However, there is no consensus regarding the timeframe in which this climate catastrophe will cause human extinction. This lack of consensus is primarily due to the global elite controlling the public perception of this timeframe with frequent talk of ‘the end of the century’ designed to allow ongoing profit maximization through ‘business as usual’ for as long as possible. Why has this happened?

When evidence of the climate catastrophe (including the pivotal role of burning fossil fuels) became incontrovertible, which meant that the fossil fuel industry’s long-standing efforts to prevent action on the climate catastrophe had finally ended, the industry shifted its focus to arguing that the timeframe, which it presented as ‘end of the century’, meant that we could defer action (and thus profit-maximization through business as usual could continue indefinitely). Consequently, like the tobacco, sugar and junk food industries, the fossil fuel industry has employed a range of tactics to deflect attention from their primary responsibility for a problem and to delay action on it.

These well-worn tactics include suggesting that the research is incomplete and more research needs to be done, funding ‘research’ to come up with ‘evidence’ to counter the climate science, employing scholars to present this ‘research’, discrediting honest climate scientists, infiltrating regulatory bodies to water down (or reverse) decisions and recommendations that would adversely impact profits, setting up ‘concerned’ groups to act as ‘fronts’ for the industry, making generous political donations to individuals and political parties as well as employing lobbyists.

As a result of its enormous power too, the global elite has been able to control much of the funding available for climate science research and a great deal of the information about it that is made widely available to the public, particularly through its corporate media. For this reason, the elite wields enormous power to shape the dialogue in relation to both the climate science and the timeframe.

Therefore, and despite the overwhelming consensus noted above, many climate scientists are reluctant to be fully truthful about the state of the world’s climate or they are just conservative in their assessments of the climate catastrophe. For example, eminent climate scientist Professor James Hansen referred to ‘scientific reticence’ in his article ‘Scientific reticence and sea level rise’, scientists might be conservative in their research – for example, dependence upon historical records leads to missing about one-fifth of global warming since the 1860s as explained in ‘Reconciled climate response estimates from climate models and the energy budget of Earth’ – and, in some cases, governments muzzle scientists outright. See ‘Scientist silencing continues for federally-funded research’. But many of the forces working against full exposure of the truth are explained in Professor Guy McPherson’s article ‘Climate-Change Summary and Update’.

However, in contrast to the elite-managed mainstream narrative regarding the climate timeframe, there is a group of courageous and prominent climate scientists who offer compelling climate science evidence that human beings, along with millions of other species, will be extinct by 2026 (and perhaps as early as 2021) in response to a projected 10 degree celsius increase in global temperatures above the pre-industrial level by that date. See ‘Will humans be extinct by 2026?’

Before outlining the essence of this article, it is worth noting that the website on which it is posted is ‘Arctic News’ and the editors of this site post vital articles on the world’s climate by highly prominent climate scientists, such as Professor Peter Wadhams (Emeritus Professor of Polar Ocean Physics at Cambridge University and author of A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic), Dr Andrew Glikson (an Earth and paleoclimate scientist who is a visiting fellow at the Australian National University), Professor Guy McPherson who has written extensively and lectures all over the world on the subject, and ‘Sam Carana’, the pseudonym used by a group of climate scientists concerned to avoid too many adverse impacts on their research, careers and funding by declaring themselves publicly but nevertheless committed to making the truth available for those who seek it.

So, in a few brief points, let me summarize the evidence and argument outlined in the article ‘Will humans be extinct by 2026?’

The Climate Science of Destruction of the Biosphere

In the Arctic, there is a vast amount of carbon stored in soils that are now still largely frozen; this frozen soil is called permafrost. But as Arctic temperatures continue to rise and the permafrost thaws, in response to the warming that has occurred already (and is ongoing) by burning fossil fuels and farming animals for human consumption, much of this carbon will be converted into carbon dioxide or methane and released into the atmosphere. There is also a vast amount of methane – in the form of methane hydrates and free gas – stored in sediments under the Arctic Ocean seafloor. As temperatures rise, these sediments are being destabilized and will soon result in massive eruptions of methane from the ocean floor. ‘Due to the abrupt character of such releases and the fact that many seas in the Arctic Ocean are shallow, much of the methane will then enter the atmosphere without getting broken down in the water.’

Adversely impacting this circumstance is that the sea ice continues to retreat as the polar ice cap melts in response to the ongoing temperature increases. Because sea ice reflects sunlight back into Space, as the ice retreats more sunlight hits the (dark-colored) ocean (which absorbs the sunlight) and warms the ocean even more. This causes even more ice melt in what becomes an ongoing self-reinforcing feedback loop that ultimately impacts worldwide, such as triggering huge firestorms in forests and peatlands in North America and Russia.

More importantly, however, without sea ice, storms develop more easily and because they mix warm surface waters with the colder water at the bottom of shallow seas, reaching cracks in sediments filled with ice which acts as a glue holding the sediment together, the ice melt destabilizes the sediments, which are vulnerable to even small differences in temperature and pressure that are triggered by earthquakes, undersea landslides or changes in ocean currents.

As a result, huge amounts of methane can erupt from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean and once this occurs, it will further raise temperatures, especially over the Arctic, thus acting as another self-reinforcing feedback loop that again makes the situation even worse in the Arctic, with higher temperatures causing even further methane releases, contributing to the vicious cycle that precipitates ‘runaway global warming’.

‘These developments can take place at such a speed that adaptation will be futile. More extreme weather events can hit the same area with a succession of droughts, cold snaps, floods, heat waves and wildfires that follow each other up rapidly. Within just one decade [from 2016], the combined impact of extreme weather, falls in soil quality and air quality, habitat loss and shortages of food, water, shelter and just about all the basic things needed to sustain life can threaten most, if not all life on Earth with extinction.’

The article goes on to outline how the 10 degree increase (above the pre-industrial level) by 2026 is likely to occur. It will involve further carbon dioxide and methane releases from human activity (particularly driving cars and other vehicles, flying in aircraft and eating animal products, as well as military violence), ongoing reduction of snow and ice cover around the world (thus reflecting less sunlight back into Space), an increase in the amount of water vapor (a greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere, a falling away of ‘aerosol masking’ (which has helped reduce the impact of emissions so far) as emissions decline, as well as methane eruptions from the ocean floor. If you would like to read more about this and see the graphs and substantial documentation, you can do so in the article cited above: ‘Will humans be extinct by 2026?’

The Ecology of Destruction of the Biosphere

Not that these scientists, who focus on the climate, discuss it but there are other human activities adversely impacting Earth’s biosphere which also threaten near-term extinction for humans, particularly given their synergistic impacts.

For example, recent research has drawn attention to the fact that the ‘alarming loss of insects will likely take down humanity before global warming hits maximum velocity.... The worldwide loss of insects is simply staggering with some reports of 75% up to 90%, happening much faster than the paleoclimate record rate of the past five major extinction events’. Without insects ‘burrowing, forming new soil, aerating soil, pollinating food crops...’ and providing food for many bird species, the biosphere simply collapses. See ‘Insect Decimation Upstages Global Warming’.

Moreover, apart from ongoing destruction of other vital components of Earth’s life support system such as the rainforests – currently being destroyed at the rate of 80,000 acres each day: see ‘Measuring the Daily Destruction of the World’s Rainforests’ – and oceans – see ‘The state of our oceans in 2018 (It’s not looking good!)’ – which is generating an extinction rate of 200 species (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects and reptiles) each day with another 26,000 species already identified as ‘under threat’ – see ‘Red list research finds 26,000 global species under extinction threat’ – some prominent scholars have explained how even these figures mask a vital component of the rapidly accelerating catastrophe of species extinctions: the demise of local populations of a species. See ‘Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines’.

In addition, relying on our ignorance and our complicity, elites kill vast areas of Earth’s biosphere through war and other military violence – see, for example, the Toxic Remnants of War Project and the film ‘Scarred Lands & Wounded Lives’ – subject it to uncontrolled releases of radioactive contamination – see ‘Fukushima Radiation Has Contaminated The Entire Pacific Ocean – And It’s Going To Get Worse’ – and use geoengineering to wage war on Earth’s climate, environment and ultimately ourselves. See, for example, ‘Engineered Climate Cataclysm: Hurricane Harvey’ and ‘The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction: “Owning the Weather” for Military Use’.

Separately from all of this, we live under the unending threat of nuclear war.

This is because insane political and corporate elites are still authorizing and manufacturing more of these highly profitable weapons rather than dismantling them all (as well as conventional weapons) and redirecting the vast resources devoted to ongoing military killing (US$1.7 trillion annually: see ‘Global military spending remains high at $1.7 trillion’) to environmental restoration and programs of social uplift.

By the way, if you think the risk of nuclear war can be ignored, you might find this recent observation sobering. In a review of (former US nuclear war planner) Daniel Ellsberg’s recent book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, Earth and paleoclimate scientist Dr Andrew Glikson summarized the book as follows: ‘This, then, is the doomsday machine. Not simply the existence of fission weapons or unspeakably destructive hydrogen bombs, but the whole network rigged together: thousands of them on hair-trigger alert, command and control equipment built in the 1970s and ’80s, millions of lines of antique code sitting on reels of magnetic tape or shuffled around on floppy discs even now. An architecture tended by fallible and deeply institutionalized human beings.’ See ‘Two Minutes To Mid-Night: The Global Nuclear Suicide Machine’.

So, irrespective of whether elites or their agents or even we acknowledge it, Earth’s biosphere is under siege on many fronts and, very soon now, Earth will not support life. Any honest news source routinely reports one or another aspect of the way in which humans are destroying the Earth and perhaps suggests courses of action to respond powerfully to it. This, of course, does not include the insane global elite’s corporate media, which functions to distract us from any semblance of the truth.

How did all this happen?

How did human beings end up in a situation that human extinction is likely to occur within eight years (even assuming we can avert nuclear war)? And is there any prospect of doing enough about it now to avert this extinction?

To answer the first question briefly: We arrived at this juncture in our history because of a long sequence of decisions, essentially made by elites to expand their profit, power and privilege, and which they then imposed on us and which we did not resist powerfully enough. For a fuller explanation, see ‘Strategy and Conscience: Subverting Elite Power So We End Human Violence’.

In any case, the key questions now are simply these: Is it too late to avert our own extinction? And, if not, what must we do?

Well, I am not going to dwell on it but some scientists believe it is too late: we have already passed the point of no return. Professor Guy McPherson is one of these scientists, with a comprehensive explanation and a great deal of evidence to support it in his long and heavily documented article ‘Climate-Change Summary and Update’.

So, the fundamental question is this: If we assume (highly problematically I acknowledge) that it is possible to avert our own extinction by 2026, what must we do?

Because we need to address, in a strategic manner, the interrelated underlying causes that are driving the rush to extinction, let me first identify one important symptom of these underlying causes and then the underlying structural and behavioral causes themselves. Finally, let me invite your participation in (one or more aspects of) a comprehensive strategy designed to address all of this.

As in the past, at least initially, the vast bulk of the human population is not going to respond to this crisis in any way. We need to be aware of this but not let it get in our way. There is a straightforward explanation for it.

Fear or, far more accurately, unconscious terror will ensure that the bulk of the human population will not investigate or seriously consider the scientific evidence in relation to the ongoing climate catastrophe, despite its implications for them personally and humanity generally (not to mention other species and the biosphere). Moreover, given that climate science is not an easy subject with which to grapple, elite control of most media in relation to it (including, most of the time, by simply excluding mention of key learning from the climate scientists) ensures that public awareness, while reasonably high, is not matched by knowledge, which is negligible.

As a result, most people will fearfully, unintelligently and powerlessly accept the delusions, distractions and denial that are promulgated by the insane global elite through its various propaganda channels including the corporate media, public relations and entertainment industries, as well as educational institutions. This propaganda always includes the implicit message that people can’t (and shouldn’t) do anything in response to the climate catastrophe (invariably and inaccurately, benignly described as ‘climate change’).

A primary way in which the corporate media reports the issue but frames it for a powerless response is to simply distribute ‘news’ about each climate-related event without connecting it either with other climate-related events or even mentioning it as yet another symptom of the climate catastrophe. Even if they do mention these connections, they reliably mention distant dates for phenomena like ‘heatwaves’ repeating themselves and an overall ‘end of century’ timeframe to preclude the likelihood that any sense of urgency will arise.

The net outcome of all this, as I stated above, is that the bulk of the human population will not respond to the crisis in the short term (as it hasn’t so far) with most of what limited response there is confined to powerlessly lobbying elite-controlled governments.

However, as long as you consider responding – and by responding, I mean responding strategically – and then do respond, you become a powerful agent of change, including by recruiting others through your example.

But before I present the strategy, let me identify the major structural and behavioral causes that are driving the climate catastrophe and destruction of the biosphere, and explain why some key elements of this strategy are focused on tackling these underlying causes.

The Political Economy of Destruction of the Biosphere

The global elite ensures that it has political control of the biosphere as well as Space by using various systems, structures and processes that it largely created (over the past few centuries) and now controls, including the major institutions of governance in the world such as national governments and key international organizations like the United Nations. For further information, see ‘Strategy and Conscience: Subverting Elite Power So We End Human Violence’.

It does this, for example, so that it can economically utilize, via the exploitative mechanisms of capitalism and its corporations (which the elite also created), domains of the biosphere rich in resources, particularly fossil fuels, strategic minerals and fresh water. The elite will use any means – including psychological manipulation, propaganda issued by its corporate media, national educational institutions, legal systems and extraordinary military violence – to achieve this outcome whatever the cost to life on Earth. See ‘Profit Maximization Is Easy: Invest In Violence’.

In short, the global elite is so insane that its members believe that killing and exploiting fellow human beings and destroying the biosphere are simply good ways to make a profit. Of course, they do not perceive us as fellow human beings; they perceive and treat us as a great deal less. This is why, for example, the elite routinely uses its military forces to attack impoverished and militarily primitive countries so that they can steal their resources. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

But they are happy to steal from those of us living in western economies too, with Professor Barbara G. Ellis issuing the latest warning about yet another way this could easily happen. See ‘Depositors – Not Taxpayers – Will Take the Hit for the Next “2008” Crash Because Major Banks May Use the “Bail-In” System’.

Anyway, because of elite control of governments, it is a waste of time lobbying politicians if we want action on virtually all issues that concern us, particularly the ‘big issues’ that threaten extinction, such as the climate catastrophe, environmental destruction and war (especially the threat of nuclear war). While in very limited (and usually social) contexts (such as issues in relation to the right of women to abortions or rights for the LGBTQIA communities), when it doesn’t significantly adversely impact elite priorities, gains are sometimes made (at least temporarily) by mobilizing sufficient people to pressure politicians. This has two beneficial outcomes for elites: it keeps many people busy on ‘secondary issues’ (from the elite perspective) that do not impact elite profit, power and privilege; and it reinforces the delusion that democracy ‘works’.

However, in the contexts that directly impact elite concerns (such as their unbridled exploitation of the biosphere for profit), politicians serve their elite masters, even to the extent that any laws that might appear to have been designed to impede elite excesses (such as pollution generated by their activities) are readily ignored if necessary, with legal penalties too insignificant to deter phenomenally wealthy corporations. See ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’.

Of course, if any government does not obey elite directives, it is overthrown. Just ask any independently-minded government over the past century. For a list of governments overthrown by the global elite using its military and ‘intelligence’ agencies since World War II, see William Blum’s book Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II or, for just the list, see ‘Overthrowing other people’s governments: The Master List’.

How does the elite maintain this control over political, economic, military, legal and social structures and processes?

The Sociology of Destruction of the Biosphere

As explained in the literature on the sociology of knowledge, reality is socially constructed. See the classic work The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. That is, if an individual is born or introduced into a society in which particular institutions are in control and behaviors such as chronic over-consumption, unlimited profit-making, rampant exploitation of the environment and grotesque violence against (at least some) people are practiced, then the typical individual will accept the existence of these institutions and adopt the behaviors of the people around them even though the institutions and behaviors are dysfunctional and violent.

But while the sociology of knowledge literature recognizes that children ‘must be “taught to behave” and, once taught, must be “kept in line”’ to maintain the institutional order, this literature clearly has no understanding of the nature and extent of the violence to which each child is actually subjected in order to achieve the desired ‘socialization’. This terrorization, as I label it, is so comprehensive that the typical child quickly becomes incapable of using their own intellectual and emotional capacities, including conscience and courage, to actually evaluate any institution or behavior before accepting/adopting it themselves. Obviously then, they quickly become too terrified to overtly challenge dysfunctional institutions and behaviors as well.

Moreover, as a result of this ongoing terrorization, inflicted by the significant adults (and particularly the parents) in the child’s life, the child soon becomes too (unconsciously) afraid to resist the behavioral violence that is inflicted on them personally in many forms, as outlined briefly in the next section, so that they are ‘taught to behave’ and are ‘kept in line’.

In response to elite-driven imperatives then, such as ‘you are what you own’ to encourage very profitable over-consumption, most people are delusionarily ‘happy’ while utterly trapped behaving exactly as elites manipulate them – they are devoid of the psychological capacity to critique and resist – and the elite-preferred behavior quickly acquires the status of being ‘the only and the right way to behave’, irrespective of its dysfunctionality.

In essence: virtually all humans fearfully adopt dysfunctional social behaviors such as over-consumption and profit-making at the expense of the biosphere, rather than intelligently, conscientiously and courageously analyzing the total situation (including the moral and ecological dimensions of it) and behaving appropriately in the context.

Given the pervasiveness and power of elite institutions, ranging from those mentioned above to the corporate media and psychiatry – see ‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry’ – resistance to violent socialization (of both children and adults) requires considerable awareness, not to mention courage.

And so our fear makes virtually all of us succumb to the socialization pressure (that is, violence) to accept existing institutions and participate in widespread social behaviors (such as over-consumption) that are dysfunctional and violent.

The Psychology of Destruction of the Biosphere

This happens because each child, from birth, is terrorized (again: what we like to call ‘socialized’) until they become a slave willing to work and, in industrialized countries at least, to over-consume as directed.

Under an unrelenting regime of ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence, each child unconsciously surrenders their search in pursuit of their own unique and powerful destiny and succumbs to the obedience that every adult demands. Why do adults demand this? Because the idea of a powerful child who courageously follows their own Self-will terrifies adults. So how does this happen?

Unfortunately, far too easily and, strange though it may seem, it is not just the ‘visible’ violence (such as hitting, screaming at and sexually abusing) that we normally label ‘violence’ that causes the main damage, although this is extremely damaging. The largest component of damage arises from the ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that we adults unconsciously inflict on children during the ordinary course of the day. Tragically, the bulk of this violence occurs in the family home and at school. See ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

So what is ‘invisible’ violence? It is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to themSelf thus destroying their internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and behavioral dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically programmed to do).

When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine their sense of Self-worth and teach them to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.

The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, mothers, fathers, teachers, religious figures and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioral responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioral outcomes actually occur.

For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they express their feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing their feelings (for instance, by screaming at them when they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behavior that is generated by their feelings (for example, by hitting them, restraining them or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings.

However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for the biosphere because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviors, including some that are violent towards themself, others and/or the Earth.

Moreover, terrorizing the child has many flow-on effects. For example, once you terrorise a child into accepting certain information about themself, other people or the state of the world, the child becomes unconsciously fearful of dealing with new information, especially if this information is contradictory to what they have been terrorized into believing. As a result, the child will unconsciously dismiss new information out of hand.

