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Video and Transcript

Pope Francis’ address to the United Nations on Friday as prepared for delivery and translated by the Vatican:

September 25, 2015 "Information Clearing House" -

The Obama administration Friday announced an “operational pause” of the disastrously failed Pentagon program for arming and training “vetted rebels” in Turkey and sending them back across the border into Syria.

Instead, Pentagon and White House officials indicated, the focus will now shift to cementing ties with leaders of existing “rebel” militias, consisting overwhelmingly of Sunni Islamist forces with connections to Al Qaeda. US backing to these groups will apparently include both arms and ammunition as well as close air support from warplanes deployed by the US and its so-called coalition.

The policy shift follows the revelation last month by General Lloyd Austin, the commander of US Central Command, that only “four or five” individual US-trained fighters were then on the ground in Syria, and barely 100 more were undergoing training. This, after the allocation of $500 million for the Pentagon to train over 5,000 such fighters within the first year.

Austin’s revelation was followed within weeks by the Pentagon being forced to retract its initial denial of verified reports that a group of US-trained fighters sent into Syria had immediately turned over its vehicles and weaponry to the al-Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.

The change in strategy also follows a first week of Russian airstrikes against Islamist forces in Syria, including some that had previously received arms shipments organized by the CIA. Beginning in 2011, the US spy agency set up a clandestine station in Turkey and organized the funneling into Syria of weaponry from Libyan stockpiles after the US-NATO war for regime change had succeeded in toppling and murdering Muammar Gaddafi.

Both Washington and Moscow claim to be waging their respective military campaigns in Syria for the purpose of destroying the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an Al Qaeda offshoot that is the direct product of the unleashing of death and destruction against Iraq, Libya and Syria itself by the US military and CIA.

In reality, however, the US and Russian governments are fighting for opposite aims: Washington, to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad and install an American puppet regime; and Moscow to prop up the Assad government, its sole Middle Eastern ally.

The administration has come under increasing criticism from Republican opponents and sections of the US military and intelligence complex for its supposed “inaction” in the face of the Russian offensive in Syria. This found expression Friday in a column published under the joint byline of Obama’s former defense secretary, Robert Gates, and former Bush administration national security adviser Condoleezza Rice entitled “Countering Putin.”

It calls for actions to “create a better military balance of power on the ground,” including the creation of “no-fly zones” as well as “robust support” for various anti-regime forces and an effort to “solidify our relationship with Turkey,” a principal sponsor of the Islamist militias inside Syria.

The Obama administration’s announcement was also preceded by a letter sent to the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA by a bipartisan group of Senate critics of the administration’s Syria policy calling for an end to the “rebel” training program.

“The Syria Train and Equip Program goes beyond simply being an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars. As many of us initially warned, it is now aiding the very forces we aim to defeat,” stated the letter, which was signed by Democratic senators Tom Udall (New Mexico), Joe Manchin (West Virginia) and Chris Murphy (Connecticut) along with Republican Mike Lee (Utah).

The shift in policy announced Friday will not alter this aspect of the program, but only remove the fig leaf of “moderate” Syrian forces, with the handing over of weapons directly to the Islamists who constitute the dominant force among the anti-Assad “rebels.”

The Pentagon has acknowledged that among the principal obstacles to its training program was the vetting process that was supposed to have excluded those whose views were close to Al Qaeda’s, and the requirement that they engage ISIS as the main enemy, rather than the Assad government. It was unable to find such recruits in anywhere near the numbers projected.

President Barack Obama acknowledged in a press conference last week that the Pentagon’s train-and-equip program “has not worked the way it was supposed to.” He added, “And part of the reason, frankly, is because when we tried to get them to just focus on ISIL,” i.e., ISIS.

It appears that the administration’s answer to this failure is to drop these previous restrictions, providing direct US military aid to forces fighting for the overthrow of the Syrian government, including Islamists who would have been excluded from the Pentagon training program.

In the first announcement of the new program, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, speaking in London following a meeting with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, said that it would be modeled on “the work we’ve done with the Kurds in northern Syria ... That’s exactly the kind of example that we would like to pursue with other groups in other parts of Syria going forward. That is going to be the core of the President’s concept.”

The US coordination with the Kurds, particularly during the ISIS siege of the Syrian city of Kobani, on the Turkish border, involved Kurds providing ground forces, while identifying targets and calling in airstrikes by US warplanes.

As part of the new program, Pentagon officials said that the US military would train “enablers,” leading members of various militias, who would be instructed in how to coordinate with American warplanes in targeting and striking forces on the ground.

The Kurdish “example” has been rendered problematic by Washington’s alliance with Turkey, which has allowed US airstrikes to be launched from Incirlik Air Base and other bases inside Turkey in return for Washington’s tacit approval of Turkish bombing of the Kurds.

The identity of the “other groups” with whom Washington wants to replicate this strategy is far from clear. Some media reports named the “Syrian Arab Coalition” as a likely recipient of US weapons and close air support. Prior to Friday’s announcement, however, no one had ever heard of this coalition, which appears to be something that the Pentagon hopes to cobble together from existing “rebel” groups.

The dominant forces fighting the Assad government consist of ISIS, which Washington claims to be committed to destroying, the al-Nusra Front, which is on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, and Ahrar al-Sham, another Islamist group whose founders came out of Al Qaeda. Other smaller factions are largely fighting in alliance with these forces.

To the extent that the US military provides air support to these militias, it may well come into direct conflict with Russian warplanes that are bombing them.

Far from a tactical retreat, it appears that the suspension of the Pentagon’s train-and-equip program is only setting the stage for a far bloodier war inside Syria, while heightening the real danger of a military clash between the world’s two largest nuclear powers, the United States and Russia.

The world is beginning to realize that a seachange in world affairs occured on September 28 when President Putin of Russia stated in his UN speech that Russia can no longer tolerate Washington’s vicious, stupid, and failed policies that have unleashed chaos, which is engulfing the Middle East and now Europe. Two days later, Russia took over the military situation in Syria and began the destruction of the Islamic State forces.

Perhaps among Obama’s advisors there are a few who are not drowning in hubris and can understand this seachange. Sputnik news reports that some high-level security advisors to Obama have advised him to withdraw US military forces from Syria and give up his plan to overthrow Assad. They advised Obama to cooperate with Russia in order to stop the refugee flow that is overwhelming Washington’s vassals in Europe. The influx of unwanted peoples is making Europeans aware of the high cost of enabling US foreign policy. Advisors have told Obama that the idiocy of the neoconservatives’ policies threaten Washington’s empire in Europe.

Several commentators, such as Mike Whitney and Stephen Lendman, have concluded, correctly, that there is nothing that Washington can do about Russian actions against the Islamic State. The neoconservatives’ plan for a UN no-fly zone over Syria in order to push out the Russians is a pipedream. No such resolution will come out of the UN. Indeed, the Russians have already established a de facto no-fly zone.

Putin, without issuing any verbal threats or engaging in any name-calling, has decisively shifted
the power balance, and the world knows it.

Washington’s response consists of name-calling, bluster and more lies, some of which is echoed by some of Washington’s ever more doubtful vassals. The only effect is to demonstrate Washington’s impotence.

