Senators - Nick Palmer
Nick Palmer, another member of the 2020 group, has a special interest in the environment and works with the Jersey Conservation Volunteer organisation.
He strongly opposes plans for a new incinerator and would propose a cleaner and greener option if he were elected as Senator.
[ Source : BBC Jersey ]
Environmental campaigner Nick Palmer is standing for Senator.
Mr Palmer, a 54-year-old St Lawrence resident who used to chair the Jersey branch of Friends of the Earth, is standing for a six-year Islandwide mandate on an environmental platform. Born in Birmingham, he moved to Jersey as a child. He was educated at First Tower School and Hautlieu, and is married to Alma.
He said that he had been speaking to other potential candidates about drafting a joint green platform that they could adopt, without going as far as forming a political party. Mr Palmer added that adopting 'environmental economics' – that would give companies and Islanders tax rebates for reducing their carbon footprints with insulation or recycling for example – would be a step forward for the Island.
"We should aim to be a centre for ecological economics excellence and so we should provide a welcome to those with knowledge of environmental economics to come here while giving every encouragement to our existing finance and legal industry to start training staff in these matters, followed in due course by conversion of their practices," he said.
[ Source : This Is Jersey ]
Proposers
- Mike Stentiford
- Mike Liston
- Maureen Niquel
- Nigel Queree
- Judith Queree
- Deidre Mezbourian
- Philip Perchard
- Peter Surcouf
- Rob Duhamel
- Daniel Wimberley
[ Source : Channel Online ]
Senatorial Nomination
Proposer Mike Stentiford said that Birmingham-born Nicholas Palmer had spent over 50 years living in Jersey. He said that Mr Palmer had shown deep passion and clear understanding of the natural world and that his views extended to both local and global issues. He described the candidate as a natural participant in all things green and said that in the 70s he was involved with Save the Whales before becoming involved with Friends of the Earth 20 years later, an organisation where he worked as a co-ordinator for eight years. He said that Mr Palmer was a campaigner for many environmental issues and that he had proposed alternatives to the proposed new incinerator, which would make waste treatment cleaner, greener and part of a more sustainable strategy. He added that Mr Palmer had contributed to an American book about global warming which was due to be published soon.
[ Source : This Is Jersey ]
Election Manifesto - 200 Word Version
I want: GST off basic living costs. A population cap. Jersey's countryside/culture protected. Economic development, not growth. Support for small/medium local businesses. Incinerator alternatives. Diversification of agriculture. Tidal/wind power generation. Insulation/energy efficiency grants. Political honesty. Increased fairness.
I will "blog" online for feedback/consultation.
I will promote sustainability issues forcefully. Imagine Jersey 2035's cosy future is deceptive. Business as usual is not an option. The "big four" world threats will affect Jersey unless far reaching plans are made, both here and globally. Peak oil, climate change, financial instability and overpopulation cannot be airbrushed away - it's not only Jersey's future generations that will suffer - it's our near future.
The U.N.'s recent GEO4 report announced that we are living 25% beyond the capacity of the Planet. Our environmental "spending" exceeds our "income" and we're heading for the limits on our planetary credit card.
Jersey's challenges are solvable by including the environment, social justice and wellbeing into the measuring instruments that ordinary economics uses. The setting up, administration and financial instruments of "ecological economics" will be a lucrative new direction for Jersey's accounting and legal industry to take thus ensuring future employment for Jersey residents and safety for humanity in general.
[ Source : Vue Des Isles ]
A video of Nick Palmer's election manifesto is available on Channel Online
Election Manifesto - BBC Version
I am campaigning on an environmental platform. There are two types of environmentalist; conservationists, who look after green lizards and look after plants and habitats and things, and then there's the nuts and bolts environmentalists, who look after and campaign for clean air, water, rain, food, the climate and pollution.
Now, on the campaign trail talking to sitting States members, I've realised that they don't actually realise the situation we're in.
Environmentalists are often accused of crying wolf; well I'm afraid the wolf is at the door now.
With climate change, peak oil, financial meltdown, and over-population, these big four will cause us big trouble. They are all connected and are linked by growth and consumption; these four together will make the current credit crunch and inflation in food and energy look like a tea-party.
Our current States as a whole is rather like an ostrich with its head in the sand. Not only do they not know their answers, they don't even properly acknowledge the questions.
I think that they just believe if they ignore the four big threats to our future, or not give them enough weight, then they will solve themselves magically without them having to take any urgent or strong decisions.
Listen to the politicians up for election, anyone who drones on about economic growth being the answer, 2%, 3%, 4% a year, literally is a danger to our future.
Economics which takes the environment into account allows economic development, not growth, but can prove that indefinite growth as an idea is past its sell-by-date. Ecological economics puts the environment and people's well being onto the accountant's bottom-line.