In short, the child has been terrorized in such a way that they are no longer capable of learning (or their learning capacity is seriously diminished by excluding any information that is not a simple extension of what they already ‘know’). This is one important explanation why some people are ‘climate deniers’ and most others do nothing in response to the climate catastrophe. See ‘The Psychology of Denial’.

Consequently, under this onslaught of terror and violence, the child surrenders their own unique Self and takes on their socially constructed delusional identity which gives them relief from being terrorized while securing the approval they crave to survive.

So if we want to end violence against the biosphere, we must tackle this fundamental cause. Primarily, this means giving everyone, child and adult alike, all of the space they need to feel, deeply, what they want to do, and to then let them do it (or to have the emotional responses they naturally have if they are prevented from doing so).

For some insight into the critical role that school plays in reducing virtually all children to wage slaves for employment in some menial or ‘professional’ role or as ‘cannon fodder’ for the military, while stripping them of the capacity to ask penetrating questions about the very nature of society and their own role in it, see ‘Do We Want School or Education?’

In summary, given that human society is so dysfunctional, beginning with the fact that human beings do not know how to parent or educate their children to nurture their unique and extraordinary potential, humans face a monumental challenge, in an incredibly short timeframe, to have any chance of survival.

And we are going to have to fix a lot more things than just our destruction of the biosphere if we are to succeed, given that ecologically destructive behavior and institutions have their origin in dysfunctional psychology, societies and political economy.

To reiterate however, it is our (often unconscious) fear that underpins every problem. Whether it is the fear getting in the way of our capacity to intelligently analyze the various structures and behaviors that generate the interrelated crises in which we now find ourselves or the fear undermining our courage to act powerfully in response to these crises, acknowledging and dealing with our fear is the core of any strategy for survival.

So what’s the plan?

Let’s start with you. If you consider the evidence in relation to destruction of our biosphere, essentially one of two things will happen. Either you will be powerful enough, both emotionally and intellectually, to grapple with this evidence and you will take strategic action that has ongoing positive impact on the crisis or your (unconscious) fear will simply use one of its lifelong mechanisms to remove awareness of what you have just read from your mind or otherwise delude you, such as by making you believe you are powerless to act differently or that you are ‘doing enough already’. This immobilizing fear, whether or not you experience it consciously, is a primary outcome of the terrorization to which you were subjected as a child.

So, if you sense that improving your own functionality – so that you can fully access your emotional responses, conscience and courage – is a priority, try ‘Putting Feelings First’.

If you already feel able to act powerfully in response to this multi-faceted crisis, in a way that will have strategic impact, you are invited to consider joining those participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’, which outlines a simple plan for people to systematically reduce their consumption, by at least 80%, involving both energy and resources of every kind – water, household energy, transport fuels, metals, meat, paper and plastic – while dramatically expanding their individual and community self-reliance in 16 areas, so that all environmental concerns are effectively addressed. You might also consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

If you are interested in nurturing children to live by their conscience and to gain the courage necessary to resist elite violence fearlessly, while living sustainably despite the entreaties of capitalism to over-consume, then you are welcome to make ‘My Promise to Children’. To reiterate: capitalism and other dysfunctional political, economic, military, legal and social structures only thrive because our dysfunctional parenting robs children of their conscience and courage, among many other qualities, while actively teaching them to over-consume as compensation for having vital emotional needs denied. See ‘Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War’.

If you are interested in conducting or participating in a campaign to halt our destruction of the biosphere (or any other manifestation of violence for that matter) you are welcome to consider acting strategically in the way that the extraordinary activist Mohandas K. Gandhi did. Whether you are engaged in a peace, climate, environment or social justice campaign, the 12-point strategic framework and principles are the same. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy.

The two strategic aims and a core list of strategic goals to end war and to end the climate catastrophe, for example, are identified in ‘Campaign Strategic Aims’ and, using these examples, it is a straightforward task to identify an appropriate set of strategic goals for your local environment campaign. As an aside, the strategic framework to defend against a foreign invading power or a political/military coup, to liberate your country from a dictatorship or a foreign occupation, or to defeat a genocidal assault is explained in ‘Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy’.

If you would like a straightforward explanation of ‘Nonviolent Action: Why and How it Works’ and an introduction to what it means to think strategically, try reading about the difference between ‘The Political Objective and Strategic Goal of Nonviolent Actions’.

If you anticipate violent repression by a ruthless opponent, consider planning and implementing any nonviolent action according to the explanation in ‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression’.

Finally, if you are going to do nothing in response to this crisis, make it a conscious decision to do nothing. This is far preferable to unconsciously and powerlessly doing nothing by never even considering the evidence or by simply deluding yourself. It also allows you to consciously revise your decision at some point in future if you so wish

Conclusion

The evidence in relation to destruction of the Earth’s biosphere, leading to ongoing and rapid degradation of all ecosystems and their services, is readily available and overwhelming. The many and varied forms of destruction are having synergistic impact. An insignificant amount of the vast evidence in relation to this destruction is sampled above.

There is a notable group of prominent climate scientists who present compelling evidence that human extinction will occur by 2026 as a result of a projected 10 degree celsius increase in global temperatures above the pre-industrial level by this date. The primary document for this is noted above and this document, together with the evidence it cites, is readily available to be read and analyzed by anyone.

Largely separately from the climate catastrophe (although now increasingly complicated by it), Earth’s sixth mass extinction is already advancing rapidly as we destroy habitat and, on our current trajectory, all species will soon enter the fossil record.

Why? Because we live in a world in which the political, economic, military, legal and social structures and processes of human society are utterly incapable of producing either functional human beings or governance mechanisms that take into account, and respect, the ecological realities of Earth’s biosphere.

So, to reiterate: We are on the fast-track to extinction. On the current trajectory, assuming we can avert nuclear war, some time between 2021 and 2026 the last human will take their final breath.

Our only prospect of survival, and it still has only a remote chance of succeeding, is that a great number of us respond powerfully now and keep mobilizing more people to do so.

If you do absolutely nothing else, consider rearranging your life to exclude all meat from your diet, stop traveling by car and aircraft, substantially reduce your water consumption by scaling down your ownership of electronic devices (which require massive amounts of water to manufacture), and only eat biodynamically or organically grown whole food.

And tell people why you are doing so.

This might give those of us who fight strategically, which can include you if you so choose, a little more time to overturn the structural and remaining behavioral drivers of extinction which will require a profound change in the very nature of human society, including all of its major political, economic, military, legal and social institutions and processes (most of which will need to be abolished).

If this sounds ‘radical’, remember that they are about to vanish anyway. Our strategy must be to replace them with functional equivalents, all of which are readily available (with some briefly outlined in the various documents mentioned in the plan above).

‘It won’t happen’, you might say? And, to be candid, I sincerely believe that you are highly probably right. I have spent a lifetime observing, analyzing, writing about and acting to heal dysfunctional and violent human behavior and, for that reason, I am not going to delude myself that anything less than what I have outlined above will achieve the outcome that I seek: to avert human extinction. But I am realistic.

The insane individuals who control the institutions that are driving extinction will never act to avert it. If they were sane enough to do so, they would have been directing and coordinating these institutions in taking action for the past 40 years. This is why we must resist them strategically. Moreover, I am only too well aware that the bulk of the human population has been terrorized into powerlessness and won’t even act. But our best chance lies in offering them our personal example, and giving them simple and various options for responding effectively.

It is going to be a tough fight for human survival, particularly this late in the ‘game’. Nevertheless, I intend to fight until my last breath. I hope that you will too.

Switzerland’s banking watchdog, FINMA, does not require Swiss banks to enforce foreign sanctions, but has said they have a responsibility to minimize legal and reputational risks. Crédit Suisse is cautious. In 2009, it reached a $500 million settlement with U.S. authorities over dealings with sanctions-hit Iran. And most every major bank remembers the 2014 settlement of France’s BNP Paribas for a record $8.9 billion fine for violating U.S. sanctions against Sudan, Cuba and Iran.

When asked, two other Swiss banks, UBS and Julius Baer, who are known to deal with Russian clients, declined a straight forward answer whether they too will resort to sanctioning their Russian customers. An UBS spokesman said evasively, they were “implementing worldwide at least the sanctions currently imposed by Switzerland, the U.N., the EU and the U.S.”

What doesn’t stop amazing me, is how the western world just accepts such horrendous US fraud, or better called, outright theft of other countries resources, be it monetary or natural resources. And all that is possible only because the entire western world and all those African and lately again, Latin American countries – many of them developing countries, including some of the major oil producers – are still tied to the US dollar. All international money transactions, regardless whether they concern the United States, or simply two completely independent countries, have to transit through a US bank either in London or New York. This is what makes it possible for the US to implement financial and economic sanctions in the first place.

A few days ago, the German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, dared proposing that the EU detach itself from the international, totally privately run, Belgium registered SWIFT transfer system, as it is fully controlled by the US banking oligarchy, is operating in more than 200 countries and territories. He suggested that the EU create an independent transfer system, much like Russia and China have done, to free themselves from the financial slavehood to Washington. The reaction of one of his rightwing German countryman and parliamentarian was swift – it was not the right time to even think of de-coupling the EU from Washington, now where Russia is in dire straits and Germany and the rest of Europe needs the US more than ever. – Can you imagine!

In this pathetic, gutless Europe, it is highly questionable whether Mr. Mass’s excellent idea will survive and actually gain support. Hardly at this stage.

Irrespective of the spineless behavior of the EU and the Swiss Government, the latter unable even to stand up to its own neutrality – let them rot in their submissiveness to empire and its EU vassals – gutlessness, which by the way they, the Swiss Government, has also demonstrated vis-à-vis Venezuela – more important, much more important is, what does this all mean for Russia?

To begin with, the Crédit Suisse ‘frozen’ 5 billion dollars, you may as well call it what it is in reality: Totally illegally “confiscated” Russian assets. It is rare, if ever, that the US government returns so called ‘frozen’ assets of any sanctioned country. And under the current scenario, Trump and his masters and the pressure of the corrupt Hillary swamp, will not let go of demonizing and ‘sanctioning’ Russia, regardless of the real impact of these sanctions, and regardless of the total lawlessness of these actions, regardless of the manufactured and lie-based reason for these sanctions, regardless of the fact that everybody with a half-brain knows about the manipulated and false pretexts for sanctions, and regardless of another fact, namely that these actions are contributing to an ever accelerating suicide of the empire and its corrupt system that eventually will drown in its own Washington swamp. – Good riddens! The sooner the better.

And the impact of these sanctions is hardly what they pretend to be. They are foremost a call on the Atlantists – or call them Fifth Columnists, of which there are still too many embedded in the Russian financial sector – to counteract the internal measures Russia is taking to escape the dollar slavehood. They will not succeed. The vessel is turning and turning ever faster; turning from west to east.

Despite the constant demonization of the ruble, how it lost 50% of its value because of the sanctions, the Russian currency is worth way more than all the western fiat currencies together. The western dollar-dependent moneys are based on hot air, or not even – on zilch, nada, zero; they are literally produced by private banks like casino money. The ruble is doubly-backed by gold and by Russia’s well-recovered economy – and so is the Chinese Yuan.

So, what does a 50% loss of the ruble mean? – Loss against what? Loss against the US dollar and the currencies of Washington’s vassal allies? – With a delinked Russian economy from the western economy, the western concept of ‘devaluation’ is totally meaningless. The ruble doesn’t need to compare itself anymore to the western dollar-enslaved currencies.

So, the urgent call by the nature of things for Russia to delink from the western economy, from the western fraudulent dollar-based monetary system, is being heeded by Russia. – I cannot but repeat and repeat again that the dollar economy and the enslaving monetary system it produced, is an absolute fraud. It is a crime that would be punishable by any international court that deserves the name of a court of law, that is not bought and whose judges are not threatened if they don’t fold to the dictate of Washington. But upholding the laws of ethics and moral – the laws that our more honest and humble forefathers not too long ago crafted, is a thing of the past. The corruption in everything accompanied by intimidations and coercions, have been accepted by just about everybody as the new normal. This in itself is not normal. It creates a pressure cooker that eventually will simply explode.

To move away from this ever-increasing stench of cultural decay – a de-dollarization is a must, is a recipe for survival. And survive, Russia will. Russia is buying massively gold, shedding US treasury bonds from its reserves, replacing them with gold and Chinese Yuan, an IMF-accepted official reserve currency. In July 2018 Russia purchased a record 26 tons of gold, leading up to gold reserves of close to a total of 2000 tons, quadrupling her gold inventory since 2008. This makes Russia the world’s fifth largest gold holder.

As Mr. Putin said already a few years ago, the sanctions are the best thing that happened to Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It forced us to rehabilitate and boost our agricultural production for food self-sufficiency and to rebuild and modernize our industrial park. Today Russia has a cutting-edge industrial arsenal and is no longer dependent on “sanctioned” imports. Russia is not only food-autonomous but has become the world’s largest wheat exporter. And take this – according to Mr. Putin, Russia will supply the world with only organic food, no GMOs, no toxic fertilizers and pesticides.

Russia has clearly and unstoppably embarked on an “Economy of Resistance”: Local production for local markets with local money based on and for the development of the local economy; trading with friendly nations who share similar cultural and moral values – it’s called, regaining economic sovereignty. That’s key. That’s what most countries in the west under the yoke of the US empire and its puppets, enforced by NATO, have lost in the steadily increasing stranglehold of globalization. Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan, soon Mexico – and others are breaking loose from the fangs of the Washington Consensus that brought the world almost three decades of pure misery, exploitation and monetary enslavement.

Russia is strengthening her ties with China, with whom she has already for years a ruble-yuan swap agreement between the respective central banks, indicating a strong economic and trading relation. Both are members of the SCO – Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And Russia is also an integral part and link in President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative – BRI – a multi-trillion-yuan economic development scheme for the next at least hundred years, that will span the world with several transport routes, including shipping lines, ports and industrial expansion, as well as cultural exchange, education and research centers on the way. Members of the SCO encompass half the world’s population and account today already for about a third of the globes GDP – and growing fast, both in members as well as economic output.

Russia as part of this block of sovereign nations doesn’t need the west anymore, doesn’t need the Crédit Suisse confiscated 5 billion dollars anymore. Freedom is priceless. Sanctions are like the fiat currency they are based on; not more than rotten smelling hot air, and dissipating fast into oblivion.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

==See Also==

Blockchain is De-Dollarizing the Investing World: I flew from Moscow to Vietnam, participating in a new international business model for investing in worldwide property development using the blockchain.

Thus, in his just-released study Giants: The Global Power Elite, Phillips, a professor of political sociology at Sonoma State University in the USA, identifies the world’s top seventeen asset management firms, such as BlackRock and J.P Morgan Chase, each with more than one trillion dollars of investment capital under management, as the ‘Giants’ of world capitalism. The seventeen firms collectively manage more than $US41.1 trillion in a self-invested network of interlocking capital that spans the globe.

This $41 trillion represents the wealth invested for profit by thousands of millionaires, billionaires and corporations. The seventeen Giants operate in nearly every country in the world and are ‘the central institutions of the financial capital that powers the global economic system’. They invest in anything considered profitable, ranging from ‘agricultural lands on which indigenous farmers are replaced by power elite investors’ to public assets (such as energy and water utilities) to war.

In addition, Phillips identifies the most important networks of the Global Power Elite and the individuals therein. He names 389 individuals (a small number of whom are women and a token number of whom are from countries other than the United States and the wealthier countries of Western Europe) at the core of the policy planning nongovernmental networks that manage, facilitate and defend the continued concentration of global capital. The Global Power Elite perform two key uniting functions, he argues: they provide ideological justifications for their shared interests (promulgated through their corporate media), and define the parameters of action for transnational governmental organizations and capitalist nation-states.

More precisely, Phillips identifies the 199 directors of the seventeen global financial Giants and offers short biographies and public information on their individual net wealth. These individuals are closely interconnected through numerous networks of association including the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Conference, university affiliations, various policy councils, social clubs, and cultural enterprises. For a taste of one of these clubs, see this account of The Links in New York. As Phillips observes: ‘It is certainly safe to conclude they all know each other personally or know of each other in the shared context of their positions of power.’

The Giants, Phillips documents, invest in each other but also in many hundreds of investment management firms, many of which are near-Giants. This results in tens of trillions of dollars coordinated in a single vast network of global capital controlled by a very small number of people. ‘Their constant objective is to find enough safe investment opportunities for a return on capital that allows for continued growth. Inadequate capital-placement opportunities lead to dangerous speculative investments, buying up of public assets, and permanent war spending.’

Because the directors of these seventeen asset management firms represent the central core of international capital, ‘Individuals can retire or pass away, and other similar people will move into their place, making the overall structure a self-perpetuating network of global capital control. As such, these 199 people share a common goal of maximum return on investments for themselves and their clients, and they may seek to achieve returns by any means necessary – legal or not…. the institutional and structural arrangements within the money management systems of global capital relentlessly seek ways to achieve maximum return on investment, and … the conditions for manipulations – legal or not – are always present.’

Like some researchers before him, Phillips identifies the importance of those transnational institutions that serve a unifying function. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, G20, G7, World Trade Organization (WTO), World Economic Forum(WEF), Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, Bank for International Settlements, Group of 30 (G30), the Council on Foreign Relationsand the International Monetary Conference serve as institutional mechanisms for consensus building within the transnational capitalist class, and power elite policy formulation and implementation. ‘These international institutions serve the interests of the global financial Giants by supporting policies and regulations that seek to protect the free, unrestricted flow of capital and debt collection worldwide.’

But within this network of transnational institutions, Phillips identifies two very important global elite policy-planning organizations: the Group of Thirty (which has 32 members) and the extended executive committee of the Trilateral Commission (which has 55 members). These nonprofit corporations, which each have a research and support staff, formulate elite policy and issue instructions for their implementation by the transnational governmental institutions like the G7, G20, IMF, WTO, and World Bank. Elite policies are also implemented following instruction of the relevant agent, including governments, in the context. These agents then do as they are instructed.Thus, these 85 members (because two overlap) of the Group of Thirty and the Trilateral Commission comprise a central group of facilitators of global capitalism, ensuring that ‘global capital remains safe, secure, and growing’.

So, while many of the major international institutions are controlled by nation-state representatives and central bankers (with proportional power exercised by dominant financial supporters such as the United States and European Union countries), Phillips is more concerned with the transnational policy groups that are nongovernmental because these organizations ‘help to unite TCC power elites as a class’ and the individuals involved in these organizations facilitate world capitalism. ‘They serve as policy elites who seek the continued growth of capital in the world.’

Developing this list of 199 directors of the largest money management firms in the world, Phillips argues, is an important step toward understanding how capitalism works globally today. These global power elite directors make the decisions regarding the investment of trillions of dollars. Supposedly in competition, the concentrated wealth they share requires them to cooperate for their greater good by identifying investment opportunities and shared risk agreements, and working collectively for political arrangements that create advantages for their profit-generating system as a whole.

Their fundamental priority is to secure an average return on investment of 3 to 10 percent, or even more. The nature of any investment is less important than whatit yields: continuous returns that support growth in the overall market. Hence, capital investment in tobacco products, weapons of war, toxic chemicals, pollution, and other socially destructive goods and services are judged purely by their profitability. Concern for the social and environmental costs of the investment are non-existent. In other words, inflicting death and destruction are fine because they are profitable.