If Obama has any sense, he will dismiss from his government the neoconservative morons who have squandered Washington’s power, and he will focus instead on holding on to Europe by working with Russia to destroy, rather than to sponsor, the terrorism in the Middle East that is overwhelming Europe with refugees.

If Obama cannot admit a mistake, the United States will continue to lose credibility and prestige around the world.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

Public services in the EU are under threat from transatlantic trade agreements that could endanger citizens’ rights to basic services like water, health, and energy for the sake of corporate profits, according to a new report released today by an international group of NGOs and trade unions.

The study shows how the EU’s Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) deal with Canada, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) under negotiation with the US, could lock public utilities into irreversible commercialisation and remove governments' ability to regulate services.

Exposing systemic collusion between big business and European Commission officials in drawing up CETA and TTIP, the report shows how negotiators are doing the work of the EU’s most powerful corporate lobby groups in pushing an aggressive corporate agenda of far-reaching market opening in the public sector.

Pia Eberhardt, researcher and campaigner with lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory:

“Corporate lobby groups have their fingerprints all over CETA and a similarly dangerous agenda is being pursued in the ongoing TTIP talks. The consequences include proposals for excessive investor rights which mean corporations could sue governments for regulations that affect their profits, potentially leading to multi-billion Euro payouts in compensation. Citizens must come together to stop this!”

Jan Willem Goudriaan, general Secretary of the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU):

“The corporate sector is pushing an agenda that threatens citizens and workers as a vast array of public services are set to be subject to liberalisation under the provisions of these agreements. What is at stake is our right to vital services, and the ability of public services to function in the public interest.”

The report states that what is at stake is our right to vital services and more; it is about our ability to steer services of all kinds to the benefit of society at large. If left to their own course, trade negotiations will eventually make it impossible to implement decisions for the common good. As long as TTIP and CETA do not protect the ability to regulate in the public interest, they must therefore be rejected.

The report highlights the aggressive agenda of corporations with regards to TTIP and CETA. And it shows how those in charge of EU trade negotiations are rolling out the red carpet for the services industry, with both the consolidated CETA agreement published in September 2014, as well as drafts of TTIP chapters and internal negotiation documents that reflect the wishlists of corporate lobbyists.

The key findings:

1. TTIP and CETA are being influenced by the EU’s most powerful corporate lobby group BusinessEurope and the European Services Forum, a lobby outfit bringing together business associations as well as major companies such as British Telecommunications and Deutsche Bank.

2. The European Commission actively stimulates business lobbying around its trade negotiations. In other words, there is systemic collusion between the Commission and business circles.

3. CETA is set to become the first EU agreement with the ‘negative list’ approach for services commitments: all services are subject to liberalisation unless an explicit exception is made. The same could happen in TTIP.

4. Big business has successfully lobbied against the exemption of public services from CETA and TTIP as both agreements apply to virtually all services. This effectively limits the governmental authority exemption to a few core sovereign functions such as law enforcement, the judiciary, or the services of a central bank.

5. Under investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), thousands of US and Canadian corporations (as well as EU-headquartered multinationals structuring their investments through subsidiaries on the other side of the Atlantic) could sue the EU and its member states over regulatory changes in the services sector diminishing corporate profits, potentially leading to multi-billion euro taxpayer payouts in compensation.

6. The different reservations and exemptions in CETA and TTIP are inadequate to effectively protect the public sector and decision making over how to organise it.

7. The European Commission follows industry demands to lock in present and future liberalisations and privatisations of public services. This could threaten the growing trend of remunicipalisation of water services, energy grids and transport services. A roll-back of some of the failed privatisations of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) to strengthen non-profit healthcare providers might be seen as violations of CETA/TTIP – as might nationalisations and re-regulations in the financial sector such as those seen during the economic crisis.

8. Giving in to corporate demands for unfettered access to government procurement could restrict governments’ ability to support local and not-for-profit providers and foster the outsourcing of public sector jobs to private firms, where staff are often forced to do the same work with worse pay and working conditions.

9. Both CETA and TTIP threaten to liberalise health and social care, making it difficult to adopt new regulations in the sector. The UK’s TTIP services offer explicitly includes hospital services. In the CETA text and recent TTIP drafts no less than 11 EU member States liberalise long-term care such as residential care for the elderly (Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the UK).

10. The EU’s most recent draft TTIP services text severely restricts the use of universal service obligations (USOs) and curbs competition by public postal operators, mirroring the wishes of big courier companies such as UPS or FedEx. USOs such as daily delivery of mail to remote areas without extra charges aim at guaranteeing universal access to basic services at affordable prices.

11. TTIP and CETA threaten to limit the freedom of public utilities to produce and distribute energy according to public interest goals, for example, by supporting renewables to combat climate change. Very few EU member states have explicitly reserved their right to adopt certain measures with regard to the production of electricity and local energy distribution networks in the trade deals.

12. The US is eyeing the opening up of the education market via TTIP – from management training, and language courses, to high school admission tests. US education firms on the European market such as Laureate Education, the Apollo Group, and the Kaplan Group could benefit as much as German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, which has recently bought a stake in US-based online education provider Udacity.

13. The US film industry wants TTIP to remove European content quotas and other support schemes for the local film industry (for example, in Poland, France, Spain, and Italy). Lobby groups like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPPA) and the US government have therefore opposed the exclusion of audiovisual services from the EU’s TTIP mandate, fought for by the French Government. They are now trying to limit the exception as much as possible, for example, by excluding broadcasting from the concept of audiovisual services – seemingly with the support of EU industry groups like BusinessEurope and the European Commission.

14. Financial investors such as BlackRock engaged in European public services could use TTIP and CETA provisions on financial services and investment protection to defend their interests against ‘burdensome’ regulations, for example, to improve working conditions in the long term care sector. Lobby groups like TheCityUK, representing the financial services industry based in the UK, are pushing heavily for a “comprehensive” TTIP, which “should cover all aspects of the transatlantic economy”.

15. US services companies are also lobbying for TTIP to tackle ‘trade barriers’ such as labour regulations. For example US company Home Instead, a leading provider of home care services for seniors operating franchises in several EU member states, wants TTIP to address “inflexible labour laws” which oblige the firm to offer its part-time employees “extensive benefits including paid vacations” which it claims “unnecessarily inflate the costs of home care”.

The full report can be accessed here.

Colin Todhunter is an independent writer.

Climate crisis (2C) is deepening with each passing day. Capitalism's dominance makes it harder to counter the 2C. At the same time, a lack of actual initiative bewilders the aware part of society. “The sad fact is that the inconvenient truth is not that climate change is happening, but that what we are doing is too little and too late”, write Sunita Narain and Chandra Bhushan of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, in the recently released CSE report Capitan America, US climate goals: a reckoning. The report assesses US-climate position, and unmasks the gap between US words and work. The gap is a grim reality.

Capitalist economy is the main culprit behind the crisis. The system's interests stand against countering the 2C. And, the US, today's principal imperialist power, plays its role, appropriate to its position. “The US”, finds the Capitan America, “is largest historical polluter; 2nd largest emitter annually; has very high per capita CO2.”