Automatically the free market will make cleaner, greener sustainable business become more profitable than the inefficient, wasteful, polluting ones that exploit the workforce too in some cases.
It is the answer to the big four threats; and I am going to plug it in the States if you elect me. If elected I promise to hammer away until this solution is taken up.
Now a side effect of saving the world, is that our finance and legal industry will have a new and lucrative industry to move into, really ecological economics could be the next big thing for Jersey.
We've always had a special niche; ship-building, farming, tourism, finance – we need a new direction, and if elected I'll do my best to steer us towards it.
Now I said the wolf is at the door, well I know how to make a wolf trap. Help me save you, your families, and your grandchildren.
Oh and by the way, I'm also for taking GST off food and basic living costs.
I'm for direct communication with the electorate via my website nickpalmer.org, and my blog.
Vote for my policies or someone like them, so we can all save our skins in the troubling times ahead.
An audio version of this election manifesto is available from BBC Jersey
[ Source : BBC Jersey ]
A video of Nick Palmer's election manifesto is available on Channel Online
Election Manifesto - Bullet Point Version
"For Jersey - For the Planet - For people"
- Food, energy and climate security. When "food miles" are taxed, local production will get a boost. Market gardening for local food supply will need to be favoured. Allotments should be set up. Local production favoured - food and goods manufactured at a distance to include the environmental costs and the "leakage" to the local economy in the price.
- Encouragement for ground source heat pump technology.
- A long term plan to become an energy exporter to Europe by investing in a "mega" tidal/wind generation system in the Bay of St Malo with associated fish farming pens and shellfish friendly reef structures.
- Move towards reducing income tax and compensating by taxing discretionary expenditure. GST off locally supplied food, basic living, housing costs, children's clothes and shoes – possibly purchase of local goods and services to be incentivised by grants using some of the revenue from Green taxes.
- Increased grants for insulation, conservation and renewable energy generation projects.
- Income support scheme needs reviewing to reduce unfairness and unforeseen effects.
- More support for the disabled including employment opportunities.
I give a commitment to consult with and inform the general public as much as possible and also special interest groups, both directly on at least one local Internet forum and also by use of an online "blog" and website with "inside the States" gossip and an emailed "progress report" to anyone interested (time allowing!)
- A population cap for Jersey to be introduced. Immigration above this level balanced by financially encouraging emigration, particularly those citizens who may wish to retire elsewhere.
- A recognition that while it is logically impossible for conventionally, and simply, measured economic growth to continue sustainably, that economic development can continue indefinitely.
- A drive for the taxpayers money to be spent within the Island – not allowed to leak out in pursuit of the allegedly "world-class". Money generates sustainable wealth best if it circulates within an economy rather than "leaking" away. Large Public construction projects should favour local tax-paying businesses. Even if the tender is somewhat more expensive, the "multiplier" effect of that money in the local economy should more than compensate.
- A long term plan for the lowering of tax on income so that environmental taxes – carbon/transport miles etc can be brought in. Those who currently pay no income tax would receive a green tax payback dividend so they are no worse off.
- Measures should be applied to damp down the type of property speculation that is making ordinary houses unaffordable for many, although the current financial crisis might do this first.
- Efforts to protect and enhance the local environment, ecology, culture and heritage should be intensified.
- Any further significant building to provide cheaper homes should concentrate on developing existing sites. Large development in the countryside and Green zones only allowed if a "quid pro quo" area of already developed land is returned to nature or a similar environmental benefit accrues.
- Measures to reward "car poolers", cyclists and bus users to reduce congestion and greenhouse gases.
- We need to realise that we have a larger responsibility to take action to protect the global environment that most countries because our very high standard of living has a correspondingly greater footprint and shadow.
[ Source : Nick Palmer ]
A video of Nick Palmer's election manifesto is available on Channel Online
Election Manifesto - Extended Version
"The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment." – Herman Daly, Senior economist, World Bank
"I think that the financial system has gone overboard in the financial engineering, it has grown too big, it has taken up too big a share of the worlds resources. Now it is shrinking, and I think when it becomes once again regulated, it will be less profitable then it has been in the last 25 years." George Soros, Newsnight interview 16th September, 2008
We are heading for a "perfect storm". We need critical planning to deal with the "Big Four" drivers of future policy, and our government is fiddling while Rome is about to burn. They literally do not seem to see the dangers – their green "talk" is encouraging but their green "walk" is massively inadequate. The States give nowhere near enough weight to Global Warming - Peak oil - Global over-population – The Credit Crunch and possible global recession meltdown (any financial recession may hit Jersey harder than larger more diversified economies)
Solving these problems will require looking at the basics of economic valuation. The progressive introduction of more sophisticated methods of measuring and encouraging sustainable economic success offers Jersey an escape route to save and enhance our valuable finance industry and the jobs that so many families depend on. Jersey famously always found a "special niche" Knitting jumpers, cider apples, shipbuilding, agriculture, tourism and finally the finance industry – what is the next big thing? We need to find one and if we can steer our existing industry, which is heavily involved in the sort of international movement of capital that destabilises economies at times like this, towards early adoption and training for Green (or ecological) economics we could gain first mover advantage over the rest of the world. A sustainable global economy, run on the principles of ecological economics would still need highly specialised financial "whiz kids" to administer it and legal firms to set up the international structures to run it. Why not Jersey as a centre of ecological economics excellence? With a training college (a green Harvard) to boot?