So what is the global elite’s purpose? In a few sentences Phillips characterizes it thus: The elite is largely united in support of the US/NATO military empire that prosecutes a repressive war against resisting groups – typically labeled ‘terrorists’ – around the world. The real purpose of ‘the war on terror’ is defense of transnational globalization, the unimpeded flow of financial capital around the world, dollar hegemony and access to oil; it has nothing to do with repressing terrorism which it generates, perpetuates and finances to provide cover for its real agenda. This is why the United States has a long history of CIA and military interventions around the world ostensibly in defense of ‘national interests’.

Wealth and Power

An interesting point that emerges for me from reading Phillips thoughtful analysis is that there is a clear distinction between those individuals and families who have wealth and those individuals who have (sometimes significantly) less wealth (which, nevertheless,  is still considerable) but, through their positions and connections, wield a great deal of power. As Phillips explains this distinction, ‘the sociology of elites is more important than particular elite individuals and their families’. Just 199 individuals decide how more than $40 trillion will be invested. And this is his central point. Let me briefly elaborate.

There are some really wealthy families in the world, notably including the families Rothschild (France and the United Kingdom), Rockefeller (USA), Goldman-Sachs (USA), Warburgs (Germany), Lehmann (USA), Lazards (France), Kuhn Loebs (USA), Israel Moses Seifs (Italy), Al-Saud (Saudi Arabia), Walton (USA), Koch (USA), Mars (USA), Cargill-MacMillan (USA) and Cox (USA). However, not all of these families overtly seek power to shape the world as they wish.

Similarly, the world’s extremely wealthy individuals such as Jeff Bezos (USA), Bill Gates (USA), Warren Buffett (USA), Bernard Arnault (France), Carlos Slim Helu (Mexico) and Francoise Bettencourt Meyers (France) are not necessarily connected in such a way that they exercise enormous power. In fact, they may have little interest in power as such, despite their obvious interest in wealth.

In essence, some individuals and families are content to simply take advantage of how capitalism and its ancilliary governmental and transnational instruments function while others are more politically engaged in seeking to manipulate major institutions to achieve outcomes that not only maximize their own profit and hence wealth but also shape the world itself.

So if you look at the list of 199 individuals that Phillips identifies at the centre of global capital, it does not include names such as Bezos, Gates, Buffett, Koch, Walton or even Rothschild, Rockefeller or Windsor (the Queen of England) despite their well-known and extraordinary wealth. As an aside, many of these names are also missing from the lists compiled by groups such as Forbes and Bloomberg, but their absence from these lists is for a very different reason given the penchant for many really wealthy individuals and families to avoid certain types of publicity and their power to ensure that they do.

In contrast to the names just listed, in Phillips’ analysis names like Laurence (Larry) Fink (Chairman and CEO of BlackRock), James (Jamie) Dimon (Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase) and John McFarlane (Chairman of Barclays Bank), while not as wealthy as those listed immediately above, wield far more power because of their positions and connections within the global elite network of 199 individuals.

Predictably then, Phillips observes, these three individuals have similar lifestyles and ideological orientations. They believe capitalism is beneficial for the world and while inequality and poverty are important issues, they believe that capital growth will eventually solve these problems. They are relatively non-expressive about environmental issues, but recognize that investment opportunities may change in response to climate ‘modifications’. As millionaires they own multiple homes. They attended elite universities and rose quickly in international finance to reach their current status as giants of the global power elite. ‘The institutions they manage have been shown to engage in illegal collusions with others, but the regulatory fines by governments are essentially seen as just part of doing business.’

In short, as I would characterize this description: They are devoid of a legal or moral framework to guide their actions, whether in relation to business, fellow human beings, war or the environment and climate. They are obviously typical of the elite.

Any apparent concern for people, such as that expressed by Fink and Dimon in response to the racist violence in Charlottesville, USAin August 2017, is simply designed to promote ‘stability’ or more precisely, a stable (that is, profitable) investment and consumer climate.

The lack of concern for people and issues that might concern many of us is also evident from a consideration of the agenda at elite gatherings. Consider the International Monetary Conference. Founded in 1956, it is a private yearly meeting of the top few hundred bankers in the world. The American Bankers Association (ABA) serves as the secretariat for the conference. But, as Phillips notes: ‘Nothing on the agenda seems to address the socioeconomic consequences of investments to determine the impacts on people and the environment.’ A casual perusal of the agenda at any elite gathering reveals that this comment applies equally to any elite forum. See, for example, the agenda of the recent WEF meeting in Davos. Any talk of ‘concern’ is misleading rhetoric.

Hence, in the words of Phillips: The 199 directors of the global Giants are ‘a very select set of people. They all know each other personally or know of each other. At least 69 have attended the annual World Economic Forum, where they often serve on panels or give public presentations. They mostly attended the same elite universities, and interact in upperclass social setting[s] in the major cities of the world. They all are wealthy and have significant stock holdings in one or more of the financial Giants. They are all deeply invested in the importance of maintaining capital growth in the world. Some are sensitive to environmental and social justice issues, but they seem to be unable to link these issues to global capital concentration.’

Of course, the global elite cannot manage the world system alone: the elite requires agents to perform many of the functions necessary to control national societies and the individuals within them. ‘The interests of the Global Power Elite and the TCC are fully recognized by major institutions in society. Governments, intelligence services, policymakers, universities, police forces, military, and corporate media all work in support of their vital interests.’

In other words, to elaborate Phillips’ point and extend it a little, through their economic power, theGiants control all of the instruments through which their policies are implemented. Whether it be governments, national military forces, ‘military contractors’ or mercenaries (with at least $200 billion spent on private security globally, the industry currently employs some fifteen million people worldwide) used both in ‘foreign’ wars but also likely deployed in future for domestic control, key ‘intelligence’ agencies, legal systems and police forces, major nongovernment organizations, or the academic, educational, ‘public relations propaganda’, corporate media, medical, psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries, all instruments are fully responsive to elite control and are designed to misinform, deceive, disempower, intimidate, repress, imprison (in a jail or psychiatric ward), exploit and/or kill (depending on the constituency) the rest of us, as is readily evident.

Defending Elite Power

Phillips observes that the power elite continually worries about rebellion by the ‘unruly exploited masses’ against their structure of concentrated wealth. This is why the US military empire has long played the role of defender of global capitalism. As a result, the United States has more than 800 military bases (with some scholars suggesting 1,000) in 70 countries and territories. In comparison, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia have about 30 foreign bases. In addition, US military forces are now deployed in 70 percent of the world’s nations with US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) having troops in 147 countries, an increase of 80 percent since 2010. These forces conduct counterterrorism strikes regularly, including drone assassinations and kill/capture raids.

‘The US military empire stands on hundreds of years of colonial exploitation and continues to support repressive, exploitative governments that cooperate with global capital’s imperial agenda. Governments that accept external capital investment, whereby a small segment of a country’s elite benefits, do so knowing that capital inevitably requires a return on investment that entails using up resources and people for economic gain. The whole system continues wealth concentration for elites and expanded wretched inequality for the masses….

‘Understanding permanent war as an economic relief valve for surplus capital is a vital part of comprehending capitalism in the world today. War provides investment opportunity for the Giants and TCC elites and a guaranteed return on capital. War also serves a repressive function of keeping the suffering masses of humanity afraid and compliant.’

As Phillips elaborates: This is why defense of global capital is the prime reason that NATO countries now account for 85 percent of the world’s military spending; the United States spends more on the military than the rest of the world combined.

In essence, ‘the Global Power Elite uses NATO and the US military empire for its worldwide security. This is part of an expanding strategy of US military domination around the world, whereby the US/ NATO military empire, advised by the power elite’s Atlantic Council, operates in service to the Transnational Corporate Class for the protection of international capital everywhere in the world’.

This entails ‘further pauperization of the bottom half of the world’s population and an unrelenting downward spiral of wages for 80 percent of the world. The world is facing economic crisis, and the neoliberal solution is to spend less on human needs and more on security. It is a world of financial institutions run amok, where the answer to economic collapse is to print more money through quantitative easing, flooding the population with trillions of new inflation-producing dollars. It is a world of permanent war, whereby spending for destruction requires further spending to rebuild, a cycle that profits the Giants and global networks of economic power. It is a world of drone killings, extrajudicial assassinations, death, and destruction, at home and abroad.’

Where is this all heading?

So what are the implications of this state of affairs? Phillips responds unequivocally: ‘This concentration of protected wealth leads to a crisis of humanity, whereby poverty, war, starvation, mass alienation, media propaganda, and environmental devastation are reaching a species-level threat. We realize that humankind is in danger of possible extinction’.

He goes on to state that the Global Power Elite is probably the only entity ‘capable of correcting this condition without major civil unrest, war, and chaos’ and elaborates an important aim of his book: to raise awareness of the importance of systemic change and the redistribution of wealth among both the book’s general readers but also the elite, ‘in the hope that they can begin the process of saving humanity.’ The book’s postscript is a ‘A Letter to the Global Power Elite’, co-signed by Phillips and 90 others, beseeching the elite to act accordingly.

‘It is no longer acceptable for you to believe that you can manage capitalism to grow its way out of the gross inequalities we all now face. The environment cannot accept more pollution and waste, and civil unrest is everywhere inevitable at some point. Humanity needs you to step up and insure that trickle-down becomes a river of resources that reaches every child, every family, and all human beings. We urge you to use your power and make the needed changes for humanity’s survival.’

But he also emphasizes that nonviolent social movements, using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a moral code, can accelerate the process of redistributing wealth by pressuring the elite into action.

Conclusion

Peter Phillips has written an important book. For those of us interested in understanding elite control of the world, this book is a vital addition to the bookshelf. And like any good book, as you will see from my comments both above and below, it raised more questions for me even while it answered many.

As I read Phillips’ insightful and candid account of elite behavior in this regard, I am reminded, yet again, that the global power elite is extraordinarily violent and utterly insane: content to kill people in vast numbers (whether through starvation or military violence) and destroy the biosphere for profit, with zero sense of humanity’s now limited future. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’ and ‘Human Extinction by 2026? A Last Ditch Strategy to Fight for Human Survival’ with more detailed explanations for the violence and insanity here: ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

For this reason I do not share his faith in moral appeals to the elite, as articulated in the letter in his postscript. It is fine to make the appeal but history offers no evidence to suggest that there will be any significant response. The death and destruction inflicted by elites is highly profitable, centuries-old and ongoing. It will take powerful, strategically-focused nonviolent campaigns (or societal collapse) to compel the necessary changes in elite behavior. Hence, I fully endorse his call for nonviolent social movements to compel elite action where we cannot make the necessary changes without their involvement. See ‘A Nonviolent Strategy to End Violence and Avert Human Extinction’and Nonviolent Campaign Strategy.

I would also encourage independent action, in one or more of several ways, by those individuals and communities powerful enough to do so. This includes nurturing more powerful individuals by making ‘My Promise to Children’, participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’and signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

Fundamentally, Giants: The Global Power Eliteis a call to action. Professor Peter Phillips is highly aware of our predicament – politically, socially, economically, environmentally and climatically – and the critical role played by the global power elite in generating that predicament.

If we cannot persuade the global power elite to respond sensibly to that predicament, or nonviolently compel it to do so, humanity’s time on Earth is indeed limited.

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.

Former Assistant Secretary of Housing Catherine Austin Fitts warns that the “financial rape of America” is nothing more than “re-engineering” the debt based  economy

This disillusionment with Putin, together with Putin’s endorsement of raising the retirement age for pensions, a trap set for him by Russia’s neoliberal economists, have hurt Putin’s approval ratings at the precise time that he will again be tested by Washington in Syria.

In many columns I have defended Putin from the charge that he is not sufficiently Russian. Putin wants to avoid war, because he knows it would be nuclear, the consequences of which would be dire. He knows that the US and its militarily impotent NATO allies cannot possibly conduct conventional warfare against Russia or China, much less against both. Putin also understands that the sanctions are damaging Washington’s European vassals and could eventually force the European vassal states into independence that would constrain Washington’s belligerence. Even with Russia’s new super weapons, which probably give Putin the capability of destroying the entirety of the Western World with little or no damage to Russia, Putin sees no point in so much destruction, especially as the consequences are unknown. There could be nuclear winter or other results that would put the planet into decline as a life-sustaining entity.

So, as I have suggested in many columns Putin is acting intelligently. He is in the game for the long term while protecting the world from dangerous war.

Whereas I endorse Putin’s strategy and admire his coolness as a person who never lets emotion lead him, there is nevertheless a problem. The people in the West with whom he is dealing are idiots who do not appreciate his statesmanship. Consequently, each time Putin turns the other cheek, so to speak, the insults and the provocations ratchet upward.

Consider Syria. The Syrian Army with the help of a tiny part of the Russian Air Force has cleared all areas of Syria but one of the American-instigated-financed-and-equiped forces sent by Washington to overthrow the Syrian government.

The remaining US proxy force is about to be eliminated. In order to save it, and to keep a Washington foothold that could permit a restart of the war, Washington has arranged yet another false flag “chemical attack” that the presstitute and obiedient Western media will blame on Assad. President Trump’s National Security Adviser, a crazed, perhaps insane, Zionist Neoconservative, has told Russia that Washington will take a dim view of the Syrian/Russian use of chemical weapons against “Assad’s own people.”

The Russians are fully aware that any chemical attack will be a false flag attack orchestrated by Washington using the elements it sent to Syria to overthrow the government. Indeed, Russia’s ambassador to the US explained it all yesterday to the US government.

Clearly, Putin hopes to avoid Washington’s orchestrated attack by having his ambassador explain the orchestration to the American officials who are orchestrating it. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-30/russian-ambassador-gave-intel-us-officials-showing-planned-chemical-provocation
This strategy implies that Putin thinks US government officials are capable of shame and integrity. They most certainly are not. I spent 25 years with them. They don’t even know what the words mean.

What if, instead, Putin had declared publicly for the entire world to hear that any forces, wherever located, responsible for an attack on Syria would be annihiliated? My view -— https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/08/29/a-book-for-our-time-a-time-that-perhaps-has-run-its-course/ — and that of Russian patriot Bogdasarov— https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/08/a-russian-response-to-a-new-us-attack-on-syria-should-include-sinking-the-carriers-not-just-shooting-at-their-missiles/ — is that such an ultimatum from the leader of the country capable of delivering it would cool the jets of Russophobic Washington. There would be no attack on Syria.

Bogdasarov and I might be wrong. The Russian forces deployed around Syria with their hypersonic missiles are more than a match for the US forces assembled to attack Syria. However, American hubris can certainly prevail over facts, in which case Putin would have to destroy the sources of the attack. By not committing in advance, Putin retains flexibility. Washington’s attack, like its previous attack on Syria, might be a face-saver, not a real attack. Nevertheless, sooner or later Russia will have to deliver a firmer response to provocations.

I am an American. I am not a Russian, much less a Russian nationalist. I do not want US military personnel to be casualties of Washington’s fatal desire for world hegemony, much less to be casualties of Washington serving Israel’s interests in the Middle East. The reason I think Putin needs to do a better job of standing up to Washington is that I think, based on history, that appeasement encourages more provocations, and it comes to a point when you have to surrender or fight. It is much better to stop this process in its tracks before it reaches that dangerous point.

Andrei Martyanov, whose book I recently reviewed on my website, recently defended Putin, as The Saker and I have done in the past, from claims that Putin is too passive in the face of assaults. https://russia-insider.com/en/russia-playing-long-game-no-room-instant-gratification-strategies-super-patriots/ri24561 As I have made the same points, I can only applaud Martyanov and The Saker. Where we might differ is in recognizing that endlessly accepting insults and provocations encourages their increase until the only alternative is surrender or war.

So, the questions for Andrei Martyanov, The Saker, and for Putin and the Russian government is: How long does turning your other cheek work? Do you turn your other cheek so long as to allow your opponent to neutralize your advantage in a confrontation? Do you turn your other cheek so long that you lose the support of the patriotic population for your failure to defend the country’s honor? Do you turn your other cheek so long that you are eventually forced into war or submission? Do you turn your other cheek so long that the result is nuclear war?

I think that Martyanov and The Saker agree that my question is a valid one. Both emphazise in their highly informative writings that the court historians misrepresent wars in the interest of victors. Let’s give this a moment’s thought. Both Napoleon and Hitler stood at their apogee, their success unmitigated by any military defeat. Then they marched into Russia and were utterly destroyed. Why did they do this? They did it because their success had given them massive arogance and belief in their “exceptionalism,” the dangerous word that encapsulates Washington’s belief in its hegemony.

The zionist neoconsevatives who rule in Washington are capable of the same mistake that Napoleon and Hitler made. They believe in “the end of history,” that the Soviet collapse means history has chosen America as the model for the future. Their hubris actually exceeds that of Napoleon and Hitler.

When confronted with such deluded and ideological force, does turning the other cheek work or does it encourage more provocation?

This is the question before the Russian government.

Perhaps the Russian government will understand the meaning of the orchestrated eulogies for John McCain. It is not normal for a US senator to be eulogized in this way, especially one with such an undistinguished record. What is being eulogized is McCain’s hatred of Russia and his record as a warmonger. What Washington is eulogizing is its own committment to war.

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, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

Crashing Currency Chaos Spreads Across the Global South

The Iranian rial: crash. The Turkish lira: crash. The Argentine peso: crash. The Brazilian real: crash. There are multiple, complex, parallel vectors at play in this wilderness of crashing currencies. Turkey’s case is heavily influenced by the bubble of easy credit created by European banks.

September 17, 2018 "Information Clearing House" -  I rarely use this blog to tell readers what they should believe. Rather I try to indicate why it might be wise to distrust, at least without very good evidence, what those in power tell us we should believe.

We have well-known sayings about power: “Knowledge is power”, and “Power tends to corrupt, while absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.” These aphorisms resonate because they say something true about how we experience the world. People who have power – even very limited power they hold on licence from someone else – tend to abuse it, sometimes subtly and unconsciously, and sometimes overtly and wilfully.

If we are reasonably self-aware, we can sense the tendency in ourselves to exploit to our advantage whatever power we enjoy, whether it is in our dealings with a spouse, our children, a friend, an employee, or just by the general use of our status to get ahead.

This isn’t usually done maliciously or even consciously. By definition, the hardest thing to recognise are our own psychological, emotional and mental blind spots – and the biggest, at least for those born with class, gender or race privileges, is realising that these too are forms of power.

Nonetheless, these are all minor forms of power compared to the power wielded collectively by the structures that dominate our societies: the financial sector, the corporations, the media, the political class, and the security services.

But strangely most of us are much readier to concede the corrupting influence of the relatively small power of individuals than we are the rottenness of vastly more powerful institutions and structures. We blame the school teacher or the politician for abusing his or her power, while showing a reluctance to do the same about either the education or political systems in which they have to operate.

Similarly, we are happier identifying the excessive personal power of a Rupert Murdoch than we are the immense power of the corporate empire behind him and on which his personal wealth and success depend.

And beyond this, we struggle most of all to detect the structural and ideological framework underpinning or cohering all these discrete examples of power.

Narrative control

It is relatively easy to understand that your line manager is abusing his power, because he has so little of it. His power is visible to you because it relates only to you and the small group of people around you.

It is a little harder, but not too difficult, to identify the abusive policies of your firm – the low pay, cuts in overtime, attacks on union representation.