A necessary fact that very often gets obscured by imperialist propaganda is told in the report: The people in the US “cannot be fed the story, repeated by their leaders and the powerful media of the free world, that it is the emissions of China and India that are frying the world. The American people cannot be told that they needn't act, because other countries — opting for the right to development — refuse to make a move. The ‘right to development' of the poor, who need carbon space and ecological space for their growth, cannot be equated with the ‘right to pollute' of the rich. The burden of transition cannot be shifted because the rich of the world are rich and so powerful.” Unfortunately, friends of the imperialist camp in the periphery of the world system “forget” to raise this issue: the rich-poor gap, the burden the rich create, the over-burdened poor can no more be burdened. With this “forgetfulness”, these friends confirm their identity: comprador. A comprador gets benefits from master.

This comprador-fact gets outlined in the report as the CSE-leaders write the bitter sentences: “Raising the issue of America's lack of action, we really fear, might justify similar renegade steps from countries like India. Everybody will use the US as a cloak. Argue: first the US, then us. This is not our intention. As environmentalists, we are pushing our government to take aggressive steps to reduce emissions, not only because it is in the interest of the world, but also because it is in our interest to do what we can to re-invent growth without pollution.”

Here, the messages are: [1] Aggressive steps to reduce emissions, and [2] growth without pollution. These two steps are related to fundamental political and economic issues. 

Shall the rulers, the elites with their thrones on the heads of the multitude take real-life action other then sermonizing the poor people, and stop demolishing the essential climate space? No, never until this group is compelled. They can't. Their survival is dependent on this act of demolishing the climate-space, an act of loot. 

These looters copy their masters, and influence others in the broader society. “US lifestyle and consumption patterns are”, write Sunita and Chandra, “aspirational and addictive. Quite simply, everybody wants to be an American. Every citizen of the developing world wants to either live in America or live like an American.”

The 9-chapter report by CSE, the internationally renowned organization, presents “a few inconvenient truths … that might throw cold water on the celebration” with the US Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC). “The US climate action plan”, write Sunita and Chandra, authors of the report, “is dramatic. But it is neither ambitious nor equitable. Worse, it is but business-as-usual. If implemented, we have analysed, emissions reduction will be marginal. Whatever reduction is achieved, whether due to increased efficiency or a shift in fossil fuel use, will be run over by runaway gluttonous consumption.” The climate-policy researchers conclude: “for the sake of the world's future”, “American lifestyle can no longer remain not-negotiable.”

Sunita and Chandra sound caustic as they write a few bitter, but undeniable facts: “Our friends in US civil society are sure to accuse us of playing into the hands of the Republican Party — that fearsome free-market gang of raucous climate sceptics. … [F]or many years now, we have been told, by our same friends in the US civil society, that we must always fear the return of the Republicans, for they will destroy even the vestige of US climate change policy. And when a Democrat president is elected, the advice is we need to ‘tone down', be pragmatic and allow that ‘liberal' person to steer the climate course. Actually, for many years, their Game of Thrones has held us to ransom. Decades have gone, and deadly greenhouse gas emissions still continue to rise. … So, it is time we stopped tiptoeing around the US. It is time to call a spade a spade: US obduracy on climate change has ensured the world today is in the danger zone and will go critical soon. Since 1992, when the framework convention on climate change was signed, the US has played offense — finger pointing at others and justifying its own lack of action. It is time the rest of us stopped playing defense.”

With this reality of imperialist onslaught on climate, the world power bargains with others. Its claims and pronouncements are full with propaganda, full with inaction, full with actions that aggravate the 2C.  The CSE report exposes this US-reality as Capitan America presents many useful US-economy facts that include:

The perception is that after peaking in 2005, US total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) have been reducing. Not true.

Compared to 1990 levels, GHG emissions are up 6 per cent.

In 1990-2013, carbon dioxide emissions are up 7.4 per cent. Carbon-dioxide emissions comprise 82 per cent of all US GHG emissions.

The US INDC tells: it will reduce GHG emissions 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025. Just by using 2005 as its baseline year, the US has avoided cutting 500 million metric tonnes of GHG emissions.

On a 1990 baseline the US will reduce emissions by a mere 13-15 per cent by 2025. This is even lower than what it had pledged in 2010 in the Cancun climate meet, and in percentage as well as absolute terms, the US INDC is far less ambitious than that of the EU-28.

The US INDC says: it will depend on land use, land use changes and forestry (LULUCF) to reduce emissions. By so doing, it has avoided cutting 250 million metric tonnes of GHG emissions by 2025.

The report tears down a number of masks:

Mask 1: 2005 base year and not 1990: “Cleverly used 2005 as base year [as] it allowed emissions to grow, whereas as per Kyoto Protocol it should have cut. If the US had reduced emissions 26-28% below 1990 (and not 2005) levels by 2025, it would have to cut emissions in 2030 by an additional 500 MMTCO2e. So by changing the base year, it will emit 4700 MMTCO2e instead of 4200 MMTCO2e by 2030.”

Mask 2: Hiding behind forests: “About 14% of US emissions is sequestered by forests – roughly 900 MMTCO2e. In 2005, the US emitted 7,350 MMTCO2e of GHG, but by including carbon sinks of about 900 MMTCO2e in forests, it has reduced its net GHG emissions to 6,438 MMTCO2e. If the US had agreed to reduce its emissions by 26-28% excluding LULUCF, it would have had to cut 250 MMTCO2e more GHG in 2025. By changing base year and including LULUCF, the US will emit 750 MMTCO2e more in 2030.” Hence, the report throws a question: “Ambitious or creative accounting?”

The report says: The US INDC isn't equitable. It, then poses the following question: Is the US putting in places policies to move its economy towards low carbon? The report finds: “The US economy is not moving towards low-carbon growth.”

The report misses a basic fact: With dominating interests intact, the economy can't take a different turn unless pressed. The pressure can come either from its survival question or from people. The survival question has a number of aspects: diminishing [1] rate of profit, [2] prospect of self sustainability, [3] preys – labor and nature – on which it survives. Prospect of higher profit through a different approach – alternative energy, advancement in science, technology – can make its business as usual (BAU) less profitable. This will create pressure on its BAU. An aware peoples' movement/political initiative can press it.       

The 132-page report says: “The US remains fossil addicted. It now produces more gas than Russia and more oil than Saudi Arabia. Its coal use has stagnated; but still per capita coal use is 5 times higher than India. The US economy consumes more fossil fuels than in 1990 while its use of renewables is marginal.” The economy is to continue its fossil addiction as the addiction is profitable to it. This addiction is its “famous way of life”, an essential condition to continue with higher profit rate.

The report presents further facts as it says: Fuel Switch – from coal to gas – has happened in the US economy as it's cheaper (average power plant operating costs) to operate gas plants. So the CSE report says: “The US Clean Power Plan is nothing more than business as usual. Switch to natural gas from coal happening because it is cheaper to produce and consume. The economy will, in fact, consume more energy and not less by 2030. Recent scientific evidence suggests that methane emissions could be much higher in gas. Switch to natural gas will delay the transition to renewable. So, in 2030, US will remain fossil fuel addicted.”