A long term Zero-waste target must be aimed at by increased recycling, re-use and reduction measures with economic encouragement to choose the green way and simultaneously discouraging choosing the wasteful, unsustainable ways.
Rescindment of the incinerator vote before it's too late and we find ourselves committed to a huge, expensive, inappropriate white elephant. The greener, more flexible alternatives just happen to be half the cost, cleaner, greener, future proof, far more flexible and obviously better.
EE (Ecological Economics) involves using financial carrots and sticks to achieve sustainability goals. Green taxes and dividends are not used to raise revenue – the money that is taken from the "polluters" is given back to the greener alternatives and the people.
Sustainable economic well-being starts by localisation of production and consumption. Making the market work better to generate truly sustainable wealth means pricing in the food miles, counting the energy used, the pollution caused, the ecology destroyed, the resources disposed of and putting it onto the accountant's bottom line. Green, efficient, low pollution businesses automatically become more profitable than the destructive alternatives – when people buy things, the environmentally friendly choice becomes the best value product! Production, transport and infrastructure will rapidly change to help our environment rather than deteriorate it as investment decisions favour sustainability.
A sustainable free market allows people to choose goods and lifestyles which have all the costs taken into account, instead of just a misleading few. We won't need laws and restrictions telling us what to do and what not to do. People will just automatically choose the best solution to their needs.
The aspects of culture that make Jersey special should continue to be supported with further encouragement and investment. A place without culture, merely material satisfaction, is empty and unsatisfying – like an Ipod with no music to play on it.
Imagine Jersey 2035 was an example of "garbage in - garbage out". The four options presented 1) growing the economy 2) working longer 3) the resident population pays more and 4) allowing more people to live and work in Jersey did not mention a fifth alternative – changing the economy. The "Big Four" future problems did not feature in the presentation of options, though were often mentioned by participants.
We should aim to have a business college or a training business locally, researching and providing courses in ecological economics which should give Jersey Finance "first mover" advantage. The next "big thing" for Jersey just might be the future Green finance industry.
We will need significant capital investment to achieve as close to energy independence as possible for Jersey. Investigate tidal generation schemes with offshore wind power in the Bay of St Malo where there is colossal predictable energy. The infrastructure would support artificial reefs for fish and shellfish farming. Joining up the dots long term could give us a causeway to France with cheap, road based, import of goods and the possibility of commuting to the Jersey office from your French house.
GST should be removed from peoples' basic needs - food, domestic energy, shoes and clothes, educational books and materials – items that people have little choice about purchasing. If not "too expensive" to administer, the revenue should be clawed back from discretionary, luxury items.
I will support the push for GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) to be introduced to States Department's accounts in 2009. With these principles we will be able to compare the States' expenditure with other jurisdictions. Until the accounts follow recognise international methods, they can be almost impenetrable, even to experts. We need to see transparency in the figures before we can understand how they spend such a lot.
Change, competition and growth are artificially boosted in our economy, particularly in the finance industry. Particularly stressful for employees is the practice of having to comply with the culture of competing to work longer hours and do more unpaid overtime that the next person to show what a company person they are. In many cases, this outward keenness is a pretence. Ask any doctor or therapist how many people are suffering from severe work related stress locally. Jersey is so expensive now that even households with two ordinary incomes are really struggling. The "time past" ideal with one working parent and the other a stay-at-home with the kids is a forgotten memory for many and an impossible dream for the younger generation.
Despite the recent "average wage" figures from the Statistics Unit, most people get nowhere near that. There is a widening gap between those in "high value" employment and the rest. Our current very risky overdependence on the finance industry has had many benefits for Jersey but some of the consequences for those who do not work in it have made life more of a struggle, particularly in the last few months. It clearly is part of the vision of the current Council of Ministers to grow the finance sector – less obvious is certain knock-on consequences that will put pressure on people in ordinary, so called "low value" employment.