It is more difficult to see the corrupt power of large institutions, aside occasionally from the corruption of senior figures within those institutions, such as a Robert Maxwell or a Richard Nixon.

But it is all but impossible to appreciate the corrupt nature of the entire system. And the reason is right there in those aphorisms: absolute power depends on absolute control over knowledge, which in turn necessitates absolute corruption. If that were not the case, we wouldn’t be dealing with serious power – as should be obvious, if we pause to think about it.

Real power in our societies derives from that which is necessarily hard to see – structures, ideology and narratives – not individuals. Any Murdoch or Trump can be felled, though being loyal acolytes of the power-system they rarely are, should they threaten the necessary maintenance of power by these interconnected institutions, these structures.

The current neoliberal elite who effectively rule the planet have reached as close to absolute power as any elite in human history. And because they have near-absolute power, they have a near-absolute control of the official narratives about our societies and our “enemies”, those who stand in their way to global domination.

No questions about Skripals

One needs only to look at the narrative about the two men, caught on CCTV cameras, who have recently been accused by our political and media class of using a chemical agent to try to murder Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia back in March.

I don’t claim to know whether Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov work for the Russian security services, or whether they were dispatched by Vladimir Putin on a mission to Salisbury to kill the Skripals.

What is clear, however, is that the British intelligence services have been feeding the British corporate media a self-serving, drip-drip narrative from the outset – and that the media have shown precisely no interest at any point in testing any part of this narrative or even questioning it. They have been entirely passive, which means their readers – us – have been entirely passive too.

That there are questions about the narrative to be raised is obvious if you turn away from the compliant corporate media and seek out the views of an independent-minded, one-time insider such as Craig Murray.

A former British ambassador, Murray is asking questions that may prove to be pertinent or not. But at this stage, when all we have to rely on is what the intelligence services are selectively providing, these kinds of doubts should be driving the inquiries of any serious journalist covering the story. But as is so often the case, not only are these questions not being raised or investigated, but anyone like Murray who thinks critically – who assumes that the powerful will seek to promote their interests and avoid accountability – is instantly dismissed as a conspiracy theorist or in Putin’s pocket.

That is no meaningful kind of critique. Many of the questions that have been raised – like why there are so many gaps in the CCTV record of the movements of both the Skripals and the two assumed assassins – could be answered if there was an interest in doing so. The evasion and the smears simply suggest that power intends to remain unaccountable, that it is keeping itself concealed, that the narrative is more important than the truth.

And that is reason enough to move from questioning the narrative to distrusting it.

Ripples on a lake

Journalists typically have a passive relationship to power, in stark contrast to their image as tenacious watchdog. But more fundamental than control over narrative is the ideology that guides these narratives.  Ideology ensures the power-system is invisible not only to us, those who are abused and exploited by it, but also to those who benefit from it.

It is precisely because power resides in structures and ideology, rather than individuals, that it is so hard to see. And the power-structures themselves are made yet more difficult to identify because the narratives created about our societies are designed to conceal those structures and ideology – where real power resides – by focusing instead on individuals.

That is why our newspapers and TV shows are full of stories about personalities – celebrities, royalty, criminals, politicians. They are made visible so that we do not notice the ideological structures we live inside that are supposed to remain invisible.

News and entertainment are the ripples on a lake, not the lake itself. But the ripples could not exist without the lake that forms and shapes them.

Up against the screen

If this sounds like hyperbole, let’s stand back from our particular ideological system – neoliberalism – and consider earlier ideological systems in the hope that they offer some perspective. At the moment, we are like someone standing right up against an IMAX screen, so close that we cannot see that there is a screen or even guess that there is a complete picture. All we see are moving colours and pixels. Maybe we can briefly infer a mouth, the wheel of a vehicle, a gun.

Before neoliberalism there were other systems of rule. There was, for example, feudalism that appropriated a communal resource – land – exclusively for an aristocracy. It exploited the masses by forcing them to toil on the land for a pittance to generate the wealth that supported castles, a clergy, manor houses, art collections and armies. For several centuries the power of this tiny elite went largely unquestioned.

But then a class of entrepreneurs emerged, challenging the landed artistocracy with a new means of industrialised production. They built factories and took advantage of scales of economy that slightly widened the circle of privilege, creating a middle class. That elite, and the middle-class that enjoyed crumbs from their master’s table, lived off the exploitation of children in work houses and the labour of a new urban poor in slum housing.

These eras were systematically corrupt, enabling the elites of those times to extend and entrench their power. Each elite produced justifications to placate the masses who were being exploited, to brainwash them into believing the system existed as part of a natural order or even for their benefit. The aristocracy relied on a divine right of kings, the capitalist class on the guiding hand of the free market and bogus claims of equality of opportunity.

In another hundred years, if we still exist as a species, our system will look no less corrupt – probably more so – than its predecessors.

Neoliberalism, late-stage capitalism, plutocratic rule by corporations – whatever you wish to call it – has allowed a tiny elite to stash away more wealth and accrue more power than any feudal monarch could ever have dreamt of. And because of the global reach of this elite, its corruption is more endemic, more complete, more destructive than any ever known to mankind.

A foreign policy elite can destroy the world several times over with nuclear weapons. A globalised corporate elite is filling the oceans with the debris from our consumption, chopping down the forest-lungs of our planet for palm-oil plantations so we can satisfy our craving for biscuits and cake. And our media and intelligence services are jointly crafting a narrative of bogeymen and James Bond villains – both in Hollywood movies, and in our news programmes – to make us fearful and pliable.

Assumptions of inevitability

Most of us abuse our own small-power thoughtlessly, even self-righteously. We tell ourselves that we gave the kids a “good spanking” because they were naughty, rather than because we established with them early on a power relationship that confusingly taught them that the use of force and coercion came with a parental stamp of approval.

Those in greater power – from minions in the media to executives of major corporations – are no different. They are as incapable of questioning the ideology and the narrative – how inevitable and “right” our neoliberal system is – as the rest of us. But they play a vital part in maintaining and entrenching that system nonetheless.

David Cromwell and David Edwards of Media Lens have provided two analogies – in the context of the media – that help explain how it is possible for individuals and groups to assist and enforce systems of power without having any conscious intention to do so, and without being aware that they are contributing to something harmful. Without, in short, being aware that they are conspiring in the system.

The first:

When a shoal of fish instantly changes direction, it looks for all the world as though the movement was synchronised by some guiding hand. Journalists – all trained and selected for obedience by media all seeking to maximise profits within state-capitalist society – tend to respond to events in the same way.

The second:

Place a square wooden framework on a flat surface and pour into it a stream of ball bearings, marbles, or other round objects. Some of the balls may bounce out, but many will form a layer within the wooden framework; others will then find a place atop this first layer. In this way, the flow of ball bearings steadily builds new layers that inevitably produce a pyramid-style shape. This experiment is used to demonstrate how near-perfect crystalline structures such as snowflakes arise in nature without conscious design.

The system – whether feudalism, capitalism, neoliberalism – emerges out of the real-world circumstances of those seeking power most ruthlessly. In a time when the key resource was land, a class emerged justifying why it should have exclusive rights to control that land and the labour needed to make it productive. When industrial processes developed, a class emerged demanding that it had proprietary rights to those processes and to the labour needed to make them productive.

Our place in the pyramid

In these situations, we need to draw on something like Darwin’s evolutionary “survival of the fittest” principle. Those few who are most hungry for power, those with least empathy, will rise to the top of the pyramid, finding themselves best-placed to exploit the people below. They will rationalise this exploitation as a divine right, or as evidence of their inherently superior skills, or as proof of the efficiency of the market.

And below them, like the layers of ball bearings, will be those who can help them maintain and expand their power: those who have the skills, education and socialisation to increase profits and sell brands.

All of this should be obvious, even non-controversial. It fits what we experience of our small-power lives. Does bigger power operate differently? After all, if those at the top of the power-pyramid were not hungry for power, even psychopathic in its pursuit, if they were caring and humane, worried primarily about the wellbeing of their workforce and the planet, they would be social workers and environmental activists, not CEOs of media empires and arms manufacturers.

And yet, base your political thinking on what should be truisms, articulate a worldview that distrusts those with the most power because they are the most capable of – and committed to – misusing it, and you will be derided. You will be called a conspiracy theorist, dismissed as deluded. You will be accused of wearing a tinfoil hat, of sour grapes, of being anti-American, a social warrior, paranoid, an Israel-hater or anti-semitic, pro-Putin, pro-Assad, a Marxist.

None of this should surprise us either. Because power – not just the people in the system, but the system itself – will use whatever tools it has to protect itself. It is easier to deride critics as unhinged, especially when you control the media, the politicians and the education system, than it is to provide a counter-argument.

In fact, it is vital to prevent any argument or real debate from taking place. Because the moment we think about the arguments, weigh them, use our critical faculties, there is a real danger that the scales will fall from our eyes. There is a real threat that we will move back from the screen, and see the whole picture.

Can we see the complete picture of the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury; or the US election that led to Trump being declared president; or the revolution in Ukraine; or the causes and trajectory of fighting in Syria, and before it Libya and Iraq; or the campaign to discredit Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party; or the true implications of the banking crisis a decade ago?

Profit, not ethics

Just as a feudal elite was driven not by ethics but by the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of land; just as early capitalists were driven not by ethics but by the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of mechanisation; so neoliberalism is driven not by ethics but the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of the planet.

The only truth we can know is that the western power-elite is determined to finish the task of making its power fully global, expanding it from near-absolute to absolute. It cares nothing for you or your grand-children. It is a cold-calculating system, not a friend or neighbour. It lives for the instant gratification of wealth accumulation, not concern about the planet’s fate tomorrow.

And because of that it is structurally bound to undermine or discredit anyone, any group, any state that stands in the way of achieving its absolute dominion.

If that is not the thought we hold uppermost in our minds as we listen to a politician, read a newspaper, watch a film or TV show, absorb an ad, or engage on social media, then we are sleepwalking into a future the most powerful, the most ruthless, the least caring have designed for us.

Step back, and take a look at the whole screen. And decide whether this is really the future you wish for your grand-children.

Jonathan Cook is a Nazareth- based journalist and winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. https://www.jonathan-cook.net/

September 29, 2018 "Information Clearing House" -  Hidden in a largely overlooked draft report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are some startling figures: the Trump administration believes there will be a 7 degree Fahrenheit rise in average global temperatures by 2100, and the report suggest we not even bother trying to stop it.

“The amazing thing they’re saying is human activities are going to lead to this rise of carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society. And then they’re saying they’re not going to do anything about it,” Michael MacCracken, who served as a senior scientist at the U.S. Global Change Research Program from 1993 to 2002, told the Washington Post.

Deep in the dog days of summer this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a 500-page report on the environmental impact of fuel economy standards. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this document was not widely-read. But on Friday, the Washington Post reported the fact that the paper assumes that if current practices are unchanged, the planet will warm a catastrophic 7 degrees F, or about 4 degrees Celsius.

It’s hard to overemphasize just how devastating a 4 degree warming would be. Under the Paris Climate Agreement, every other country on the planet is working to try to curb our emissions and fossil fuel consumption in order to slow the warming of our planet. The goal is to keep it from warming beyond 1.5 degree C—and never reach 2 degree C—above pre-industrial levels. A new United Nations report suggests that first goal is already very unlikely, but there is still hope of keeping us under 2 degrees.

Four degrees of warming would be, quite simply, catastrophic. At just two degrees of warming, our crop production would drop drastically, the ocean level would rise about 50 cm, freshwater would dry up by about 17 percent, and heat waves and storms would ravage more of the planet for longer. Double that and you’re looking at a completely altered planet.

What’s most alarming about the paper is that it takes this warming as a predetermined fact and, rather than advocating for change, uses it to justify not improving fuel efficiency standards after 2020, resulting in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The report claims that this would be a negligible contribution to the inevitable warming the agency anticipates.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks to 73rd United Nations General Assembly in New York (9/28/18) on September 28, 2018. FM Lavrov speaks about Europe, Ukraine, Syria at the UNGA 2018.

September 29, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - Perhaps it is Donald Trump’s business background that leads him to believe that if you inflict enough economic pain on someone they will ultimately surrender and agree to do whatever you want. Though that approach might well work in New York real estate, it is not a certain path to success in international relations since countries are not as vulnerable to pressure as are individual investors or developers.

Washington’s latest foray into the world of sanctions, directed against China, is astonishing even when considering the low bar that has been set by previous presidents going back to Bill Clinton. Beijing has already been pushing back over US sanctions imposed last week on its government-run Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Central Military Commission and its director Li Shangfu for “engaging in significant transactions” with a Russian weapons manufacturer that is on a list of US sanctioned companies. The transactions included purchases of Russian Su-35 combat aircraft as well as equipment related to the advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile system. The sanctions include a ban on the director entering the United States and blocks all of his property or bank accounts within the US as well as freezing all local assets of the Equipment Development Department.

More important, the sanctions also forbid conducting any transactions that go through the US financial system. It is the most powerful weapon Washington has at its disposal, but it is being challenged as numerous countries are working to find ways around it. Currently however, as most international transactions are conducted in dollars and pass through American banks that means that it will be impossible for the Chinese government to make weapons purchases from many foreign sources. If foreign banks attempt to collaborate with China to evade the restrictions, they too will be sanctioned.

So in summary, Beijing bought weapons from Moscow and is being sanctioned by the United States for doing so because Washington does not approve of the Russian government. The sanctions on China are referred to as secondary sanctions in that they are derivative from the primary sanction on the foreign company or individual that is actually being punished. Secondary sanctions can be extended ad infinitum as transgressors linked sequentially to the initial transaction multiply the number of potential targets.

Not surprisingly, the US Ambassador has been summoned and Beijing has canceled several bilateral meetings with American defense department officials. The Chinese government has expressed “outrage” and has demanded the US cancel the measure.

According to media reports, the Chinese Department purchased the weapons from Rosoboronexport, Russia’s principal arms exporter. This violated a 2017 law passed by Congress named, characteristically, the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which sought to punish the Russian government and its various agencies for interfering in in the 2016 US election as well as its alleged involvement in Ukraine, Syria and its development of cyberwar capabilities. Iran and North Korea were also targeted in the legislation.

Explaining the new sanctions, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert issued a statement elaborating that the initial sanctions on Russia were enacted “to further impose costs on the Russian government in response to its malign activities.” She added that the US will “urge all countries to curtail relationships with Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors, both of which are linked to malign activities worldwide.”

As engaging in “malign activities” is a charge that should quite plausibly be leveled against Washington and its allies in the Middle East, it is not clear if anyone but the French and British poodles actually believes the rationalizations coming out of Washington to defend the indefensible. An act to “Counter America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions” is, even as the title implies, ridiculous. Washington is on a sanctions spree. Russia has been sanctioned repeatedly since the passage of the fraudulent Magnitsky Act, with no regard for Moscow’s legitimate protests that interfering in other countries’ internal politics is unacceptable. China is currently arguing reasonably enough that arms sales between countries is perfect legal and in line with international law.

Iran has been sanctioned even through it complied with an international agreement on its nuclear program and new sanctions were even piled on top of the old sanctions. And in about five weeks the US will be sanctioning ANYONE who buys oil from Iran, reportedly with no exceptions allowed. Venezuela is under US sanctions to punish its government, NATO member Turkey because it bought weapons from Russia and the Western Hemisphere perennial bad boy Cuba has had various embargoes in place since 1960.

It should be noted that sanctions earn a lot of ill-will and generally accomplish nothing. Cuba would likely be a fairly normal country but for the US restrictions and other pressure that gave its government the excuse to maintain a firm grip on power. The same might even apply to North Korea. And sanctions are even bad for the United States. Someday, when the US begins to lose its grip on the world economy all of those places being sanctioned will line up to get their revenge and it won’t be pretty.

It is difficult to imagine how the United States might avoid a new war in the Middle East given the recent statements that have come out of Washington, and, given that the Russians are also active in the region, a rapid and massive escalation of something that starts out as a minor incident should not be ruled out.

President Donald Trump set the tone when he harangued the United Nations last Tuesday, warning that the United States would go it alone in defense of its perceived interests, with no regard for international bodies that exist to limit armed conflict and punish those who commit war crimes.

Trump’s 35-minute speech featured an anticipated long section targeting Iran. He commented that:

“Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction. They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran’s leaders plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond… We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants ‘Death to America,’ and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth.”

There are a number of things exaggerated or incorrect in Trump’s description of Iran as well as in the conclusions he draws. The Middle East and other adjacent Muslim countries are in chaos because the United States has destabilized the region starting with the empowering of the Islamist Mujadeddin in the war against Soviet Afghanistan in the 1980s. It then invaded Afghanistan in 2001 followed by Iraq in 2003, enabling the rise of ISIS and giving local al-Qaeda affiliates a new lease on life, before turning on Damascus with the Syria Accountability Act later in the same year and then destroying the Libyan government under Barack Obama. These were, not coincidentally, policies promoted by Israel that received, as a result, bipartisan support in Congress.

The emotional description of disrespecting “neighbors, borders and sovereign rights” fits the U.S. and Israel to a “T” rather than Iran. The U.S. has soldiers stationed illegally in Syria while Israel bombs the country on an almost daily basis, so who is doing the disrespecting? Washington and Tel Aviv are also the principal supporters of terrorists in the Middle East, not Iran, – arming them, training them, hospitalizing them when they are injured, and making sure that they continue their work in attacking Syria’s legitimate government.

And as for “most dangerous weapons,” Iran doesn’t have any and is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Israel and the U.S. have not signed. Nor would Iran have any such weapons in the future but for the fact that Trump has backed out of the agreement to monitor and inspect Iranian nuclear research and development, which will, if anything, motivate Tehran to develop weapons to protect itself.

Trump also elaborated on the following day regarding Iran’s alleged but demonstrably non-existent nuclear program when he indicated to the Security Council that Washington would go after countries that violate the rules on nuclear proliferation. He clearly meant Iran but the comment was ironic in the extreme, as Israel is the world’s leading nuclear rogue nation with an arsenal of two hundred nuclear devices, having stolen the uranium and key elements of the technology from the United States in the 1960s.

Trump’s new appraisal of the state of the Middle East is somewhat a turnaround. Five months ago he said that he wanted to “get out” of Syria and bring the soldiers home. But in early September, the secretary of state’s special representative for Syria engagement, James Jeffrey, indicated that the U.S. would stay to counter Iranian activities.

And John Bolton has also recently had a lot to say about Iran, Syria and Russia. Last Monday he confirmed that Washington intends to keep a military presence in Syria until Iran withdraws all its forces from the country. “We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders, and that includes Iranian proxies and militias.” On the following day, speaking at a Sheldon Adelson funded United Against Nuclear Iran Summit, he said the “murderous regime” of “mullahs in Tehran” would face serious consequences if they persist in their willingness to “lie, cheat and deceive. If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens there will indeed be hell to pay. Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you.”

John Bolton also warned the Russians about their decision to upgrade the air defenses in Syria in the wake of the recent Israeli bombing raid that led to the shooting down of a Russian intelligence plane. He said absurdly and inaccurately “The Israelis have a legitimate right to self-defense against this Iranian aggressive behavior, and what we’re all trying to do is reduce tensions, reduce the possibility of major new hostilities. That’s why the president has spoken to this issue and why we would regard introducing the S-300 as a major mistake.”