The climate policy researchers tell a fact overlooked by many: “What is even more worrying is that the US plan is largely based on improvement in efficiency. This is not enough. Our data analysis shows clearly that gains made by improvements in efficiency are being lost because of increased consumption – sector after sector.”

As the CSE leaders raise the crucial question of consumption, the question of capitalist economy comes. Sunita and Chandra write: “The world — the US and us — cannot combat climate change without changing the way we drive, build homes or consume goods.” The dominating way is the capitalist consumption.

Consumption pattern is not the same everywhere and in every case. It differs even in the US. It differs in all resource-rich and resource-poor lands. All rich capitalist countries don't have same consumption pattern. What the poor in the US consume is far, far less than the rich part of the US society. The poor simply doesn't have the power to consume a lot. Their consumption is a story of simple survival, an utmost effort for mere passing of everyday. Even the social group in the middle of the US society virtually struggles everyday to have a life free from all sorts of worries and uncertainties. It's not only the US-story. It's the story in all lands. The researchers point out a very essential fact: “We have ... pointed out our worry about the lack of critique, indeed the tendency towards self-censorship and restraint in advocating big solutions, we found in the work of big and powerful US civil society groups. For instance, these groups are asking — rightly — for car restraints in many parts of the developing world. But in the US, they still push fuel economy standards and, at most, hybrid cars as the panacea to climate ills. There is no bus rapid transit (BRT) being built in the US, where over 70-80 per cent people commute to work in cars. This is where practice must also happen ...” The fact-rich CSE report is a necessary reading for building up a clear understanding of the climate crisis. All aspects and questions related to the 2C can't be covered by a single report. One can cite that as a limitation of the report.    Farooque Chowdhury, a free lancer, writes from Dhaka.

Air pollution from outdoor sources kills about 3.3 million people per year worldwide and the numbers are likely to double by 2050 even if every country imposes existing air-quality legislation, a study has found.

On Friday, Pope Francis addressed the United Nations at the opening of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the World Summit. As expected, he called for action on climate change. But he also reframed the debate, casting the climate issue as being intimately connected with the ongoing and seemingly intractable problem of social exclusion. He said:

Today’s world presents us with many false rights and – at the same time – broad sectors which are vulnerable, victims of power badly exercised: for example, the natural environment and the vast ranks of the excluded. These sectors are closely interconnected and made increasingly fragile by dominant political and economic relationships. That is why their rights must be forcefully affirmed, by working to protect the environment and by putting an end to exclusion.

...

The dramatic reality this whole situation of exclusion and inequality, with its evident effects, has led me, in union with the entire Christian people and many others, to take stock of my grave responsibility in this regard and to speak out, together with all those who are seeking urgently-needed and effective solutions.

He castigated those among the world's elite who have sought to accumulate wealth and power at the expense of the environment and their fellow man:

The misuse and destruction of the environment are also accompanied by a relentless process of exclusion. In effect, a selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged, either because they are differently abled (handicapped), or because they lack adequate information and technical expertise, or are incapable of decisive political action. Economic and social exclusion is a complete denial of human fraternity and a grave offense against human rights and the environment. The poorest are those who suffer most from such offenses, for three serious reasons: they are cast off by society, forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the abuse of the environment. They are part of today’s widespread and quietly growing “culture of waste."

His sentiments echoed "Our Common Future," the landmark 1987 document from the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) that offered the first modern definition of the concept of sustainable development. Also known as the Brundtland Report in recognition of former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland's role as Chair of the WCED, the document argued for a global development process that meets "the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Central to the process is reducing poverty and disadvantage — socially, economically and politically — as well as not depleting natural resources in order to protect future generations.

Pope Francis is welcomed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and receives flower bouquets from children of UN staff members at the start of his visit to UN headquarters. (image: Mark Garten/United Nations)

The Pope also connected human rights to environmental rights, personalizing the climate issue by contextualizing our own individual, physical bodies within the global environment:

First, it must be stated that a true “right of the environment” does exist, for two reasons. First, because we human beings are part of the environment. We live in communion with it, since the environment itself entails ethical limits which human activity must acknowledge and respect. Man, for all his remarkable gifts, which “are signs of a uniqueness which transcends the spheres of physics and biology,” is at the same time a part of these spheres. He possesses a body shaped by physical, chemical and biological elements, and can only survive and develop if the ecological environment is favourable. Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity. Second, because every creature, particularly a living creature, has an intrinsic value, in its existence, its life, its beauty and its interdependence with other creatures. We Christians, together with the other monotheistic religions, believe that the universe is the fruit of a loving decision by the Creator, who permits man respectfully to use creation for the good of his fellow men and for the glory of the Creator; he is not authorized to abuse it, much less to destroy it. In all religions, the environment is a fundamental good.

Though he described a bleak reality, the Pope remained positive, calling the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development "an important sign of hope" and was "confident" that the upcoming Paris climate talks in December " will secure fundamental and effective agreements." However, he was careful to remind the delegates that words are ultimately meaningless. "Solemn commitments…are not enough," he said. "Our world demands of all government leaders a will which is effective, practical and constant, concrete steps and immediate measures for preserving and improving the natural environment and thus putting an end as quickly as possible to the phenomenon of social and economic exclusion."

Pope Francis delivers a speech at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. (image: Amanda Voisard/Eskinder Debebe/Rick Bajornas/Mark Garten/United Nations)

In Laudato Si, the Pope's encyclical on the environment that he issued this summer, he wrote, "A sense of deep communion with the rest of nature cannot be real if our hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our fellow human beings."

The Pope's acute understanding of the interconnectedness of things — between people and the environment, between the fight against climate change and the fight for social inclusion, between compassion and communion — echoes that of Thomas Merton, the late Trappist monk and social activist whom the Pope included, along with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dorothy Day, in his "Mount Rushmore of Catholicism" during his speech to Congress on Thursday.

In his final address, during a conference on East-West monastic dialogue, delivered just two hours before his death on December 10, 1968, Merton said, "The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another."

As negotiators prepare for the U.N. climate meeting in Paris in December — which has been described as our last, best hope in the climate change fight — they would do well to heed the words of Pope Francis and Thomas Merton and understand that the goal of a universal, meaningful and equitable climate agreement can only be achieved if compassion is also on the agenda.

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Ari Solomon serves as the director of communications at Mercy For Animals, a national non-profit farmed animal protection organization. Ari has appeared widely on national television and radio to discuss a range of subjects from veganism to civil rights, including appearances on CNN, Reuters TV, NPR, and HuffPost Live. Ari’s YouTube videos on animal rights and veganism have also become viral sensations, including Sh*t Vegans Say, with over 1 million views.

On September 29, women from around the world mobilized to call for action on climate change as international leaders met in New York at the United Nations General Assembly.

“There is no climate justice without gender justice,” the movement argues. Solutions and policy demands will be presented in New York City as part of the Global Women’s Climate Justice Day of Action in an effort to highlight the reality that while women are among those most severely vulnerable to the effects of climate change, women are also the “key to creating climate solutions.”

The aim is to get political officials to agree “equitable, immediate, and bold action on climate change” as we enter the final two months before the COP21 climate change negotiations in Paris in December. At this time, the Women’s Climate Declaration will be presented to world governments.

