are much higher in affluent countries that are more economically unequal. It is a moral responsibility of the rich to help the poor. Usually the rich will recoup money used to help the poor because the poor have to spend. People are fatter in the US because they eat more food; because they sit in cars more often and for longer; because they are exposed to more advertising and eat more and buy more cars as a result; because they live in greater fear of crime and so are afraid of not driving; and because they are surrounded by other obese people and therefore don’t feel so unusual if they are also fat. Lidy Nacpil disputes the World Bank’s claim that it’s now fighting inequality. The bubble chart below, in which each country is sized according to its population, tracks an environmental indicator (the vertical axis) against levels of inequality (the horizontal one). “At the bottom end for a very large number of people it’s the collapse of economic security. Some of it you may recycle, but recycling is not only never fully efficient, it also uses a great deal of energy and hence generates pollution itself. But you will eventually throw away almost everything you buy. How creativity is killed in the Majority World. James Myles, a senior research fellow at the University of Toronto's school of public policy and governance, says there are there are economic costs to having people grow poorer, including a lack of spending power to fuel the economy. Residents of the US contribute more emissions of CO2 than any other of the 25 rich countries featured. -Kenny, Grand Rapids, MN … Get up, stand up! Our great-grandparents did not eat much meat at all, and chicken was often for Christmas Day and the occasional Sunday. Seems like we’re all in need of a New Internationalist perspective. He says the 2008 financial crisis helped bring income inequality into sharp relief. Labour knocks out a radical new vision for development. Patreon is a platform that enables us to offer more to our readership. Another theory is that in more equitable countries the population tends to be better educated and so can more easily see through the folly of fast-food advertising and gluttony. Toby Hill profiles the country’s precarious democracy. Danny Dorling is Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford. When the rich get richer they get more powerful and that puts them in the position to lobby for policies that make them richer still,” Summers said. Can men help break Kenyan womens’ exclusion? Galbraith does not believe globalization is a big factor in growing inequality. the July-August 2017 issue Strikes have shown our strength. By submitting a comment, you accept that CBC has the right to reproduce and publish that comment in whole or in part, in any manner CBC chooses. In 2015 Oxfam reported in detail on why emissions from some countries were so much greater than others. Everything is connected. In 1443 Shinto priests who lived on the edge of Lake Suwa in Japan began recording the date when the lake froze over in winter and when the temperature changes created a ridge of ice across the surface. We reserve the right to close comments at any time. The perception that a few people are getting rich at the expense of the rest of us is fuelling a backlash, from the Occupy movement that began in 2011 to the austerity protests in Europe, to the worker walkouts in support of a higher minimum wage last year in the U.S. Join the discussion on income inequality at 8 p.m. with Amanda Lang. In general, the more economically unequal a rich country is, the more CO2 it emits. In the financial sector, the bankers, in the technology sector, in the energy sector,” he said. Collaborating with economists including Thomas Piketty, Oxfam discovered that what drove excessive consumption in any particular affluent country was economic inequality. Increasing meat consumption has not made us healthier. A gesture of love and solidarity from estates and communities in East London to Grenfell and their local community. Can I criticize fast fashion without sounding ‘out of touch’? By Danny Dorling. In contrast, Australia mines and burns a great deal more coal (and also, incidentally, mines a large amount of uranium). Among the most affluent 25 countries three stand out as extreme in this regard: the US, Canada and Australia. ⓘ When you buy an item, you don’t think about junking it. It is free to read online – please support us so we can keep it that way. Alienation and empire in the Big Smoke. More and more young people are becoming homeless across the West. The fear is that the world is developing what one expert calls a "Downton Abbey economy", with a small wealthy class – the 1 per cent – and a large class of poor workers. Subscribe today ». A good job is no longer one which benefits society, but one that pays you well. Billionaire Warren Buffett on helping the poor: 'A rich family does not leave people behind' Published Wed, Sep 5 2018 10:06 AM EDT Updated Wed, Sep … “Canadian inequality has not reached American peaks, but the real concern among people who’ve been studying this issue is about the long-term trend – that’s what has people upset and concerned,” Myles said in an interview with CBC’s The Lang & O’Leary Exchange. But behind all of these factors lies the basic difference in how human beings are ranked. of third party cookies. By weight (if we ignore insects and fish) most of the animal life on our planet is now intensively farmed for our own consumption. The bubble chart below suggests that the more unequal countries (again sized according to population) tend to consume more meat. To encourage thoughtful and respectful conversations, first and last names will appear with each submission to CBC/Radio-Canada's online communities (except in children and youth-oriented communities). They believed that the ridge was formed by the feet of the gods as they walked over the lake and so they carried on recording the date the ridge was formed each year after that, to the present day. If automation decimates jobs, we need better solutions than these, argues Nick Dowson. Once we know what the driving forces are, and become fully aware of the damage that is done by inequality in environmental as well as social terms, we will know how necessary it is to embrace change. According to Bill Gates, Steven Pinker and the like, the world has never been better and global poverty is shrinking. These three are among the least densely populated countries in the rich world and driving distances between homes and workplaces are often long, but they have chosen to arrange their cities in this way. In economically unequal countries the pressure to buy items to keep up with your peers, with ‘people who count’, is enormous, especially when it comes to clothes, fashion, new cars and other status symbols. Whatever the reason, greater equality is associated with less obesity and less meat eating, and the world needs human beings to eat less meat if we are to avoid depleting our soils, increasing greenhouse gases and also reducing the biodiversity of the planet to such an extent that monocultures prevail and we lose habitats. Helping a poor community can often have ripple effects that improve the entire society, like a reduced crime rate. Meanwhile, the middle class is being squeezed with higher prices and stagnant wages, forcing many to go into personal debt to try to keep up. Howe Institute and Armine Yalnizyan of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives debate solutions, worker walkouts in support of a higher minimum wage, CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices. It has only been since the late 1970s that the 25 rich countries that have been the focus of this article have begun to diverge widely to arrive now at very different levels of economic inequality. Having a large stable middle class is a sign of a wealthy country, says James Galbraith, author of Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy Just Before the Great Crisis. Tamara Pearson explains why the poor are not taken seriously on creative stages. Equality matters in terms of health and happiness, but surprising new data reveals that it is also better for the environment – in the more equal rich countries, people on average consume less, produce less waste and emit less carbon. The equality effect on the environment is most evident when we look within countries. If the wealthy give to the poor, then the lower classes might become very dependent on the wealthy giving to them. We talked to homeless in different countries and they revealed housing insecurity's different causes around the world. In a more equitable country people are, in general, more careful, public transport is better, and the need to keep up with those above you and mimic their behaviour is far less acutely felt. One theory as to why is that the poor in such countries have to resort to cheap fast food, which is advertised to them aggressively and often includes lower-grade meat. Box 500 Station A Toronto, ON Canada, M5W 1E6. We can’t put off facing the consequences of our diets, says Leo Barasi. Our excessive use of motor vehicles contributes not only CO2 but also other damaging gases such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides as well as pumping particulate matter into the air we all breathe. “Some of them involve income redistribution, many involve what’s called social investment, early childhood education, job training for young adults, but no one wants to pay for it.”. Hazel Healy gives five reasons as to why Labour's new development policy paper is worth celebrating. Please note that CBC does not endorse the opinions expressed in comments. It’s the collapse of retirement security, of the value of their homes, of their job security, the decline in the services they rely on – public schools, health care, the amenities of life,” he said. In Japan people on average buy and throw away half as much as people in the US – of everything! 'The poor pollute less when less poor, and the rich pollute less when less rich'. Bear in mind that this comparison is different from that on Page 14, which compared the income of the top one per cent with the average income. The most damaging form of pollution (in terms of absolute effect) is the carbon dioxide (CO2) we are responsible for releasing into the atmosphere. So, the more meat per person that is eaten in a country, the less environmentally friendly the people of that country collectively are. You can access the entire archive of over 500 issues with a digital subscription. Mark Engler reflects on the vulgar reality of extreme wealth. Jason... What if...we reduced carbon emissions to zero by 2025? An interview with photographer and writer Lewis Bush by Husna Rizvi. Because they have done so, a set of natural experiments has been set up which today allows research into the effects of these differences. They then argue for cycle routes, pavements, good public transport, and to be able to afford to live near where they work. Plutocrats and paupers: life after robots. To stop climate change, we need to eat less meat. Again, there are a few outliers – notably Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa, possibly because their cultural histories are bound up with the rearing of sheep and cattle and their high levels of meat production. Environmental groups are taking Norway to court over oil drilling in the Arctic. Ethical and political dilemmas abound these days. 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