Bolton then elaborated that “We think introducing the S-300s to the Syrian government would be a significant escalation by the Russians and something that we hope, if these press reports are accurate, they would reconsider.” And regarding who was responsible for the deaths of the Russian airmen, Bolton also has a suitable explanation “There shouldn’t be any misunderstanding here… The party responsible for the attacks in Syria and Lebanon and really the party responsible for the shooting down of the Russian plane is Iran.”

Bolton’s desire to exonerate Israel and always blame Iran is inevitably on display. He is curiously objecting to the placement of missiles that are defensive in nature, presumably because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked him to do so. The only way one can be threatened by the S-300 is if you are attacking Syria, but that might be a fine point that Bolton fails to grasp as he was a draft dodger during the Vietnam War and has since that time not placed himself personally at risk in support of any of the wars he has been promoting.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also spoke on Monday, at the Pentagon. His spin on Iran was slightly different but his message was the same. “As part of this overarching problem, we have to address Iran. Everywhere you go in the Middle East where there’s instability you will find Iran. So in terms of getting to the end state of the Geneva [negotiations] process, Iran, too, has a role to play, which is to stop fomenting trouble.”

To complete the onslaught, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking at the same United Against Nuclear Iran Summit as Bolton, accused European nations seeking to avoid U.S. sanctions over the purchase of Iranian oil as “solidifying Iran’s ranking as the number-one state sponsor of terrorism. I imagine the corrupt ayatollahs and IGRC [Revolutionary Guards] were laughing this morning.”

Even the U.S. Congress has figured out that something is afoot. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, who were carefully briefed on what to think by the Israeli government, warned after a trip to the Middle East that war between the United States and Iranian proxies is “imminent.”

Iran is fun to kick around but China has also been on the receiving end of late. Last Wednesday the U.N. Security Council meeting was presided over by Donald Trump, who warned that Beijing is “meddling” in U.S. elections against him personally. It is a bizarre claim, particularly as the only country up until now demonstrated as having actually interfered in American politics in any serious way is Israel. The accusation comes on top of Washington’s latest foray into the world of sanctions, directed against the Chinese government-run Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Central Military Commission and its director Li Shangfu for “engaging in significant transactions” with a Russian weapons manufacturer that is on a list of U.S. sanctioned companies.

The Chinese sanctions are serious business as they forbid conducting any transactions that go through the U.S. financial system. It is the most powerful weapon Washington has at its disposal. As most international transactions are conducted in dollars and pass through American banks that means that it will be impossible for the Chinese government to make weapons purchases from many foreign sources. If foreign banks attempt to collaborate with China to evade the restrictions, they too will be sanctioned.

So if you’re paying attention to Trump, Bolton, Mattis, Pompeo and Haley you are probably digging a new bomb shelter right now. We have told Iran that it cannot send its soldiers and “proxies” outside its own borders while Syria cannot have advanced missiles to defend its airspace, which Russia is “on notice” for providing. China also cannot buy weapons from Russia while Venezuela is also being threatened because it has what is generally believed to be a terrible government. Meanwhile, America is in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to stay while nearly all agree a war with Iran is coming soon. Everyone is the enemy and everyone hates the United States, mostly for good reasons. If this is Making America Great Again, I think I would settle for just making America “good” so we could possibly have that doomsday clock go back a couple of minutes.

 A detailed but depressing summary of where Professor Chomsky thinks we are with respect to the threat of nuclear war and the collapse of the environment.

Transcribed by Felton Davis, c/o Catholic Worker

This week, the people of Okinawa elected Denny Tamaki of the Liberal Party as the governor of Okinawa. Tamaki’s mother is an Okinawan, while his father—whom he does not know—was a U.S. soldier. Tamaki, like Okinawa’s former governor Takeshi Onaga, opposes the U.S. military bases on Okinawa. Onaga wanted the presence of the U.S. military removed from the island, a position that Tamaki seems to endorse. The United States has over 50,000 troops in Japan as well as a very large contingent of ships and aircraft. Seventy percent of the U.S. bases are on Okinawa island. Almost everyone in Okinawa wants the U.S. military to go. Rape by U.S. soldiers—including of young children—has long angered the Okinawans. Terrible environmental pollution—including the harsh noise from U.S. military aircraft—rankles people. It was not difficult for Tamaki to run on an anti-U.S. base platform. It is the most basic demand of his constituents.

But, the Japanese government does not accept the democratic views of the Okinawan people. Discrimination against the Okinawans plays a role here, but more fundamentally there is a lack of regard for the wishes of ordinary people when it comes to a U.S. base. In 2009, Yukio Hatoyama led the Democratic Party to victory in the national elections on a wide-ranging platform that included shifting Japanese foreign policy from its U.S. orientation to a more balanced approach with the rest of Asia. Prime Minister Hatoyama called for the United States and Japan to have a “close and equal” relationship, which meant that Japan would no longer be ordered about by Washington. The test case for Hatoyama was the relocation of the U.S. Futenma Marine Corps Air Base to a less populated section of Okinawa. His party wanted all the U.S. bases to be removed from the island. Pressure on the Japanese state from Washington was intense. Hatoyama could not deliver on his promise. He resigned his post. It was impossible to go against U.S. military policy and to rebalance Japan’s relationship with the rest of Asia. Japan, but more properly Okinawa, is effectively a U.S. aircraft carrier.

Japan’s Prostituted Daughter

Hatoyama could not move an agenda at the national level—likewise, local politicians and activists have struggled to move an agenda in Okinawa. Tamaki’s predecessor Takeshi Onaga— who died this August—could not get rid of the U.S. bases in Okinawa. Yamashiro Hiroji, head of the Okinawa Peace Action Center, and his comrades regularly protest the bases and in particular the transfer of the Futenma base. In October 2016, Hiroji was arrested when he cut a barbed wire fence at the base. He was held in prison for five months and not allowed to see his family. In June 2017, Hiroji went before the UN Human Rights Council to say, “The government of Japan dispatched a large police force in Okinawa to oppress and violently remove civilians.” Protest is illegal. The Japanese forces are acting here on behalf of the U.S. government.

Suzuyo Takazato, head of the Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, has called Okinawa “Japan’s prostituted daughter.” This is a stark characterization. Takazato’s group was formed in 1995 as part of the protest against the rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. servicemen based in Okinawa. For decades now, Okinawans have complained about the creation of enclaves of their island that operate as places for the recreation of U.S. soldiers. The photographer Mao Ishikawa has portrayed these places, the segregated bars where only U.S. soldiers are allowed to go and meet Okinawan women (her book, Red Flower: The Women of Okinawa, collects many of these pictures from the 1970s). There have been at least 120 reported rapes since 1972, the “tip of the iceberg,” says Takazato. Every year there is at least one incident that captures the imagination of the people—a terrible act of violence, a rape or a murder. What the people want is for the bases to close, since they see the bases as the reason for these acts of violence. It is not enough to call for justice after the incidents; it is necessary, they say, to remove the cause of the incidents.

The Futenma base is to be relocated to Henoko in Nago City, Okinawa. A referendum in 1997 allowed the residents of Nago City to vote against a base. A massive demonstration in 2004 reiterated their view, and it was this demonstration that halted construction of the new base in 2005. Susumu Inamine, former mayor of Nago City, is opposed to the construction of any base in his city; he lost a re-election bid this year to Taketoyo Toguchi, who did not raise the base issue, by a slim margin. Everyone knows that if there were a new referendum in Nago City over a base, it would be roundly defeated. But, democracy is meaningless when it comes to the U.S. military base.

Fort Trump

The United States military has a staggering 883 military bases in 183 countries. In contrast, Russia has 10 such bases—8 of them in the former USSR. China has one overseas military base. There is no country with a military footprint that replicates that of the United States. The U.S. bases in Japan are only a small part of the massive infrastructure that allows the U.S. military to be hours away from armed action against any part of the planet.

There is no proposal to downsize the U.S. military footprint. In fact, there are only plans to increase it. The United States has long sought to build a base in Poland, whose government now courts the White House with the proposal that it be named Fort Trump. Currently, there are U.S.-NATO military bases in Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria with U.S.-NATO troops deployments in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The United States has increased its military presence in the Black Sea and in the Baltic Sea. Attempts to deny Russia access to its only two warm water ports in Sevastopol, Crimea, and Latakia, Syria, pushed Moscow to defend them with military interventions. A U.S. base in Poland, at the doorstep of Belarus, will rattle the Russians as much as they were rattled by Ukraine’s pledge to join NATO and by the war in Syria.

These U.S.-NATO bases provide instability and insecurity rather than peace. Tensions abound around them. Threats emanate from their presence.

A World Without Bases

In mid-November, in Dublin, Ireland, a coalition of organizations from around the world will hold the First International Conference Against US/NATO Military Bases. This conference is part of the newly formed Global Campaign Against US/NATO Military Bases.

The view of the organizers is that “none of us can stop this madness alone.” By madness, they refer to the belligerence of the bases and the wars that come as a result of them. A decade ago, a CIA operative offered me the old chestnut, “if you have a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.” What this means is that the expansion of the U.S. military—and its covert infrastructure—provides the incentive for the U.S. political leadership to treat every conflict as a potential war. Diplomacy goes out of the window. Regional structures to manage conflict—such as the African Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation—are disregarded. The U.S. hammer comes down hard on nails from one end of Asia to the other end of the Americas.

The poem by Rinko Sagara ends with an evocative line—now is our future. But it is, sadly, not so. The future will need to be produced—a future that disentangles the massive global infrastructure of war erected by the United States and NATO. The future, hopefully, will be made in Dublin and not in Warsaw; in Okinawa and not in Washington.

Vijay Prashad is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is also the author of Red Star Over the Third World (LeftWord, 2017) and The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016), among other books. 

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

By Roger Jordan

October 04, 2018 "Information Clearing House" -  The United States, Canada and Mexico agreed late Sunday night to replace the quarter-century-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with a new “US-Mexico-Canada Agreement,” or USMCA.

Sunday’s deal was reached after 13 months of tense negotiations and a final week punctuated by threats from Donald Trump and other top US officials that they would proceed without Canada and impose a 25 percent tariff on Canadian auto exports to the US.

Under the new deal, both Mexico, a country historically oppressed by US imperialism, and Canada, a lesser imperialist power that has long been a key US ally, made significant concessions in the face of US demands that the continental pact be refashioned to make it an even more explicit US-led protectionist trade bloc.

Both the substance of the agreement and the manner in which it was negotiated were meant as a message to the more substantial global economic rivals of Wall Street and Washington, above all China, that the US will use all the means at its disposal, including ultimately its military might, to prevail in the struggle for markets and profits.

The US was once the cornerstone of the post-World War II liberal order. Today it seeks to counteract economic decline and uphold its global dominance through “America First” economic nationalism and the ruthless assertion of its interests against ostensible allies and rivals alike. Tariffs, trade war and an insistence on bilateral negotiations, outside of the World Trade Organization (WTO), in which the US can more readily use its economic heft to threaten and bully, have become Washington’s modus operandi.

With threats to abrogate NAFTA, Trump first cajoled Mexico into a bilateral deal, announced in late August, and then used this template and threats to exclude Canada from a “new NAFTA” to intensify pressure on Ottawa.

At a White House press conference on Monday, Trump boasted that his imposition of 10 a percent tariff on aluminum and a 25 percent steel tariff, and his threat to introduce a 25 percent auto tariff, had proven crucial to the new trade pact. “Without tariffs, we wouldn’t be talking about a deal,” declared the US president, who then went on to mock those critical of his willingness to employ trade war measures as “babies.”

Significantly, under the USMCA deal Washington has not rescinded either the steel or aluminum tariffs on Canada or Mexico. These will be the subject of a further negotiation and remain in force, said Trump, “until such time as we can do something that would be different, like quotas.”

Trump threatens China

Underscoring the global implications of the new North American trade pact, Trump coupled his bragging with an attack on China and demands that countries around the world, from Brazil to India, cede to US demands for concessions on trade and investment.

The US president, who has imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, claimed that Beijing wants negotiations “very badly,” but that the US needs to inflict more damage on the Chinese economy first. “Can’t talk now because they’re not ready,” said Trump. “Because they have been ripping us for so many years, it doesn't happen that quickly.”

The connection between USMCA and Washington’s economic war on China is underscored by one of the 12 side letters to the agreement. It grants the US effective veto power over any attempt by Canada or Mexico to negotiate a free trade pact with a “non-market economy,” a clear reference to China. This includes the right to transform USMCA into a bilateral agreement, excluding the third member if it has ratified such a free trade deal.

USMCA will also give Washington further leverage over monetary policy in Canada and Mexico through the creation of a committee to review North American macroeconomic policy.

At his press conference, Trump reiterated his threat to impose a 25 percent auto tariff under the same Section 232 “national security” provision that he used to implement the steel and aluminum tariffs. This included a specific warning to the European Union that if the US is unsatisfied with the progress of talks on a trans-Atlantic trade deal, Washington will sanction German and other European car exports to the US.

The latter threat comes after Trump used the auto tariff threat last week to successfully bully South Korea into formalizing changes to the 2012 South Korea-US trade agreement and coerce Japan into giving up its opposition to bilateral trade negotiations with Washington.

USMCA provides Canada and Mexico with exemptions from the auto tariffs, but not other future Section 232 tariffs.

As in the 1930s, the eruption of trade war is paving the way for a military conflagration. Trump and his advisers regularly draw the connection. On Monday, Trump said that the US will continue to use Section 232 to defend industries that are “strategic,” i.e., necessary for waging war. His remarks were seconded by Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, who said the aluminum and steel tariffs against Canada and Mexico required a separate negotiation from the USMCA because they relate to “US national defense.”

Canada is the largest exporter of both aluminum and steel to the US, and in July it imposed $13 billion (CAN $16.6 billion) in retaliatory tariffs on US goods.

Continued US enforcement of the tariffs was just one of several major concessions Canada’s Liberal government accepted, with the clear support of the most powerful sections of Canada’s ruling elite, in signing on to the new trade pact. With three-quarters of Canada’s exports going to the US and Canada’s global position dependent on its military-security partnership with Washington, Canadian big business views its alliance with the US as pivotal to upholding its own imperialist interests.

Other concessions made by Canada include an extension from eight to 10 years of patent protection for pharmaceutical drugs, the opening up of Canada's supply management-controlled dairy and poultry markets to US imports, and the relaxation of restrictions on Canadians’ ability to buy products from foreign online retailers. US negotiators also achieved their goal of a sunset clause, although it was extended to 16 years from the original proposal of five years.

For its part, the Trudeau government is touting the removal of Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Canadian-made cars and auto parts and the retention of a dispute resolution mechanism contained within Chapter 19 of the original NAFTA deal, which provides for a bilateral committee to rule on trade conflicts.

The Canadian auto industry also expects to benefit from the changes the US dictated to Mexico on auto trade. These include raising the percentage of cars and auto parts that must be produced within North America from 62.5 to 75 percent before the vehicles can be traded tariff-free, and the phase-in of a stipulation that 40 percent of the value of a car must be built by workers making at least $16 per hour.

At their respective press conferences on Monday, both Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau tried to promote their reactionary trade deal as a victory for workers and the “middle class.”

The unions: allies of Trump and Trudeau

In this, they have enjoyed the support of the trade union bureaucracy on both sides of the border. Top leaders of the AFL-CIO and many of its largest unions have met repeatedly with Trump. They have endorsed his reactionary economic nationalism and in August they praised his bilateral deal with Mexico.

Jerry Dias, the president of Unifor, Canada’s largest industrial union, hailed the unveiling of USMCA as “a great day for Canadians.” “There are some incredible victories in this deal,” enthused Dias, who has acted as a close and trusted adviser to the Trudeau government throughout the NAFTA renegotiations.

Dias and his fellow union bureaucrats on both sides of the border have for decades connived in the big business assault on the working class, imposing wage cuts, layoffs and attacks on benefits and conditions. They are celebrating USMCA because they think it will swell their dues income by forcing the “insourcing” of production from Mexico, driving Mexican workers onto the streets and expanding the multiple-tier, low-wage sector they have helped create in the US and Canadian auto industries.

This was spelled out by Dias, who, upon hearing of the initial agreement between the US and Mexico in August, stated: “There is no question that Mexico will lose some of the jobs that they have managed to take over the years. So, I think this is a positive development for Canada.”

It is nothing of the sort. The reality is that trade war and the promotion of economic nationalism go hand in hand with an intensified assault on the working class. Trump’s imposition of trillions in tax cuts for the corporate elite has been mirrored by a shift to the right within the Canadian political establishment, as exemplified by right-wing Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has vowed to outdo Trump’s tax cuts to maintain “Canadian competitiveness.”

Workers must oppose the unions and all those who seek to line them up behind their “own” bourgeoisies under conditions of deepening economic and military tensions. Instead, workers in the United States, Canada and Mexico must unite their struggles for decent-paying and secure jobs and develop a counteroffensive in alliance with their class brothers and sisters around the world on the basis of a socialist program.

Copyright © 1998-2018 World Socialist Web Site

This article was originally published by "WSWS" -

October 04, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - Emphasizing growing Cold War extremism in Washington and war-like crises in US-Russian relations elsewhere, Cohen comments on the following examples:

Russiagate, even though none of its core allegations have been proven, is now a central part of the new Cold War, severely limiting President Trump’s ability to conduct crisis-negotiations with Moscow and further vilifying Russian President Putin for having ordered “an attack on America” during the 2016 presidential election. The New York Times and The Washington Post have been leading promoters of the Russiagate narrative, even though several of its foundational elements have been seriously challenged, even discredited.

Nonetheless, both papers recently devoted thousands of words to retelling the same narrative—on September 20 and 23, respectively—along with its obvious fallacies. For example, Paul Manafort, during the crucial time he was advising then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, was not “pro-Russian” but pro–European Union. And contrary to insinuations, General Michael Flynn did nothing wrong or unprecedented in having conversations with a representative of the Kremlin on behalf of President-elect Trump. Many other presidents-elect had instructed top aides to do the same. The epic retellings of the Russiagate narrative by both papers, at extraordinary length, were riddled with similar mistakes and unproven allegations. (Nonetheless, a prominent historian, albeit one seemingly little informed both about Russiagate documents and about Kremlin leadership, characterized the widely discredited anti-Trump Steele dossier—the source of many such allegations—as “increasingly plausible.”)

Astonishingly, neither the Times nor the Post give any credence to the emphatic statement made at least one week before by Bob Woodward—normally considered the most authoritative chronicler of Washington’s political secrets—that after two years of research he had found “no evidence of collusion” between Trump and Russia.

For the Times and Post and other mainstream media outlets, Russiagate has become, it seems, a kind of cult journalism that no counter-evidence or analysis can dint, and thus itself is a major contributing factor to the new and more dangerous Cold War. Still worse, what began nearly two years ago as complaints about Russian “meddling” in the US presidential campaign has become for the The New Yorker and other publications an accusation that the Kremlin actually put Trump in the White House. For this reckless charge, with its inherent contempt for the good sense of American voters, there is no convincing evidence—nor any precedent in American history.

Meanwhile, current and former US officials are making nearly unprecedented threats against Moscow. NATO ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchinson threatened to “take out” any Russian missiles she thought violated a 1987 arms treaty, a step that would risk nuclear war. The secretary of the interior threatened a “naval blockade” of Russia. In a perhaps unprecedented, undiplomatic Russophobic outburst, UN ambassador Nikki Haley declared that “lying, cheating and rogue behavior” are a “norm of Russian culture.”