Connecting Women

“Women around the world are facing the impacts of the climate crisis every day,” said Osprey Orielle Lake, co-founder and executive director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, which helped organize the event. “We are issuing a wake-up call to the world that the time has come for bold action to address the roots of the climate crisis, with women’s leadership at the forefront.”

Omnia Abdallah, WECAN MENA, Khartoum, Sudan (image: Women's Earth & Climate Action Network International)

Among the women speaking at the event in New York are Mary Robinson, the UN special envoy on climate change, and May Boeve, head of climate campaign group 350.org. Other leading international women speaking includeJacqui Patterson, director of theNAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, First Nations and anti-tar sands activist, Jody Williams, American political activist and Nobel Prize laureate, and Patricia Gualinga, international relations director for the indigenous community of Sarayaku in Ecuador.

As Orielle Lake explained, the day of action is “about connecting women working on vital climate projects around the globe. It is about bringing our passion and determination to the surface and manifesting our vulnerabilities and fierce strengths.”

Melissa S. United States (image: Women's Earth & Climate Action Network, International)

According to the U.N., women form a disproportionately large share of the poor. In rural areas and developing countries women are typically the ones responsible for securing water, food and energy for cooking and heating — this dependence on local natural resources makes them highly vulnerable to climate impacts, including drought, uncertain rainfall and deforestation.

And, compared to men in poor countries, women face historical disadvantages such as limited access to decision-making and economic assets, and this further increases the challenges of climate change.

Global Action

This is why it is not just in New York City that women are mobilizing. Throughout September, women in over 30 countries have been holding events calling for change.

For example, in the Niger Delta region of West Africa, women held a summit on gender and oil. Meanwhile, in the Amazon Rainforest indigenous women protested fossil fuel extraction in their territories. And, in Canada documentary photography depicts women from across the country seeking to protect water from pollution.

As the U.N. argues, it is “imperative that a gender analysis be applied to all actions on climate change and that gender experts are consulted in climate change processes at all levels, so that women's and men’s specific needs and priorities are identified and addressed.”

Hala Alhaffar. Damascus, Syria

In addition to asking for a transition away from fossil fuels, protection of our forests and oceans, and increased funding for adaptation, the Women’s Climate Declaration lays out a series of gender-conscious demands. These include: a gender-responsive climate change policy and program; recognizing that gender-sensitive climate policy benefits men, women, children and the planet; and respecting and learning from the traditional ecological knowledge, wisdom and experience of the world’s indigenous peoples.

It argues: “Unsustainable consumption and production reverses development gains in the global North and the global South: Women and men of industrialized nations have a responsibility to educate themselves, examine their worldviews, commit to action, and lead by example.

“No one person, organization, community, province, region, or nation is capable of solving the challenge of climate change alone. This is a time for collaboration at a global level as never before required."

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Kyla Mandel is Deputy Editor of DeSmog UK. Follow her on Twitter @kylamandel.

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Not so long ago, it was science fiction. Now, it’s hard science -- and that should frighten us all. The latest reports from the prestigious and sober Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) make increasingly hair-raising reading, suggesting that the planet is approaching possible moments of irreversible damage in a fashion and at a speed that had not been anticipated.

Scientists have long worried that climate change will not continue to advance in a “linear” fashion, with the planet getting a little bit hotter most years.  Instead, they fear, humanity could someday experience “non-linear” climate shifts (also known as “singularities” or “tipping points”) after which there would be sudden and irreversible change of a catastrophic nature.  This was the premise of the 2004 climate-disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.  In that movie -- most notable for its vivid scenes of a frozen-over New York City -- melting polar ice causes a disruption in the North Atlantic Current, which in turn triggers a series of catastrophic storms and disasters.  At the time of its release, many knowledgeable scientists derided the film’s premise, insisting that the confluence of events it portrayed was unlikely or simply impossible.

Fast forward 11 years and the prospect of such calamitous tipping points in the North Atlantic or elsewhere no longer looks improbable.  In fact, climate scientists have begun to note early indicators of possible catastrophes.

Take the disruption of the North Atlantic Current, the pivotal event in The Day After Tomorrow.  Essentially an extension of the Gulf Stream, that deep-sea current carries relatively warm salty water from the South Atlantic and the Caribbean to the northern reaches of the Atlantic.  In the process, it helps keep Europe warmer than it would otherwise be.  Once its salty water flows into sub-Arctic areas carried by this prolific stream, it gets colder and heavier, sinks to lower depths, and starts a return trip to warmer climes in the south where the whole process begins again.

So long as this “global conveyor belt” -- known to scientists as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC -- keeps functioning, the Gulf Stream will also continue to bring warmer waters to the eastern United States and Europe.  Should it be disrupted, however, the whole system might break down, in which case the Euro-Atlantic climate could turn colder and more storm-prone.  Such a disruption might occur if the vast Greenland ice sheet melts in a significant way, as indeed is already beginning to happen today, pouring large quantities of salt-free fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean.  Because of its lighter weight, this newly introduced water will remain close to the surface, preventing the submergence of salty water from the south and so effectively shutting down the conveyor belt.  Indeed, exactly this process now seems to be underway.

By all accounts, 2015 is likely to wind up as the hottest year on record, with large parts of the world suffering from severe heat waves and wildfires.  Despite all this, however, a stretch of the North Atlantic below Iceland and Greenland is experiencing all-time cold temperatures, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  What explains this anomaly?  According to scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Pennsylvania State University, among other institutions, the most likely explanation is the arrival in the area of cold water from the Greenland ice sheet that is melting ever more rapidly thanks to climate change.  Because this meltwater starts out salt-free, it has remained near the surface and so, as predicted, is slowing the northern advance of warmer water from the North Atlantic Current.

So far, the AMOC has not suffered a dramatic shutdown, but it is slowing, and scientists worry that a rapid increase in Greenland ice melt as the Arctic continues to warm will pour ever more meltwater into the North Atlantic, severely disrupting the conveyor system.  That would, indeed, constitute a major tipping point, with severe consequences for Europe and eastern North America.  Not only would Europe experience colder temperatures on an otherwise warmer planet, but coastal North America could witness higher sea levels than those predicted from climate change alone because the Gulf Stream tends to pull sea water away from the eastern U.S. and push it toward Europe.  If it were to fail, rising sea levels could endanger cities like New York and Boston.  Indeed, scientists discovered that just such a slowing of the AMOC helped produce a sea-level rise of four inches from New York to Newfoundland in 2009 and 2010.

In its 2014 report on the status of global warming, the IPCC indicated that the likelihood of the AMOC collapsing before the end of this century remains relatively low.  But some studies suggest that the conveyor system is already 15%-20% below normal with Greenland’s melting still in an early stage.  Once that process switches into high gear, the potential for the sort of breakdown that was once science fiction starts to look all too real.

Tipping Points on the Horizon

In a 2014 report, “Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability,” Working Group II of the IPCC identified three other natural systems already showing early-warning signs of catastrophic tipping points: the Arctic, coral reefs, and the Amazonian forest.  All three, the report suggested, could experience massive and irreversible changes with profound implications for human societies.