I strongly support local scaled business and entrepreneurship – they really do create employment. Employers sometimes forget that a great business idea is not enough. A successful business is one where the employers are content to work well. Business can gain temporary success without valuing their employees, by paying them little and treating them as disposable but the long term effects both for the business and society are very serious. I have worked in low wage jobs in the past so I understand the terrible struggles that people on low incomes must be having now. In an Island with very high material consumption and extremely high wages for some, sp may people must feel excluded from feeling part of Jersey at all.
Cost of living, particularly housing is being pushed up by those working in the high value industries. Ordinary people, if they are not already on the property ladder, look set to never be able to afford a home.
Income Tax should always be progressive.
Increased insulation and efficiency investment.
Transport - cycle routes should be expanded. We should investigate the use of the shared minibus concept, radio controlled with GPS so that people could get a flexible door to door service. Particularly for the commuter/school runs.
Air Transport – we may have to prepare ourselves for more expensive plane fares and fewer scheduled services as aviation fuel increases in the years ahead.
Plug in Hybrids would be ideal for Jersey distances. For new vehicle purchases, tax carrots and sticks should discriminate in favour of the more efficient alternatives. People with older cars should be encouraged to keep them as long as possible to preserve their "embodied energy", which is wasted when a new vehicle is purchased.
Economic diversity is economic strength. The simplistic view that customers always will choose the very cheapest option leads to the destruction of local economies by the importation of large external companies, such as supermarkets. There is a large blind spot in "the more competition, the better" mantra because it assumes that the person who shops has nothing to with the person who is employed by local businesses. In reality, they are often the same person. It is no good importing the Walmart/Asda model and giving us lower prices if local businesses are devastated and there are fewer people who can afford to shop because ordinary jobs in shops become scarcer and probably even less well paid. Local business contributes to the social and cultural "capital" of the Island. Money that circulates in a local economy, because of the "multiplier" effect is of much greater value to economic well-being than a cheap international supermarket whose profits would not stay in the Island anyway.
Small to medium businesses are of much greater sustainable value ultimately than large international companies such as supermarkets. It may be anathema to our economic growth Minister but there is an optimum level of competition beyond which it becomes cut-throat - which is of no value to anyone. I think that the current chant of more competition - more efficiency - more growth that we constantly hear is very destructive, no matter how sensible they appear to some. These chants have become an article of faith that their proponents believe will cure all ills – well, the real world is somewhat more complicated than that. Dealing with the "big four" cannot be done with these tools and their associated assumptions.
Agriculture - we must become more food secure in the coming world of diminishing oil and worldwide disruption of agriculture due to global warming We need much increased market gardening for the local market and the conversion of little used land into allotments. A fully organic Island could be a great selling point for eco-tourism. For export, new specialist crops should be considered. It is likely that "foodmiles" taxes will make currently cheap produce from the other side of the world expensive. Our farmers should be ready to move into the new markets, supplying the local and near British market.
Further building development really should stick to infill or "brownfield" sites or be on an exchange basis with existing low quality buildings.
Tourism - with a reduction in long distance air travel, and the much higher fares likely in future, there will be a move back to holidays nearer home. Jersey just might benefit from a revival of short haul UK holidays.
People who reach retirement age should be allowed to work on with part-time hours, if they wish, with the due pension being gradually trickled in as the hours worked reduce. This may help with the pension "time-bomb".
Encourage job promotion and training from within the Island. It is silly for a small Island to claim that it should always go for recruiting the "top" people when this crowds out competent locals from being considered for the higher value jobs. I have my doubts about whether the States' human resources recruitment policies are optimised.
Investigate alternative waste disposal options. They are greener, more efficient, more future proof, smaller and cheaper. They are an absolute no-brainer yet 31 States members voted for a huge expensive incinerator that I bet Frank Walker £10 will be viewed as a disastrous decision (if we actually build it) within 10 years from the date of the debate.
[ Source : Nick Palmer ]
A video of Nick Palmer's election manifesto is available on Channel Online
Biography
Age: 54
Place of birth: Birmingham - resident for 50 years
Family: Married to Alma; two step children
Education: Hautlieu
Employment: Fulfillment industry for duration of campaign. Assistant researcher on book (about to be published), on climate change and risk assessment. Continued lobbying for alternatives to incineration
Hobbies/Interests: Hang gliding, sustainability, thinking, real economics, vegetable gardening, pets, food
[ Source : This Is Jersey ]
Environmentalist; thinker; hang glider pilot; almost forty years of environmental campaigning and knowledge; particular interest in how ordinary economics and business models start to fail (and what to do about it) when approaching the limits (when the world starts to put up a "house full" notice). Which is now. Married to the fantastic Alma Catherine. Two step-children and numerous pets including a rescue dog and a guinea pig.
[ Source : Nick Palmer ]