These may be outlandish statements by untutored appointed political figures, though they inescapably raise the question: Who is making Russia policy in Washington—President Trump with his avowed policy of “cooperating with Russia,” or someone else?

But how to explain, other than as unbridled extremism, statements by a former US ambassador to Moscow and longtime professor of Russian politics, who appears to be the mainstream media’s leading authority on Russia? According to him, Russia today is “a rogue state,” its policies “criminal actions,” and the “world’s worst threat.” It must be countered by “preemptive sanctions that would GO into effect automatically”—indeed, “every day,” if deemed necessary. Considering the “crippling” sanctions now being prepared by a bipartisan group of US senators—their actual reason and purpose apparently unknown even to them—this would be nothing less than a declaration of war against Russia; economic war, but war nonetheless.

§ Several other new Cold War fronts are also fraught with hot war, but today none more than Syria. Another reminder occurred on September 17, when Syrian war planes accidentally shot down an allied Russian surveillance plane, killing all 15 crew members. The cause, it was generally agreed, was subterfuge by Israeli warplanes in the area. The reaction in Moscow was highly indicative—potentially ominous.

At first, Putin, who had developed good relations with Israel’s political leadership, said the incident was an accident, an example of the fog of war. His own Ministry of Defense, however, loudly protested, blaming Israel. Putin quickly retreated, adopting a much more hard-line position, and in the end vowed to send to Syria Russia’s highly effective S-300 surface-to-air defense system, a prize both Syria and Iran have requested in vain for years.

Clearly, Putin is not the ever-“aggressive Kremlin Kremlin autocrat” so often portrayed in US mainstream media. A moderate by nature (in the Russian context), he governs by balancing powerful conflicting groups and interests. In this case, he was countered by long-standing hard-liners (“hawks”) in the security establishment.

Second, if the S-300s are installed in Syria (they will be operated by Russians, not Syrians), Putin can in effect impose a “no-fly zone” over that country, which has been torn by war due, in no small part, to the presence of several major foreign powers. (Russia and Iran are there legally; the United States and Israel are not.) If so, it will be a new “red line” that Washington and Tel Aviv must decide whether or not to cross. Considering the mania in Washington, it’s hard to be confident that wisdom will prevail.

All of this unfolded on approximately the third anniversary of Russia’s military intervention in Syria, in September 2015. At that time, Washington pundits denounced Putin’s “adventure” and were sure it would “fail.” Three years later, “Putin’s Kremlin” has destroyed the vicious Islamic State’s grip on large parts of Syria, all but restored President Assad’s control over most of the country, and has become the ultimate arbiter of Syria’s future. President Trump would do best by joining Moscow’s peace process, though it is unlikely Washington’s mostly Democratic Russiagate party will permit him to do so. (For perspective, recall that, in 2016, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton promised to impose a US no-fly zone over Syria to defy Russia.)

There is also this. As the US-led “liberal world order” disintegrates, not only in Syria, a new alliance is emerging between Russia, China, Iran, and possibly NATO member Turkey. It will be a real “threat” only if Washington makes it one, as it has Russia in recent years.

§ Finally, the US-Russian proxy war in Ukraine has recently acquired a new dimension. In addition to the civil war in Donbass, Moscow and Kiev have begun to challenge each other’s ships in the Sea of Azov, near the vital Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. Trump is being pressured to supply Kiev with naval and other weapons to wage this evolving war, yet another potential tripwire. Here too the president would do best by putting his administration’s weight behind the long-stalled Minsk peace accords. Here, too, this seemed to be his original intention, but it has proven to be yet another approach, it now seems, thwarted by Russiagate.

Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation.

This article was originally published by "The Nation" -

Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here.

==See Also==

Manufacturing consent for war with Russia? Russia cyber-plots: US, UK and Netherlands allege hacking

Manufacturing consent for war with Russia? Justice Department charges 7 alleged, Russian hackers with targeting doping agencies, nuclear energy company

Manufacturing consent for war with Russia? Russian cyber agents targeted UK Foreign Office: The Russian embassy hits back at claims Moscow was behind several cyber attacks around the world, calling them "irresponsible".

US & allies hit Russia with coordinated avalanche of hacking accusations. Here are the allegations.

In case you missed it: Frankfurt used as remote hacking base for the CIA: WikiLeaks: WikiLeaks documents reveal CIA agents were given cover identities and diplomatic passports to enter the country. The base was used to develop hacking tools as part of the CIA's massive digital arsenal.

Dozens of Georgians likely killed by US toxin or bioweapon disguised as drug research – Russian MoD

Russia wants answers from US, Georgia on bioweapons at Lugar Center: The Russian Defense Ministry expects answers from the United States and Georgia why munitions for chemical and biological weapons are stored at the Richard Lugar Public Health Research Center.
 

That year, their forces in Washington included members of more than two dozen lobbying and public relations firms. Key among them was Marc Lampkin, managing partner of the Washington office of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck (BHFS), a company that would be paid nearly half a million dollars by the Saudi government in 2017. Records from the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) show that Lampkin contacted Senate offices more than 20 times about that resolution, speaking, for instance, with the legislative director for Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) on May 16, 2017. Perhaps coincidentally, Lampkin reported making a $2,000 contribution to the senator’s political action committee that very day. On June 13th, along with a majority of his fellow senators, Scott voted to allow the Saudis to get their bombs. A year later, the type of bomb authorized in that sale has reportedly been used in air strikes that have killed civilians in Yemen.

Little wonder that, for this and his other lobbying work, Lampkin earned a spot on the “Top Lobbyists 2017: Hired Guns” list compiled by the Washington publication the Hill.

Lampkin’s story was anything but exceptional when it comes to lobbyists working on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It was, in fact, very much the norm. The Saudi government has hired lobbyists in profusion and they, in turn, have effectively helped convince members of Congress and the president to ignore blatant human rights violations and civilian casualties in Yemen. According to a forthcoming report by the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative program, which I direct, at the Center for International Policy, registered foreign agents working on behalf of interests in Saudi Arabia contacted Congressional representatives, the White House, the media, and figures at influential think tanks more than 2,500 times in 2017 alone. In the process, they also managed to contribute nearly $400,000 to the political coffers of senators and House members as they urged them to support the Saudis. Some of those contributions, like Lampkin’s, were given on the same day the requests were made to support those arms sales.

The role of Marc Lampkin is just a tiny sub-plot in the expansive and ongoing story of Saudi money in Washington. Think of it as a striking tale of pay-to-play politics that will undoubtedly be revving up again in the coming weeks as the Saudi lobby works to block new Congressional efforts to end U.S. involvement in the disastrous war in Yemen.

A Lobby to Contend With

The roots of that lobby’s rise to prominence in Washington lie in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As you may remember, with 15 of those 19 suicidal hijackers being citizens of Saudi Arabia, it was hardly surprising that American public opinion had soured on the Kingdom. In response, the worried Saudi royals spent around $100 million over the next decade to improve such public perceptions and retain their influence in the U.S. capital. That lobbying facelift proved a success until, in 2015, relations soured with the Obama administration over the Iran nuclear deal. Once Donald Trump won the presidency, however, the Saudis saw an unparalleled opportunity and launched the equivalent of a full-court press, an aggressive campaign to woo the newly elected president and the Republican-led Congress, which, of course, cost real money.

As a result, the growth of Saudi lobbying operations would prove extraordinary. In 2016, according to FARA records, they reported spending just under $10 million on lobbying firms; in 2017, that number had nearly tripled to $27.3 million. And that’s just a baseline figure for a far larger operation to buy influence in Washington, since it doesn’t include considerable sums given to elite universities or think tanks like the Arab Gulf States Institute, the Middle East Institute, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (to mention just a few of them).

This meteoric rise in spending allowed the Saudis to dramatically increase the number of lobbyists representing their interests on both sides of the aisle. Before President Trump even took office, the Saudi government signed a deal with the McKeon Group, a lobbying firm headed by Howard “Buck” McKeon, the recently retired Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. His firm also represents Lockheed Martin, one of the top providers of military equipment to the Kingdom. On the Democratic side, the Saudis inked a $140,000-per-month deal with the Podesta Group, headed by Tony Podesta, whose brother John, a long-time Democratic Party operative, was the former chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Tony Podesta later dissolved his firm and has allegedly been investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for serving as an unregistered foreign agent.

And keep in mind that all this new firepower was added to an already formidable arsenal of lobbying outfits and influential power brokers, including former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who, according to Lee Fang of the Intercept, was “deeply involved in the [Trump] White House hiring process,” and former Senator Norm Coleman, chairman of the pro-Republican Super PAC American Action Network. All told, during 2017, Saudi Arabia inked 45 different contracts with FARA-registered firms and more than 100 individuals registered as Saudi foreign agents in the U.S. They proved to be extremely busy. Such activity reveals a clear pattern: Saudi foreign agents are working tirelessly to shape perceptions of that country, its royals, its policies, and especially its grim war in Yemen, while simultaneously working to keep U.S. weapons and military support flowing into the Kingdom.

While the term “foreign agent” is often used as a synonym for lobbyist, part of the work performed by the Kingdom’s paid representatives here resembles public relations activity far more than straightforward lobbying. For example, in 2017, Saudi foreign agents reported contacting media outlets more than 500 times, including significant outreach to national ones like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and PBS, which has aired multiple documentaries about the Kingdom. Also included, however, were smaller papers like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and more specialized outlets, even ESPN, in hopes of encouraging positive stories.

The Kingdom’s image in the U.S. clearly concerned those agents. Still, the lion’s share of their activity was focused on security issues of importance to that country’s royals. For example, Saudi agents contacted officials at the State Department, which oversees most commercial arms transfers and sales, nearly 100 times in 2017, according to FARA filings. Above all, however, their focus was on Congress, especially members with seniority on key committees. As a result, at some point between late 2016 and the end of 2017, Saudi lobbyists contacted more than 200 of them, including every single Senator.

The ones most often dealt with were, not surprisingly, those with the greatest leverage over U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia. For example, the office of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who sits on both the appropriations and armed services committees, was the most contacted, while that of Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) was the top Democratic one. (He sits on the appropriations and foreign relations committees.)

Following the Money from Saudi Arabia to Campaign Coffers

Just as there’s a clear pattern when it comes to contacting congressional representatives who might help their Saudi clients, so there’s a clear pattern to the lobbying money flowing to those same members of Congress.

The FARA documents that record all foreign-agent political activity also list campaign contributions reported by those agents. Just as we did for political activities, the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative program conducted an analysis of all campaign contributions reported in those 2017 filings by firms that represented Saudi interests. And here’s what we found: more than a third of the members of Congress contacted by such a firm also received a campaign contribution from a foreign agent at that firm. In total, according to their 2017 FARA filings, foreign agents at firms representing Saudi clients made $390,496 in campaign contributions to congressional figures they, or another agent at their firm, contacted on behalf of their Saudi clients.

This flow of money is best exemplified by the 11 separate occasions we uncovered in which a firm reported contacting a congressional representative on behalf of Saudi clients on the same day someone at the same firm made a campaign contribution to the same senator or House member. In other words, there are 10 other cases just like Marc Lampkin’s, involving foreign agents at Squire Patton Boggs, DLA Piper, and Hogan Lovells. For instance, Hogan Lovells reported meeting with Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) on behalf of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia on April 26, 2017, and that day an agent at the firm made a $2,700 contribution to “Bob Corker for Senate 2018.” (Corker would later decide not to seek reelection.)

While some might argue that contributions like these look a lot like bribery, they turn out to be perfectly legal. No law bars such an act, and while it’s true that foreign nationals and foreign governments are prohibited from making contributions to political campaigns, there’s a simple work-around for that, one the Saudis obviously made use of big time. Any foreign power hoping to line the pockets of American politicians just has to hire a local lobbyist to do it for them.

As Jimmy Williams, a former lobbyist, wrote: “Today, most lobbyists are engaged in a system of bribery, but it’s the legal kind.”

The Saudi Lobby Today

Fast forward to late 2018 and that very same lobby is now fighting vigorously to defeat a House measure that would end U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen. They’re flooding congressional offices with their requests, in effect asking Congress to ignore the more than 10,000 civilians who have died in Yemen, the U.S. bombs that have been the cause of many of those deaths, and a civil war that has led to a resurgence of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. They’ll probably mention Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent “certification” that the Saudis are now supposedly taking the necessary steps to prevent more civilian casualties there.

What they’re not likely to mention is that his decision was reportedly driven by the head of the legislative affairs team at the State Department who just happens to be a former foreign agent with BGR Government Affairs, one of 35 FARA registrants working for Saudi Arabia at this moment. Such lobbyists and publicists are using the deep pockets of the Saudi royals to spread their propaganda, highlighting the charitable work that government is doing in Yemen. What they fail to emphasize, of course, are the Saudi blockade of the country and the American-backed, armed, and fueled air strikes that are killing civilians at weddings, funerals, school bus trips, and other civilian events. All of this is, in addition, helping to create a grotesque famine, a potential disaster of the most extreme sort and the very reason such humanitarian assistance is needed.

In the end, even if the facts aren’t on their side, the dollars are. Since September 2001, that reality has proven remarkably convincing in Washington, as copious dollars flowed from Saudi Arabia to U.S. military contractors (who are making billions selling weapons to that country), to lobbying firms, and via those firms directly into Congressional coffers.

Is this really how U.S. foreign policy should be determined?

Ben Freeman is the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy (CIP). This is his second TomDispatch piece.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, Beverly Gologorsky's novel Every Body Has a Story and Tom Engelhardt's A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy's In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, John Dower's The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, and John Feffer's dystopian novel Splinterlands.

Copyright 2018 Ben Freeman - This article was originally published by " Tom Dispatch" -

On the same day another coordinated campaign targeted China. It is aimed against China's development of computer chip manufacturing further up the value chain. Related to this is U.S. pressure on Taiwan, a leading chip manufacturer, to cut its ties with its big motherland.

The anti-Russian campaign is about alleged Russian spying, hacking and influence operations. Britain and the Netherland took the lead. Britain accused Russia's military intelligence service (GRU) of spying attempts against the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague and Switzerland, of spying attempts against the British Foreign Office, of influence campaigns related to European and the U.S. elections, and of hacking the international doping agency WADA. British media willingly helped to exaggerate the claims:

The Foreign Office attributed six specific attacks to GRU-backed hackers and identified 12 hacking group code names as fronts for the GRU – Fancy Bear, Voodoo Bear, APT28, Sofacy, Pawnstorm, Sednit, CyberCaliphate, Cyber Berku, BlackEnergy Actors, STRONTIUM, Tsar Team and Sandworm."

The "hacking group code names" the Guardian tries to sell to its readers do not refer to hacking groups but to certain cyberattack methods. Once such a method is known it can be used by any competent group and individual. Attributing such an attack is nearly impossible. Moreover Fancybear, ATP28, Pawn Storm, Sofacy Group, Sednit and Strontium are just different names for one and the same well known method. The other names listed refer to old groups and tools related to criminal hackers. Blackenergy has been used by cybercriminals since 2007. It is alleged that a pro-Russian group named Sandworm used it in Ukraine, but the evidence for that is dubious at best. To throw out such a list of code names without any differentiation reeks of a Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt (FUD) campaign designed to dis-inform and scare the public.

The Netherland for its part released a flurry of information about the alleged spying attempts against the OPCW in The Hague. It claims that four GRU agents traveled to The Hague on official Russian diplomatic passports to sniff out the WiFi network of the OPCW. (WiFi networks are notoriously easy to hack. If the OPCW is indeed using such it should not be trusted with any security relevant issues.) The Russian officials were allegedly very secretive, even cleaning out their own hotel trash, while they, at the same, time carried laptops with private data and even taxi receipts showing their travel from a GRU headquarter in Moscow to the airport. Like in the Skripal/Novichok saga the Russian spies are, at the same time, portrayed as supervillains and hapless amateurs. Real spies are neither.

The U.S. Justice Department added to the onslaught by issuing new indictments (pdf) against alleged GRU agents dubiously connected to several alleged hacking incidents. As none of those Russians will ever stand in front of a U.S. court the broad allegations will never be tested.

The anti-Russian campaign came just in time for yesterday's NATO Defense Minister meeting at which the U.S. 'offered' to use its malicious cyber tools under NATO disguise:

Katie Wheelbarger, the principal deputy assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, said the U.S. is committing to use offensive and defensive cyber operations for NATO allies, but America will maintain control over its own personnel and capabilities.

If the European NATO allies, under pressure of the propaganda onslaught, agree to that, the obvious results will be more U.S. control over its allies' networks and citizens as well as more threats against Russia:

NATO's chief vowed on Thursday to strengthen the alliance's defenses against attacks on computer networks that Britain said are directed by Russian military intelligence, also calling on Russia to stop its "reckless" behavior.

The allegations against Russia over nefarious spying operations and sockpuppet campaigns are highly hypocritical. The immense scale of U.S. and British spying revealed by Edward Snowden and through the Wikileaks Vault 7 leak of CIA hacking tools is well known. The Pentagon runs large social media manipulation campaigns. The British GHCQ hacked Belgium's largest telco network to spy on the data of the many international organizations in Brussels.

International organizations like the OPCW have long been the target of U.S. spies and operations. The U.S. National Security Service (NSA) regularly hacked the OPCW since at least September 2000:

According to last week's Shadow Brokers leak, the NSA compromised a DNS server of the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in September 2000, two years after the Iraq Liberation Act and Operation Desert Fox, but before the Bush election.

It was the U.S. which in 2002 forced out the head of the OPCW because he did not agree to propagandizing imaginary Iraqi chemical weapons:

José M. Bustani, a Brazilian diplomat who was unanimously re-elected last year as the director general of the 145-nation Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, was voted out of office today after refusing repeated demands by the United States that he step down because of his "management style." No successor has been selected.

The U.S. arranged the vote against Bustani by threatening to leave the OPCW. Day's earlier 'Yosemite Sam' John Bolton, now Trump's National Security Advisor, threatened to hurt José Bustani's children to press him to resign:

"I got a phone call from John Bolton – it was first time I had contact with him – and he said he had instructions to tell me that I have to resign from the organization, and I asked him why," Bustani told RT. "He said that [my] management style was not agreeable to Washington."
...
Bustani said he "owed nothing" to the US, pointing out that he was appointed by all OPCW member states. Striking a more sinister tone, Bolton said: "OK, so there will be retaliation. Prepare to accept the consequences. We know where your kids are."

According to Bustani, two of his children were in New York at the time, and his daughter was in London.

Russia's government will need decades of hard work to reach the scale of U.S./UK hypocrisy, hacking and lying.

The propaganda rush against Russia came on the same day as a similar campaign was launched against China. A well timed Bloomberg story, which had been in the works for over a year, claimed that Chinese companies manipulated hardware they manufactured for the U.S. company SuperMicro. The hardware was then sold to Apple, Amazon and others for their cloud server businesses.

The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies:

Nested on the servers’ motherboards, the testers found a tiny microchip, not much bigger than a grain of rice, that wasn’t part of the boards’ original design.

Both Apple and Amazon denied the story with very strong statements. The Bloomberg tale has immense problems. It is for one completely based on anonymous sources, most of them U.S. government officials:

The companies’ denials are countered by six current and former senior national security officials, who—in conversations that began during the Obama administration and continued under the Trump administration—detailed the discovery of the chips and the government’s investigation.