The Arctic comes in for particular scrutiny because it has experienced more warming than any other region on the planet and because the impact of climate change there is already so obvious.  As the report put it, “For the Arctic region, new evidence indicates a biophysical regime shift is taking place, with cascading impacts on physical systems, ecosystems, and human livelihoods.”

This has begun with a massive melt of sea ice in the region and a resulting threat to native marine species.  “For Arctic marine biota,” the report notes, “the rapid reduction of summer ice covers causes a tipping element that is now severely affecting pelagic [sub-surface] ecosystems as well as ice-dependent mammals such as seals and polar bears.”  Other flora and fauna of the Arctic biome are also demonstrating stress related to climate change.  For example, vast areas of tundra are being invaded by shrubs and small trees, decimating the habitats of some animal species and increasing the risk of fires.

This Arctic “regime shift” affects many other aspects of the ecosystem as well.  Higher temperatures, for instance, have meant widespread thawing and melting of permafrost, the frozen soil and water that undergirds much of the Arctic landmass.  In this lies another possible tipping-point danger, since frozen soils contain more than twice the carbon now present in the atmosphere.  As the permafrost melts, some of this carbon is released in the form of methane, a potent greenhouse gas with many times the warming potential of carbon dioxide and other such gases.  In other words, as the IPCC noted, any significant melting of Arctic permafrost will “create a potentially strong positive feedback to accelerate Arctic (and global) warming.”  This, in fact, could prove to be more than a tipping point.  It could be a planetary catastrophe.

Along with these biophysical effects, the warming of the Arctic is threatening the livelihoods and lifestyles of the indigenous peoples of the region.  The loss of summer sea ice, for example, has endangered the marine species on which many such communities depend for food and the preservation of their cultural traditions.  Meanwhile, melting permafrost and coastal erosion due to sea-level rise have threatened the very existence of their coastal villages.  In September, President Obama visited Kotzebue, a village in Alaska some 30 miles above the Arctic Circle that could disappear as a result of melting permafrost, rising sea levels, and ever bigger storm surges.

Coral Reefs at Risk

Another crucial ecosystem that's showing signs of heading toward an irreversible tipping point is the world's constellation of coral reefs.  Remarkably enough, although such reefs make up less than 1% of the Earth’s surface area, they house up to 25% of all marine life.  They are, that is, essential for both the health of the oceans and of fishing communities, as well as of those who depend on fish for a significant part of their diet.  According to one estimate, some 850 million people rely on coral reefs for their food security.

Corals, which are colonies of tiny animals related to sea anemones, have proven highly sensitive to changes in the acidity and temperature of their surrounding waters, both of which are rising due to the absorption of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  As a result, in a visually dramatic process called “bleaching,” coral populations have been dying out globally.  According to a recent study by the Worldwide Fund for Nature, coral reef extent has declined by 50% in the last 30 years and all reefs could disappear as early as 2050 if current rates of ocean warming and acidification continue.

“This irreversible loss of biodiversity,” reports the IPCC, will have “significant consequences for regional marine ecosystems as well as the human livelihoods that depend on them.”  Indeed, the growing evidence of such losses “strengthens the conclusion that increased mass bleaching of corals constitutes a strong warning signal for the singular event that would constitute the irreversible loss of an entire biome.”

Amazonian Dry-Out

The Amazon has long been viewed as the epitome of a tropical rainforest, with extraordinary plant and animal diversity.  The Amazonian tree cover also plays a vital role in reducing the pace of global warming by absorbing vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during the process of photosynthesis.  For years, however, the Amazon has been increasingly devastated by a process of deforestation, as settlers from Brazil’s coastal regions clear land for farming and ranching, and loggers (many operating illegally) harvest timber for wood products.  Now, as if to add insult to injury, the region faces a new threat from climate change: tree mortality due to a rise in severe drought and the increased forest fire risk that accompanies it.

Although it can rain year-round in the Amazon region, there is a distinct wet season with heavy rainfall and a dry season with much less of it.  An extended dry season with little rain can endanger the survival of many trees and increase the risk of wildfires.  Research conducted by scientists at the University of Texas has found that the dry season in the southern Amazonian region has grown by a week every decade since 1980 while the annual fire season has lengthened.  “The dry season over the southern Amazon is already marginal for maintaining rainforest,” says Rong Fu, the leader of the research team. “At some point, if it becomes too long, the rainforest will reach a tipping point” and disappear.

Because the Amazon harbors perhaps the largest array of distinctive flora and fauna on the planet, its loss would represent an irreversible blow to global biodiversity.  In addition, the region hosts some of the largest assemblages of indigenous peoples still practicing their traditional ways of life.  Even if their lives were saved (through relocation to urban slums or government encampments), the loss of their cultures, representing thousands of years of adaptation to a demanding environment, would be a blow for all humankind.

As in the case of the Arctic and coral reefs, the collapse of the Amazon will have what the IPCC terms “cascading impacts,” devastating ecosystems, diminishing biodiversity, and destroying the ways of life of indigenous peoples.  Worse yet, as with the melting of the Arctic, so the drying-out of Amazonia is likely to feed into climate change, heightening its intensity and so sparking yet more tipping points on a planet increasingly close to the brink.

In its report, the IPCC, whose analysis tends, if anything, to be on the conservative side of climate science, indicated that the Amazon faced a relatively low risk of dying out by 2100.  However, a 2009 study conducted by Britain’s famed Meteorological (Met) Office suggests that the risk is far greater than previously assumed.  Even if global temperatures were to be held to an increase of 2 degrees Celsius, the study notes, as much as 40% of the Amazon would perish within a century; with 3 degrees of warming, up to 75% would vanish; and with 4 degrees, 85% would die.  “The forest as we know it would effectively be gone,” said Met researcher Vicky Pope.

Of Tipping Points and Singularities

These four natural systems are by no means the only ones that could face devastating tipping points in the years to come.  The IPCC report and other scientific studies hint at further biomes that show early signs of potential catastrophe.  But these four are sufficiently advanced to tell us that we need to look at climate change in a new way: not as a slow, linear process to which we can adapt over time, but as a non-linear set of events involving dramatic and irreversible changes to the global ecosphere.

The difference is critical: linear change gives us the luxury of time to devise and implement curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, and to construct protective measures such as sea walls.  Non-linear change puts a crimp on time and confronts us with the possibility of relatively sudden, devastating climate shifts against which no defensive measures can protect us.

Were the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation to fail, for example, there would be nothing we could do to turn it back on, nor would we be able to recreate coral reefs or resurrect the Amazon.  Add in one other factor: when natural systems of this magnitude fail, should we not expect human systems to fail as well?  No one can answer this question with certainty, but we do know that earlier human societies collapsed when faced with other kinds of profound changes in climate.

All of this should be on the minds of delegates to the upcoming climate summit in Paris, a meeting focused on adopting an international set of restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. Each participating nation is obliged to submit a set of measures it is ready to take, known as “intended nationally determined contributions,” or INDCs, aimed at achieving the overall goal of preventing planetary warming from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius.  However, the INDCs submitted to date, including those from the United States and China, suggest a distinctly incremental approach to the problem.  Unfortunately, if planetary tipping points are in our future, this mindset will not measure up.  It’s time to start thinking instead in terms of civilizational survival.

Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of The Race for What’s Left.  A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation.

“There is one masterpiece, the hexagonal cell, that touches perfection. No living creature, not even man, has achieved, in the centre of his sphere, what the bee has achieved in her own: and were some one from another world to descend and ask of the earth the most perfect creation of the logic of life, we should needs have to offer the humble comb of honey.”— Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee, 1924

What is the most important animal to humans? In prehistoric times, the dog helped transform early hunter-gatherers into apex predators. Later, human civilization was built on the backs of horses. But starting around 11,500 years ago, when humans began making permanent settlements and invented agriculture, bees emerged as the most critical animal to human survival.

By pollinating crops around the world, honeybees feed more than 7 billion people today. Most of the food that we eat (and all of our cotton) is produced in part by the hard work of bees. In her 2011 book The Beekeeper’s Lament, journalist Hannah Nordhaus described honeybees as “the glue that holds our agricultural system together."

Worker bees on honeycomb cells (image: StudioSmart/Shutterstock)

The importance of bees isn't limited to humans, of course. By promoting the reproduction of angiosperms, or flowering plants, bees are also central to the survival of countless other animal species that rely on those plants and their fruits to survive. In fact, Earth's entire planetary ecology has been shaped by bees. Since they first evolved from wasps some 100 million years ago, bees have driven the evolution of plant life.

Sadly, in recent times, we have not treated our bee friends well. The use of pesticides — neonicotinoids in particular, which are commonly used on corn, soybean, canola and cereal, as well as many fruits and vegetables — have killed an estimated 250 million bees in a just a few years. Applied to plants, neonics travel through the plant's vascular system and appear in roots, pollen and nectar that then are tranferred to bees and their colonies, as well as other untargeted and vulnerable species, from earthworms to birds and even bats.

In a 2012 interview, conservation biologist and bee expert Dr. Reese Halter, host of the PBS Nature television series "Dr. Reese's Planet," said, "The bees are trying to tell us something very clearly. The way we are operating ... isn't working. We've lost a quarter of a trillion honeybees, which have died prematurely in the last four years." This dramatic decline of the bee population has been ascribed to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a combination of deadly effects, including pathogens, parasites and pesticides that have been decimating beehives since at least 2006.

Last month, the Bee Informed Partnership, an academic non-profit supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, released the results of its annual survey of more than 6,000 American beekeepers. They found that northern beekeepers lost almost half (48 percent) of their managed colonies between April 2014 and April 2015. Southern beekeepers lost 37 percent of their colonies over the same period.

A growing body of scientific evidence has pointed to one of the culprits of bee deaths: a nicotine-based class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, also called neonics. In January, an international multidisciplinary team of 30 scientists, the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides, reviewed 1,121 peer-reviewed papers published over the past five years, including those sponsored by industry. In their report, the Worldwide Integrated Assessment of the Impact of Systemic Pesticides on Biodiversity and Ecosystems (WIA), the scientists concluded that "current large-scale prophylactic use of systemic insecticides is having significant unintended negative ecological consequences."

Specifically, they found that, "at field-realistic levels of pollution, neonicotinoids ... generally have negative effects on physiology and survival for a wide range of non-target invertebrates in terrestrial, aquatic, marine and benthic habitats." Put simply, neonics kill a whole range of species beyond bees that are necessary for healthy, functioning ecosystems, such as butterflies (which also act as pollinators), earthworms and snails (both of which help maintain soil health).

Moreover, the scientists stated, "Imidalcloprid [a neonic, the most widely used insecticide in the world] and fipronil [an insecticide belonging to the phenylpyrazol family] were found to be toxic to many birds and most fish, respectively." They also concluded that imidacloprid, fipronil and clothianidin (a neonic) "exert sub-lethal effects, ranging from genotoxic and cytotoxic effects, and impaired immune function, to reduced growth and reproductive success, often at concentrations well below those associated with mortality. Use of imidacloprid and clothianidin as seed treatments on some crops poses risks to small birds, and ingestion of even a few treated seeds could cause mortality or reproductive impairment to sensitive bird species."

We have clearly not learned the lessons of pioneering conservationist Rachel Carson, who wrote in her seminal 1962 book Silent Spring: "Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called ‘insecticides,’ but ‘biocides.’”

Six months after the WIA report came out, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit environmental advocacy group based in New York, filed a legal petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asking the agency to withdraw its approval of neonics. The petition said:

Given mounting scientific evidence that neonicotinoids are toxic to bees and threaten both individual and population survival, the agency should also initiate cancellation proceedings for all neonicotinoid pesticide products, beginning with those for which safer alternatives are available. In the meantime, however, EPA should take immediate steps to protect bees and to prevent ongoing adverse effects on the environment. ... EPA should — at a minimum — immediately initiate interim administrative review to evaluate the serious threat that neonicotinoids pose to bees.

"Unlike traditional pesticides that are typically applied to a plant’s surface, neonicotinoids are systemic pesticides that are absorbed into plant tissue, turning a plant into a “tiny poison factory” that emits toxins from its pollen down to its roots," writes toxicologist Jennifer Sass, an expert on U.S. chemical policy who serves as a senior scientist in NRDC's health program. "As non-selective pesticides, neonicotinoids do not discriminate between target and non-target insect species, including beneficial pollinators."

"We are still awaiting a response from EPA," Dr. Sass told AlterNet. "So far they have neither responded to our petition or taken any final action."

Bee activists rally in Toronto, Canada, on May 25, 2013 (image: arindambanerjee/Shutterstock.com)

Last year, Canadian beekeepers filed a class action lawsuit against pesticide giants Bayer and Syngenta, seeking $400 million in damages. The plaintiffs claim that the firms "were negligent in their design and development of the neonicotinoid pesticides." A 2013 study by Health Canada, the government health agency, detected the pesticides in 70 percent of dead bees.

Beeline to right-wing money

The agrochemical industry has poured millions of dollars into passing laws and managing public perception. In 2013, Bayer, the primary manufacturer of imidacloprid, spent nearly $5 million lobbying the U.S. federal government on a variety of legislative and regulatory matters impacting the food, pharmaceutical and biotech industries — including bee health and EPA regulatory actions regarding pollinator protection. In the same year, the German corporation BASF, the world's largest chemical producer, which holds the patent rights for producing and selling fipronil, spent $2.26 million lobbying the U.S. government, including efforts to make S. 1009, Modernization of the Toxic Substances Control Act, a bill regarding the EPA's regulation of chemicals, more industry-friendly. Bayer has also been fighting efforts to place a moratorium on neonics in the E.U. "Bayer Group has been shown up as a corporate bully, trying to silence campaigners who are standing up for bees," said Friends of the Earth, an environmental nonprofit.

In addition to lobbying lawmakers and bullying activists, corporate interests are funding a propaganda machine that is working to discredit the science connecting neonics to bee deaths — the same machine that is propping up the pro-GMO, pro-pesticide agenda of Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta and the other big players in the agrochemical industry. One of the most active cogs in this machine is the nonprofit Genetic Literacy Project (GLP), a GMO industry front group that is housed at the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) program at George Mason University (GMU). According to Sourcewatch, "It seems that with the affiliation of the group with this right-wing university, significant work and output is being financially supported by GMU," whose major funders include ExxonMobil, the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and the Searle Freedom Trust.