The way the alleged manipulation is described to function is theoretical possible, but not plausible. In my learned opinion one would need multiple manipulations, not just one tiny chip, to achieve the described results. Even reliably U.S. friendly cyberhawks are unconvinced of the story's veracity. It is especially curious that such server boards are still in use in security relevant U.S. government operations:

Assuming the Bloomberg story is accurate, that means that the US intelligence community, during a period spanning two administrations, saw a foreign threat and allowed that threat to infiltrate the US military. If the story is untrue, or incorrect on its technical merits, then it would make sense that Supermicro gear is being used by the US military.

There might be financial motives behind the story:

Bloomberg reporters receive bonuses based indirectly on how much they shift markets with their reporting. This story undoubtedly did that.

When the story came out SuperMicro's stock price crashed from $21.40 to below $9.00 per share. It now trades at $12.60:

The story might be a cover-up for a NSA hack that was accidentally detected. Most likely it is exaggerated half truth, based on an old event, to deter the 'western' industry from sourcing anything from producers in China.

This would be consistent with other such U.S. moves against China which coincidentally (not) happened on the same day the Bloomberg story was launched.

One is a very hawkish speech U.S. Vice President Pence held yesterday:

Vice President Mike Pence accused China on Thursday of trying to undermine President Donald Trump as the administration deploys tough new rhetoric over Chinese trade, economic and foreign policies.
...
Sounding the alarm, Pence warned other nations to be wary of doing business with China, condemning the Asian country's "debt diplomacy" that allows it to draw developing nations into its orbit.

Pence also warned American businesses to be vigilant against Chinese efforts to leverage access to their markets to modify corporate behavior to their liking.

Another move is a new Pentagon report warning against the purchase of Chinese equipment and launched via Reuters in support of the campaign:

China represents a “significant and growing risk” to the supply of materials vital to the U.S. military, according to a new Pentagon-led report that seeks to mend weaknesses in core U.S. industries vital to national security.

The nearly 150-page report, seen by Reuters on Thursday ahead of its formal release Friday, concluded there are nearly 300 vulnerabilities that could affect critical materials and components essential to the U.S. military.
...
“A key finding of this report is that China represents a significant and growing risk to the supply of materials and technologies deemed strategic and critical to U.S. national security,” the report said.

The Bloomberg story, the Pence speech and the Pentagon report 'leak' on the same day seem designed to scare everyone away from using Chinese equipment or China manufactured parts within there supply chain.

The allegations of Chinese supply chain attacks are of course just as hypocritical as the allegations against Russia. The very first know case of computer related supply chain manipulation goes back to 1982:

A CIA operation to sabotage Soviet industry by duping Moscow into stealing booby-trapped software was spectacularly successful when it triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian gas pipeline, it emerged yesterday.
...
Mr Reed writes that the software "was programmed to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds".

Wikileaks list 27 cases of U.S. supply chain manipulation of computer hardware and software. A search for "supply chain" in the Snowden archives shows 18 documents describing such 'projects'.

The U.S. government under Trump - and with John Bolton in a leading position - copied Trump's brutal campaign style and uses it as an instrument in its foreign policy. Trump's victory in the 2016 election proves that such campaigns are highly successful, even when the elements they are build of are dubious or untrue. In their scale and coordination the current campaigns are comparable to the 2002 run-up for the war on Iraq.

Then, as during the Trump election campaign and as now, the media are crucial to the public effect these campaigns have. Will they attempt to take the stories the campaigns are made of apart? Will they set them into the larger context of global U.S. spying and manipulation? Will they explain the real purpose of these campaigns?

Don't bet on it.

What a week it's been for trying to tolerate hypocrisy and hysteria from the United States and its NATO partners. The slanderous accusations against Russia and China, in particular, can hardly become more absurd, or unhinged.

US Vice President Mike Pence, speaking atthe imperialist Hudson Institute, accusedChina of "interfering" in elections to oustTrump from the White House. Beijing hitback, slamming the claims as "ridiculous".

Then we had Britain's pipsqueak DefenseSecretary Gavin Williamson denouncing Russiaas a "pariah state" over allegations thatthe Kremlin has been conducting a "globalcomputer-hacking campaign". Surely, the hypocrisy can't get moresuperlative than this.

Pence's diatribe against China over "interference" follows the barrage of humongous trade levies imposed on Chinese exports by the Trump administration, as well as the recent sale of billion-dollar weapons by the US to Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province.

Just days before Pence uttered his unctuous words, a US warship was involved in a near-collision with a Chinese navy vessel after the Americans breached Beijing's proclaimed territory in the South China Sea. The incident — which could have sparked a war — was but the latest in a series of provocative incursions by US forces into China's maritime spaces, under the guise of "freedom of navigation" exercises.

As for Britain's defense minister Williamson, his rhetoric about Russia being a pariah state reminds one of the admonition to not throw bricks in a glasshouse. After its spate of criminal wars in the Middle East, destroying millions of lives — and that's just counting the most recent years — Britain is not in any position to indict others for pariah status.

Specifically though, Britain's pious flourishes this week concerned allegations against Russia for conducting cyberattacks in various countries. The British claims were conveniently amplified by NATO allies, including the US, Canada and Netherlands, as well as partners Australia and New Zealand.

Again, the hypocrisy and hyper preciousness here are cringe-making. US and British state intelligence are known to run the biggest, most pervasive illegal hacking of telecommunications across the entire globe. American whistleblowers Edward Snowden, William Binney and other honorable people, have provided irrefutable evidence of the mass global hacking carried out by the CIA, NSA and Britain's GCHQ.

Recall just one example: the Americans spying on personal phone calls by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

What's particularly nauseating, however, is when the criminals who have been caught redhanded on numerous grave violations then turn around and accuse others of alleged misdemeanors. That is what we may call "hyper-precious hypocrisy".

In the case of Mike Pence's grandstanding on alleged Chinese attempts to oust Trump from the White House, what he was referring to was Beijing's retaliatory trade sanctions on US exports from agricultural states. The corn-belt states of Iowa, Idaho and Illinois were crucial to electing Trump in the 2016 presidential race.

The Chinese government also paid for advertorials in an Iowa newspaper last month which criticized Trump's policies for inciting a trade war, in which US farmers could suffer consequences from retaliatory measures. There was nothing underhand in what Beijing was doing. It was simply explaining to American voters the damaging impact of starting a trade war — an explanation that the US president has not been leveling to his rural supporters.

For the Trump administration to launch into shrill accusations against China of "interfering" in American democracy is a sign of how far Washington has become divorced from reality.

We can go way back to the Boxer Rebellion in the late 1800s, when American and British troops slaughtered Chinese civilians in order to prop up a corrupt regime so that they could sell narcotic opium to a lucrative oriental market.

Over the past century, the Americans and British have subverted more foreign governments and elections than any other foreign power. The American and British hacking into elections is off the charts, involving hundreds of occasions, which often resulted in bloody mayhem and failed states, wracked by poverty and sectarian violence.

If we can set aside the rank hypocrisy for a moment, what about the latest US, British and other NATO claims of Kremlin hacking operations around the world?

It was claimed this week that Russian military intelligence agents were involved in trying to hack into numerous entities. Those entities targeted by supposed Russian computer-espionage related to the Skripal poison affair in England; meddling in US elections; the downing of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine in 2014; the use of doping by Olympic athletes; and investigations into chemical weapons in Syria.

Western media reports came up with the imaginative theory that Russian state hackers were trying to "clean up" past illicit operations.

What's really going on here is now a concerted effort by the NATO powers to consolidate all their desperate, bankrupt anti-Russia propaganda into a neatly fortified package. It's called getting your stories straight.

Each one of the sensational stories impugning Russia, from the Malaysian airline disaster to the alleged poisoning of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal, have been failures. Failures, that is, to galvanize world public opinion against Russia's so-called "malign activities". People around the world just don't buy the absurd, hollow accusations slated by NATO powers.

That's why the NATO powers, especially the biggest liars America and Britain, are being forced into consolidating their voices and bizarre accusations against Russia. They are now being forced to use loudspeakers and chorused hymn sheets to try to win their failing information war.

But shouting lies ever louder does not make these lies more credible.

Perhaps Russian agents were trying to hack into various systems in NATO countries. We don't know. But in the murky realm of all foreign powers being involved in information gathering and espionage, the alleged transgressions are relatively redundant. Again, look at the massive surveillance being carried out by the US and Britain.

Another possible factor is this: it would be reasonable for Russia to want to learn what NATO powers and their partners are concocting in the way of fabricated incriminations against Moscow. If that were the case, it still does not justify the hysterical claims made by the US, Britain and others this week of Russia running global cyberattacks.

Indeed, we have entered a sort of twilight zone of propaganda and hypocrisy.

The Trump administration itself accuses domestic political opponents of conducting witch-hunts, "fake news", and contriving accusations.

Yet this administration, along with its NATO minions, shows the same reprehensible tendencies towards Russia and China.

Russia and China are right to be wary of the madness that has taken hold in the West's political class. The madness is beyond reason and therefore highly dangerous. As Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov warned this week, the NATO powers are pushing the rest of the world down a dangerous path, at the end of which is the abyss of world war.

The Western public must get rid of their warmongering political class before it's too late. Ironically, and absurdly, such observation coming from a Sputnik columnist will no doubt be construed as "evidence" that Russia is inciting revolution in Western states. Such is NATO hyper-hypocrisy in the twilight zone.

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.

One hopes that human wisdom and ethics will continue to grow, but unlimited growth of population and industry on a finite earth is a logical impossibility.

Today we are pressing against the absolute limits of the earth’s carrying capacity. There are many indications that the explosively increasing global population of humans, and the growth of pollution-producing and resource-using industries are threatening our earth with an environmental disaster. Among the serious threats that we face are catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, extinction of species, and a severe global famine, perhaps involving billions of people rather than millions. Such a famine may occur by the middle of the present century when the end of the fossil fuel era, combined with the effects of climate change reduce our ability to support a growing population.

A new book

I would like to announce the publication of a book addressing these problems, entitled “Population and the Environment”. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following links:

http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Population-And-The-Environment-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf

www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/popbook.pdf

The book discusses some of the measures that will help us to stabilize global population and to achieve a sustainable global society. Most of the material is new, but I have made use of book chapters and articles that I have previously written on these issues.

Stabilizing Global Population

Experts agree that the following steps are needed if we are to avoid a catastrophic global famine and a population crash:

Higher education and higher status for women throughout the world: Women need higher education to qualify for jobs outside their homes. They need higher status within their families so they will not be forced into the role of baby-producing machines.

Primary health care for all: Children should be vaccinated against preventable diseases. Materials and information for family planning should be provided for all women who desire smaller families. Advice should be given on improving sanitation.

The provision of clean water supplies near to homes is needed in order to reduce the incidence of water-borne diseases. In some countries today, family members, including children, spend large amounts of time carrying water home from distant sources.

State provision of care for the elderly is a population-stabilization measure because in many countries, parents produce many children so that the children will provide for them in their old age.

In many countries child labor is common, and in some there is child slavery. Parents who regard their children as a source of income are motivated to produce large families. Enforceable laws against child labor and slavery contribute to population stabilization.

General economic progress has been observed to contribute to population stabilization. However in some countries there is a danger of population growing so rapidly that it prevents the economic progress that would otherwise have stabilized population. This situation is known as the demographic trap.

Forced marriage should be forbidden, and very early marriage discouraged

The battle or birth control

Thomas Robert Malthus’  “Essay on The Principle of Population”, the first edition of which was published in 1798, was one of the the first systematic studies of the problem of population in relation to resources. Earlier discussions of the problem had been published by Boterro in Italy, Robert Wallace

in England, and Benjamin Franklin in America. However Malthus’ “Essay ” was the first to stress the fact that, in general, powerful checks operate continuously to keep human populations from increasing beyond their available food supply. In a later edition, published in 1803, he buttressed this assertion with carefully collected demographic and sociological data from many societies at various periods of their histories.

Malthus considered birth control to be a form of vice, and as “preventive checks” to excessive population growth he instead recommended celibacy, late marriage and “moral restraint” within marriage. Had he been writing today, Malthus would undoubtedly have agreed that birth control is the most humane method of avoiding the grim “positive checks” that prevent populations from exceeding their supply of food – famine, disease and war.

The battle for birth control was not easily won. Part of the opposition to contraceptive methods came from industrialists who were happy to have an excess supply of workers to whom they could pay starvation wages. Chapter 3 of my book discusses the battle for birth control in various countries.

Women in public life

We mentioned that one of the most important steps in population stabilization is for women to have higher education, higher status, and jobs outside the home. These reforms, like birth control, have been vigorously opposed by the ruling classes of most countries. Chapter 4 outlines the struggle for women’s rights. while Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the history of women’s struggle for representation in science, politics, literature, music and the visual arts.

Achieving a sustainable and peaceful global society

The remaining chapters of the book discuss threats to the environment and the steps that will be needed to achieve a stable and peaceful global society. Here are some of the reforms that will be needed:

We must achieve a steady-state economic system.

We must restore democracy in our own countries whenever it has been replaced by oligarchy.

We must decrease economic inequality both between nations and within nations.

We must break the power of corporate greed. Economics must be given both a social conscience and an ecological conscience.

We must leave fossil fuels in the ground.

We must stabilize and ultimately reduce the global population to a level that can be supported by sustainable agriculture after the end of the fossil fuel era.

We must stop using material goods for social competition. This will be necessary in order to reduce per-capita consumption.

We must eliminate the institution of war. Thermonuclear weapons have made war prohibitively dangerous.

We must build a new global ethical system based on the concept of a universal human family.

Thank you or circulating the links

As mentioned above, my book on population may be freely downloaded and circulated. I would be extremely grateul to readers who circulate the links to everyone who might be interested. Many of my other books and articles can be ound on the following websites:

http://eacpe.org/about-john-scales-avery/

https://human-wrongs-watch.net/2016/03/15/peace/

With many thanks,

John

John Avery received a B.Sc. in theoretical physics from MIT and an M.Sc. from the University of Chicago. He later studied theoretical chemistry at the University of London, and was awarded a Ph.D. there in 1965. He is now Lektor Emeritus, Associate Professor, at the Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen. Fellowships, memberships in societies: Since 1990 he has been the Contact Person in Denmark for Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In 1995, this group received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. He was the Member of the Danish Peace Commission of 1998. Technical Advisor, World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe (1988- 1997). Chairman of the Danish Peace Academy, April 2004. http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/ordbog/aord/a220.htm. He can be reached at avery.john.s@gmail.com. To know more about his works visit this link. http://eacpe.org/about-john-scales-avery/

 “Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells”-J. Paul Getty

“We are still one of the poorest large countries in the world on a per capita basis, and have a long way to go before we reasonably address the concerns of each one of our citizens.”-Raghuram Rajan

The testosterone levels of the well-heeled in India goes on overdrive when there are reports from foreign sources extolling the virtues of India’s rising GDP. In a report titled “The World in 2050,” consulting firm PwC projects that “India’s GDP would exceed US GDP in purchasing power parity terms by 2040 (purchasing power parity accounts for the different prices levels across countries). This would make India the largest economy in the world after China.” This report also adds that India is set to overtake the US economy by 2040.

While such rosy predictions have the same credibility of astrological predictions found in Chinese fortune cookies, it seldom dampens the sharp spike of anabolic steroid of frenzied nationalism in the privileged members of our society. Shobhaa De, a writer, captures this feeling of hyper nationalism rather nicely,“All of us bleat away on how fantastic it feels to be an Indian today. How amazing it is that the world is finally recognizing our real worth and giving us ‘respect’. I feel depressed at the end of all the chest-thumping. And ask myself how much of this new strut is self-delusionary. Whom are we kidding? And, by trotting them out often enough, will we really start believing our own illusions about ourselves?”

For the more discerning observers of the Indian economy Shobhaa De’s angst at the irrational exuberance of nationalism riding on steroids is understandable. For beneath the unmeasured hyperbole of INDIA having arrived and sprinting to join the pantheon of Super Powers, lies a dark secret: its low social development index. While India has been racing ahead in terms of its GDP (achieving 7% growth rate during the last decade and projected to be in the range of 7.5% in the years to come) the social and economic conditions have worsened for the major sections of society. Nothing etches this fact more powerfully in our minds than the towering private residence Antilla belonging to India’s wealthiest Dollar Billionaire-Mukesh Ambani. Built at a cost of 1.8 billion dollars the opulent tower over looks massive slums of Mumbai.  The view from the top of Antilla offers an embarrassing visual confirmation of what rising GDP means to the great masses of people. As one looks below one sees slums everywhere teeming with people in various stages of decay, defecating in the open and washing themselves from fetid pools of water in nearby ditches.

For the more cerebral who are suspicious of anecdotal details, the census data offers a stark reality of the systemic poverty and social degradation of the many. As Pankaj Mishra observes: “The 2011 census revealed that half of all Indian households have to practice open defecation. Nearly half of all Indian children are underweight (compared to 25 percent in sub-Saharan Africa), and as Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze point out, despite a rise in literacy rates, “a large proportion” of them “learn very little at school.” Almost all Indians buy health services from private providers, exposing themselves to crippling debt as well as quackery. Inequalities have widened between classes, regions, and rural and urban areas. More worryingly, they seem unbridgeable owing to the lack of adequate education and public health. Not surprisingly, poverty declines very slowly in India, slower than in Nepal and Bangladesh, and unevenly. Calorie and protein intake among the poor has actually dropped.”

If such social indicators are bad enough there is another road block to trip our country’s dash to breast the winning tape. That road block simply put is income inequality.In a report prepared by French economists Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel titled‘Indian income inequality, 1922-2014: From British Raj to Billionaire Raj ‘explodes the myth that the rising GDP and the economic growth rates which the benign forces of economic liberalization unleashed by both the Congress government of Manmohan Singh and the NDA government of Modi did not empower the great majority of the people. The great wave of rising GDP did not lift as many small boats as claimed by the neoliberal gurus Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagriya. In fact economic liberalization benefitted 10% of the population especially the top 1% of the income earners.

As the authors of the report point out: “Shining India” corresponds to the top 10 percent of the population (approximately 80 million adult individuals in 2014) rather than the middle 40 percent. Relatively speaking, the shining decades for the middle 40percent group corresponded to the 1951-1980 period, when this group captured a much higher share of total growth (49 percent) than it did over the past forty years. It is also important to stress that, since the early 1980s, growth has been highly unevenly distributed within the top 10 percent group.” [Emphasis added]. A recent Rupe India article quoting the Vanneman and Dubey study based on the NCAER-University of Maryland survey confirms this finding. Moreover, as Kaushik Basu, the Cornell economist says-““The bulk of India’s aggregate growth is occurring through a disproportionate rise in the incomes at the upper end of the income ladder.” By 2010 close to hundred people had 300 billion which works to around a quarter of the country’s GDP.

But these dry statistical details do not convey the full spectrum horror of deprivation and suffering of the toiling masses who have not benefitted from the rising GDP growth. As Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze point out in their book ‘An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions ‘that the pervasive inequality in India is made worse by the fact that the low incomes of the largely poor makes basic necessities of life unaffordable. Pervasive inequality also exacerbates the already outrageous gulf between the well-heeled and the poor which the low social indicators do not fully capture. To add to the agony of the poor and the destitute, basic public services in the spheres of education, health care and social care are negligible or practically absent making poverty and social deprivation in India specially terrible even when it is compared to countries like China where such wide disparities of income exist but softened by the presence of basic public services.