According to the STATS website, it is "funded by a grant from the Searle Freedom Trust … [and] does not accept industry funding or support." The Searle Freedom Trust is a conservative private foundation funded up by the inherited wealth of the pharmaceutical giant G.D. Searle & Co., now a part of Pfizer. Searle funds a wide range of conservative think tanks, including Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Heartland Institute. Daniel Searle, the founder of G.D. Searle & Co., was the largest funder of the right-wing think tank the American Enterprise Institute.

image: Bee Informed

In March, GLP founder Jon Entine wrote a vigorous defense of neonics, which was posted on the GLP website. As one commenter mentioned, Entine "grossly misrepresents" the findings of a USDA study he mentions in his piece. In addition, he points to stable colony populations in the U.S. but fails to mention that American beekeepers have been importing bees from Australia to maintain their colony numbers. He may dupe a casual reader, but to followers of the biotech propaganda machine, this attempt to deceive the public about the harsh reality of neonics should come as no surprise.

"Jon Entine has professional ties to Monsanto, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Proctor & Gamble, and other similar corporations," writes Mike Adams, the founding editor of Natural News, a health news website. Adams goes on:

Entine is a key "attack operative" for the biotech industry, well known for authoring wildly defamatory character assassination articles to target GMO skeptics and scientists who disagree with the biotech industry’s contrived safety claims. With the help of Forbes.com and the American Enterprise Institute — both key players in attacking and smearing GMO skeptics and scientists — Entine has been instrumental in viciously smearing the reputations of numerous scientists, activists, independent journalists, and environmentalists, usually through the use of wildly fraudulent smear tactics and the wholesale fabrication of false "facts."

Complex clash

The biotech industry, however, has tried to shift the battle over bees and pesticides away from the arena of public relations and frame it as a political issue. “It’s more a clash of ideologies than PR,” said Luke Gibbs, head of corporate affairs for northern Europe at Syngenta, the world’s largest agrochemicals company and a leading producer of neonicotinoids. “[Bee decline is] a complicated, multifactorial issue. But it’s become so polarized and politicized that it unfortunately prevents us working together, when it could be very mutually beneficial.”

Environmentalists, food safety advocates and agribusiness working together? It may seem far-fetched, but considering the fact that the food system isn't going to be wrenched from corporate control any time soon, it may be an avenue worth exploring. “Both extremes are complete nonsense,” said conservation biologist Dave Goulson from the University of Sussex. “The science is pretty convincing that neonicotinoids are contributing to bees’ decline, but it’s by no means the worst factor. Most scientists agree it’s habitat loss that is the single biggest driver, with disease and pesticides contributing. Obviously, any pesticide is damaging to wildlife; it’s about finding the right balance between productivity and environmental impact.”

"The greens and beekeepers probably have an argument," said John Haynes, the manager of a 3,000-acre farm on the border of Essex and Hertfordshire counties in southeast England who supports the use of neonics. "But if you want oil seed rape to be grown in this country rather than imported, we need a more intelligent approach to neonicotinoids than a total ban."

The bee decline is more complex than simply pinning the blame on one class of pesticides. A three-year study by the University of Maryland published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE in March found that the neonic imidacloprid is "unlikely a sole cause of colony declines" in the U.S. over the past decade. The researchers did find that the pesticide is harmful to bees: Infestations of Varroa mites were significantly higher in exposed colonies. In addition, bees avoided honey stores that were contaminated with imidacloprid, leading to malnutrition. Still, the big takeaway from the study is that neonicontinoids are bad for bees.

Fear of free

Perhaps there is no need to find a "right balance" when it comes to neonics simply because they may not even be necessary. One of the arguments of the agrochemical industry is that there are no alternatives to neonics. That is simply not true. It's just that many of the alternatives do not enrich corporate coffers. On their Save the Honey Bees website, the Pesticide Action Network, an international coalition of NGOs, citizens' groups and individuals fighting pesticide use in around 60 countries, recounts an important story that farmers who are under the false assumption there are no options should note:

In 2008, when Italy discussed a possible banning of the use of seed coating on maize because of the spectacular honeybee colony losses, the industry made an impressive media campaign on the lack of alternatives to fight the Western Corn Rootworm and the economic damages such a decision would make: tens of millions of euros for farmers. After 4 years of maize harvest without neonicotinoids, no dropdown in maize production could be observed and an ancestral, simple and free technique replaced costly neonicotinoids: crop rotation. Such a technique can efficiently replace neonicotinoids for many plant predators.

One word in that story strikes fear in the hearts of agrochemical executives and their propagandist minions: free. They have a lot to lose if farmers turn to alternatives. (For a list of more sustainable alternatives to specific neonics, click here.) According to Statista.com, the worldwide agrochemical market generated $203.6 billion in 2013 and is on target to generate more than $242 billion in revenue by 2018. In 2012, insecticides and seed treatments (mostly neonic-based) comprised about 30 percent of Bayer CropScience’s revenues, and over six percent of Bayer’s overall sales.

There is also a growing body of evidence that questions the benefit of neonics. A study conducted by Michigan State University and published earlier this year in the Journal of Economic Entomology examined the relationship between western bean cutworm infestation and damage in dry beans. Looking at the use of seeds treated with the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam and soil treated with the systemic insecticide aldicarb, the researchers concluded that neither pesticide reduced cutworm damage. In fact, untreated plots had a lesser percentage of defects compared to treated plots, which were eaten by pests, which the researchers believe encountered fewer natural predators in the untreated plots.

Unsung and unpaid

Bees are facing fights on multiple fronts. And their job is thankless. Not only do they have to contend with deadly parasites, pathogens, pesticides and propaganda, they aren't even rewarded for all their labor. "You can thank the Apis mellifera, better known as the Western honeybee, for 1 in every 3 mouthfuls of food you’ll eat today," writes Bryan Walsh, TIME's foreign editor who has covered environmental issues for the magazine. "From the almond orchards of central California — where each spring billions of honeybees from across the U.S. arrive to pollinate a multibillion-dollar crop — to the blueberry bogs of Maine, the bees are the unsung, unpaid laborers of the American agricultural system, adding more than $15 billion in value to farming each year."

Pavan Sukhdev, an environmental economist who was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador in 2012 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for his work promoting the green economy, argues that we don't value the contribution of bees because that value hasn't been monetized. "Not a single bee has ever sent you an invoice," Sukhdev writes in the United Nations report "The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity." "And that is part of the problem — because most of what comes to us from nature is free, because it is not invoiced, because it is not priced, because it is not traded in markets, we tend to ignore it."

Bee covered in yellow spheres of pollen (image: John Kimbler via Climate Kids, NASA)

Even beyond putting a price tag on bees' work output, we should look to them as a model to emulate. "If you think about it, the honeybee beehive is the perfect paradigm for the ultimate food service industry," said Dr. Halter, the bee expert. "It begins before sunup. It closes shop after sundown. There is zero unemployment. And the bees are able to change their order of operations within a matter of minutes."

“The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century," said Achim Steiner, UNEP's executive director. "The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world’s food, over 70 are pollinated by bees.”