One of the main reasons why there is inadequate funding for pro poor welfare schemes is the revenue foregone for the benefit of corporate houses which simply translates into free lunches for the corporate entities. P Sainath, a senior journalist, says for the period 2005-06 to 2013-14 alone ( period of nine years) the corporate free lunch amounted to Rs 36.5 trillion  which could have funded the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme for around 105 years, and fund the Public Distribution System for 31 years. The frenzy of lending by Public Sector banks to top industrial houses which becomes bad debts in the books of the banks offers a sleazy side to liberalization process initiated by the Congress government in 1991 and continuing at a brisk pace under the NDA- Modi government.

The corporate bailouts running into trillions of rupees offers an obscene contrast to the niggardly social spending on the poor.  According to Jean Dreze, India spends just 4.4% of its gross domestic product on health and education, compared to 7% in sub-Saharan Africa and 6.3% in the least-developed countries of the world.

Under the Modi government things have gone steadily downhill by cutting off rural employment schemes from central funding and leaving the burden of funding to the respective states. To make matters worse the Public Distribution System is hampered by the Aadhaar identification which excludes the poor who are unable to prove their identity by their fingerprints as they are worn off by hard manual labour. The problem of Aadhaar is further compounded by poor internet connectivity in the poorest states. Thus the Aadhaar identification system has been a winnowing machine in denying poor people access to subsidized food grains.

India’s success story as the fastest growing economy of the world coexists with’ an insular, selfish, and antidemocratic elite in an unequal society, where “predatory forms of capitalism”, supported and promoted by the State prevail driving the poor to the wall. Recent corruption scandals in the mining and the telecom sector only serves to highlight the fact that crony capitalism and rent seeking are the main drivers of the GDP growth not innovation or entrepreneurial dynamism.

The seedier aspect of India’s growth story which is that GDP growth has not resulted in tangible gains for the poor does not get sustained coverage or attention in the mainstream media. The reasons are not difficult to fathom: the mass media is itself big business which is itself controlled by business oligarchs either through ownership or through the appointment of directors on the boards of media representing big corporate interests. Moreover the profitability of the media does not depend on subscription revenue but on advertising revenue generated by Corporations. Hence, media in India are echo chambers of big business interests where social spending is condemned as a waste while free lunches for corporate are glowingly described as growth incentives.  No wonder P Sainath, a journalist, calls the Indian media (with a few honourable exceptions) as a prisoner of profits.

The ruling elites and their wealthy hangers on are perched on the horns of a cruel dilemma: how to reconcile the heady nationalism of unstoppable incredible India with the teeming millions crying for social justice? An elegant solution to this dilemma presented itself to the audience at a book launch in a five star hotel in Bangalore some years ago. A tech billionaire who was the guest at the event famously said, “I don’t see poor people as I always stay in five star hotels.”

By denying the existence of poverty in India the billionaire club class can sip Earl Gray Tea served in bone china cups in utter tranquility. As the obsequious waiters fussed around them they would perhaps glimpse through the spotless glass window of their five star hotels a sea of angry people in ragged clothes descending upon them with pitchforks in their hands. From a distance one heard the breaking of crockery and saw frightened people in their fancy clothes jump out of the windows.

And then …..pandemonium broke loose…..

C R Sridhar is a lawyer. sapientpen.blogspot.in Twitter @sapientpen

Of course there are many more than the ones that I will share, but here is a good start.

1.)  In the US Virgin Islands if you dig downward for water, you get salt water. So you need rain water, especially for drought periods. So my Dad put in a system wherein the water came off of the roof and had four cisterns totaling 30,000 gallons. If you can’t afford cisterns, put it in barrels. Have a gutter system that puts the water in barrels or cisterns from your roof. He gave his water away to anyone who wanted it as he had so much.

US Virgin Islands have these all over the place on slopes: They are slabs of concrete or pavement on incline. It should be built to drain in one corner into a tube that runs into barrel or cistern. It is a great community resource for times of communal water deficit.

2.)  Our government in MA pays for swimming pools and beaches open to the public and pays for life guards. Yet there has to be a way to make sure that every region in a country prevents heat stroke and death. So have charities put tubs everywhere. FORCE your local and national governments to pay for them. So when someone starts to succumb to the heat, he should get in a tub to lower body’s core temperature. Especially financially poor people without bathtubs will appreciate these community tubs.

3.)  Look online for heat and drought resistant seeds. If you live on a coast, they should also have the feature of being able to be watered with salt water. DO NOT BUY GMO SEEDS!

4.)  Do not buy manufactured products. The companies rape the Earth for resources, take money away from communities for their own coffers since primary motive is maximum profits and heavily carbon load. So keep money local. Buy and sell locally. Do not purchase imported goods.

5.)  Start up transition towns NOW. You will then even be better prepared to deal with worsening climate change issues.

6.)  Do the Earth a favor. Cut back on your own eco footprint and carbon foot print. Do all that you can, including using less energy and traveling less, to help.

Sally Dugman is a writer from MA, USA

My new book, Giants: The Global Power Elite, follows in the tradition of C. Wright Mills’ work the Power Elite, which was published in 1956.  Like Mills, I am seeking to bring a consciousness of power networks affecting our lives and the state of society to the broader public. Mills described how the power elite were those “who decide whatever is decided” of major consequence. Sixty-two years later, power elites have globalized and built institutions for preserving and protecting capital investments everywhere in the world.

Central to the idea of a globalized power elite is the concept of a transnational capitalist class theorized in academic literature for some 20 years. Giants reviews the transition from nation state power elites, as described by Mills, to a transnational power elite centralized on the control of global capital around the world. The global power elite function as a non-governmental network of similarly educated, wealthy people with common interests of managing, and protecting concentrated global wealth and insuring its continued growth. Global power elites influence and use international institutions controlled by governmental authorities like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), World Trade Association (WTO), G-7, G-20, and others. These world governmental institutions receive instructions, and recommendations for policy actions from networks of non-governmental global power elite organizations and associations.

The global 1% comprise over 36 million millionaires, and 2,400 billionaires who employ their excess capital with investment management firms like BlackRock and J.P Morgan Chase. The top 17 of these trillion-dollar investment management firms—which I call the Giants— controlled $41.1 trillion dollars in 2017. These firms are all directly invested in each other and managed by only 199 people who are the decision makers on how and where global capital will be invested. Their biggest problem is they have more capital than there are safe investment opportunities, which leads to risky speculative investments, increased war spending, and the privatization of the public commons.

My research effort was to identify the most important networks of the global power elite and the individuals therein. I name and provide biographies for over 300 people, who are the core members of power networks that manage, facilitate, and protect global capital. The global power elites are the activist core of the transnational capitalist class—1% of the world’s wealthy people. They serve the uniting function of providing ideological justifications for their shared interests through the corporate media and they establish the parameters of needed actions for implementation by transnational governmental organizations and capitalist nation-states.

The global power elites, who direct the world’s corporate giants, overlap with the leadership of organizations such as the Council of Thirty, the Trilateral Commission, and the Atlantic Council. These privately-funded non-governmental organizations provide direct instruction and policy recommendation to governments, international institutions, the G-7 and their intelligence agencies, and other top capitalist countries. The US/NATO military empire operates in nearly every country of the world to protect global capital and the wealthy 1%.

The global power elite are self-aware of their existence as a numerical minority in the vast sea of impoverished humanity. Roughly 80% of the world’s population lives on less than ten dollars a day and half live on less than three dollars a day.

This concentration of protected wealth leads to a crisis of humanity, whereby poverty, war, starvation, mass alienation, media propaganda, and environmental devastation are reaching levels that threaten our species’ future. Organizing resistance and challenging the global power elite should be foremost on the agendas of democracy movements everywhere, now and in the near future. Addressing top-down economic controls, monopolistic power, and the specifics of the global power elites’ activities will require challenging mobilizations and social movements worldwide.

The act of identifying the global power elite by name may persuade some of them to recognize their own humanity and take corrective action to save the world. Global power elites are probably the only ones capable of correcting this crisis without major civil unrest, war, and chaos. Giants is an effort to bring a consciousness of the importance of systemic change and redistribution of wealth to the 99%, and to global power elites themselves, in the hope that we all can collectively begin the process of saving humanity. In that effort, I highly recommend using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a moral base to offer a united thread of consciousness for all seeking human betterment. Humankind deserves nothing less.

Peter Phillips is a professor of political sociology at Sonoma State University, where he has taught since 1994. He teaches courses in Political Sociology, Sociology of Power, Sociology of Media, Sociology of Conspiracies and Investigative Sociology. He served as director of Project Censored from 1996 to 2010 and as president of Media Freedom Foundation from 2003 to 2017.  Giants: The Global Power Elite is his 18^th book from Seven Stories Press—it will be released in August 2018.

Donald Trump’s biggest success, thus far into his Presidency, has been his sale of $400 billion (originally $350 billion) of U.S.-made weapons to the Saudi Arabian Government, which is owned by its royal family, after whom that nation is named. This sale alone is big enough to be called Trump’s “jobs plan” for Americans. It is also the biggest weapons-sale in all of history. It’s 400 billion dollars, not 400 million dollars; it is gigantic, and, by far, unprecedented in world-history.

The weapons that the Sauds and their friends, the 7 monarchies that constitute the United Arab Emirates, are using right now, in order to conquer and subdue Yemen, are almost entirely made in America. That’s terrific business for America. Not only are Americans employed, in strategically important congressional districts (that is, politically important congressional districts), to manufacture this equipment for mass-murdering in foreign lands that never threatened (much less invaded) America, but the countries that purchase this equipment are thereby made dependent upon the services of those American manufacturers, and of the taxpayer-funded U.S. ‘Defense’ Department and its private military contractors such as Lockheed Martin, to maintain this equipment, and to train the local military enforcers, on how to operate these weapons. Consequently, foreign customers of U.S. military firms are buying not only U.S. weapons, but the U.S. Government’s protection — the protection by the U.S. military, of those monarchs. They are buying the label of being an “American ally” so that the U.S. news media can say that this is in defense of American allies (regardless of whether it’s even that). American weapons are way overpriced for what they can do, but they are a bargain for what they can extract out of America’s taxpayers, who fund the U.S. ‘Defense’ Department and thus fund the protection of those monarchs: these kings and other dictators get U.S. taxpayers to fund their protection. It’s an international protection-racket funded by American taxpayers and those rulers, in order to protect those rulers; and the victims aren’t only the people who get slaughtered in countries such as Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Libya, and Syria, and Yemen, and Palestine, but also (though only financially) are the American public, who get fleeced by it — the American public provide the bulk of the real funding for this operation to expand the lands where America’s allies rule, and so to serve both America’s aristocracy and the aristocracies that are America’s allies.

This is how today’s America enforces its ‘democracy’ around the world, so that America can spread this ‘democracy’, at gunpoint, and at bomb-point, like America’s allies, those Kings and Emirs, and the apartheid regime in Israel, are doing, to the people whom they kill and conquer, with help from the taxpayer-funded American military — funded to protect those aristocrats, against their respective publics, and to further enrich America’s own aristocrats, at the expense of America’s own public.

The global ‘aggressor’ has been identified by America’s previous President, Barack Obama, who won office like Trump did, by promising ‘a reset’ in relations with post-communist Russia, and by mocking Obama’s opponent (Mitt Romney) for having called Russia “the number one geopolitical foe” — which America’s aristocracy has historically considered Russia to be, ever since the aristocracy in Russia fled and were killed in 1917, which caused America’s and other aristocracies to fear and hate Russia and Russians, for having ousted its aristocracy, this being an act that aristocrats everywhere are determined to avenge, regardless of ‘ideology’. (Similarly, America and its pro-aristocracy foreign allies, seek to avenge Iran’s 1979 overthrow of the Shah.) As Obama’s own actions during his subsequent Presidency made clear, and as he already had started in 2011 (if not from day one of his Presidency) secretly to implement, he privately agreed with what Romney said on that occasion, but he was intelligent enough (which his opponent obviously was not) to recognize that the American public, at that time, did not agree with it but instead believed that Islamic terrorists and aristocrats such as the Sauds who finance them are that); and Obama took full advantage of his opponent’s blunder there, which helped Obama to win a second term in the White House (after having skillfully hidden from the public during his first term, his intention to weaken Russia by eliminating leaders who were friends or even allies of Russia, such as in Syria, and Ukraine).

This is American ‘democracy’, after all (rule by deceit, lies), and that’s the reason why, when Russia, in 2014, responded to the U.S. coup in Ukraine (a coup under the cover of anti-corruption demonstrations) which coup was taking over this large country next-door to Russia and thus constituted a deadly threat to Russia’s national security, Obama declared Russia to be the world’s top ‘aggressor’. Obama overthrew Ukraine and then damned Russia’s leader Putin for responding to Obama’s aggressive threat against Russia from this coup in neighboring Ukraine. Russia was supposedly the ‘aggressor’ because it allowed the residents of Crimea — which had been part of Russia until the Soviet dictator in 1954 had arbitrarily handed Crimea to Ukraine — to become Russian citizens again, Russians like 90% of them felt they still were, despite Khrushchev’s transfer of them to Ukraine in 1954. The vast majority of Crimeans felt themselves still to be Russians. But Obama and allies of the U.S. Government insisted that the newly installed Government of Ukraine must rule those people; those people must not be permitted to rule (or be ruled) by people they’ve participated in choosing.

Ever since at least 2011, the U.S. Government was planning to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected Government; and the plan started being put into action by no later than 1 March 2013 inside America’s Ukrainian Embassy.

In preparation for this planned coup (“the most blatant coup in history”), a poll of Crimeans was funded by the International Republican Institute and USAID, in which Gallup scientifically sampled Crimeans during 16-30 May 2013, six months prior to the forced rejection on 20 November 2013 of EU membership by Ukraine’s democratically elected government — that’s six months prior to the Ukrainian Government’s rejection that Obama’s team were intending to use as being the pretext for the anti-Government demonstrations, which would start on Kiev’s Maidan Square the day after this forced rejection, on November 21st. The poll of Crimeans (which was made public on 7 October 2013) found (here are highlights):

—

p.14:

“If Ukraine was able to enter only one international economic union, which entity should it be with?”

53% “Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan”

17% “The European Union”

p.15:

“How would you evaluate your attitude to the following entities?”

“Russia”:  68% “Warm”;  5% “Cold”

“USA”:  6% “Warm”;  24% “Cold”

p.17:

“In your opinion, what should the status of Crimea be?”

“Autonomy in Ukraine (as today [under Crimea’s 1992 Constitution and as subsequently celebrated by RFE/RL on 20 January 2011] )”:  53%.

“Common oblast of Ukraine [ruled under Ukraine’s 1991 Constitution]”:  2%.

“Crimea should be separated and given to Russia”:  23%.

—

In other words: prior to the U.S. State Department and CIA operation to steal Ukraine’s government from Ukraine’s citizens — including especially from the residents of the sole autonomously governed region in Ukraine, which was Crimea — 53% of Crimeans wanted continued autonomy, 23% wanted not only a total break away from the Ukrainian Government but their becoming again citizens of Russia, such as had existed until 1954; and only 2% wanted restoration of the situation in 1991 when Crimea was briefly a “common oblast” or regular region within Ukraine, a federal state within Ukraine just like all the other states within Ukraine were. And, obviously, after America’s coup in Ukraine, the percentage who wanted a total break away from Ukraine rose even higher than it had been before.

Consequently, the U.S. demand that the newly imposed Ukrainian regime, which Obama’s coup created, made upon Crimea subsequent to the coup, and which demand both Obama and his successor Trump insist must be imposed upon and obeyed by Crimeans if the anti-Russia sanctions are even possibly to end, is the demand that Crimeans, in that May 2013 poll, even prior to the bloody Obama coup and the takeover of Ukraine by rabidly anti-Crimean Ukrainian nazis, had supported by only 2% (it was demanding reimposition of the brief 1991 Ukrainian relationship, which Crimeans had rejected in 1991), as compared to the 53% of Crimeans who favored continuation of Crimean “autonomy,” and the 23% who favored becoming Russians again.

Furthermore, the May 2013 poll showed that only 17% of Crimeans favored becoming part of the EU, whereas 53% preferred to be part of the “Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan”; so, clearly, Crimeans, prior to the democratically elected Ukrainian Government’s having declined the EU’s offer, overwhelmingly wanted Ukraine’s democratically elected Government to do precisely what it did — to turn down the EU’s offer.

During the U.S. coup, and immediately after it, until the 16 March 2014 Crimean referendum on what to do about it, Crimeans saw and heard on television and via the other Ukrainian media, reports that could only have terrified them about the new Government’s intentions. Clearly the U.S. regime had no objection to placing nazis in charge, and Crimeans are intensely anti-nazi — not only anti-Nazi during Hitler’s time, but against nazism, the racist-fascist ideology, itself, regardless of which group it’s targeting; but, in their case, it targets Crimeans, and, more broadly, Russians.

A January 2015 poll of Crimeans was financed by the U.S.-allied Canadian Government, and never made public by them but released in early February only on an obscure site of the polling organization and never reported to the public in the Western press, and this poll found (probably to the sponsors’ enormous disappointment) that 93% of respondents did “endorse Russia’s annexation of Crimea” and 4% did not. On 16 March 2015, the U.S. State Department issued a statement: “On this one year anniversary of the sham ‘referendum’ in Crimea, held in clear violation of Ukrainian law and the Ukrainian constitution, the United States reiterates its condemnation of a vote that was not voluntary, transparent, or democratic.” No evidence was provided for any of that assertion, simply the allegation. Four days later, the far more honest Kenneth Rapoza at Forbes headlined “One Year After Russia Annexed Crimea,” and he opened:

The U.S and European Union may want to save Crimeans from themselves. But the Crimeans are happy right where they are. One year after the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula in the Black Sea, poll after poll shows that the locals there — be they Ukrainians, ethnic Russians or Tatars are mostly all in agreement: life with Russia is better than life with Ukraine.

Little has changed over the last 12 months. Despite huge efforts on the part of Kiev, Brussels, Washington and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the bulk of humanity living on the Black Sea peninsula believe the referendum to secede from Ukraine was legit.  At some point, the West will have to recognize Crimea’s right to self rule.

The U.S. and its allies have a different idea than that. They reject Rapoza’s view.

The United States claims to support ‘democracy’. But it demands imposition upon Crimeans of a rabidly anti-Crimean Government. What kind of ‘democracy’ does the United States actually support? Has the U.S. Government answered that question in Crimea — and, in Ukraine — by its actions there? Obama supported this kind of ‘democracy’, and this kind. He wanted this kind of treatment of Crimeans. Trump hasn’t yet made clear whether he does, too; but his official representatives have made clear that they do.

America has a militarized economy. It also currently has the very highest percentage of its people in prison out of all of the world’s 222 countries and so certainly qualifies as a police state (which Americans who are lucky enough to be not amongst the lower socio-economic classes might find to be a shocking thing to assert). On top of that, everyone knows that America’s military spending is by far the highest in the world, but many don’t know that it’s the most corrupt and so the U.S. actually spends around half of the entire world’s military budget and that the U.S. ‘Defense’ Department is even so corrupt that it has been unauditable and thus unaudited for decades, and that many U.S. military programs are counted in other federal departments in order to hide from the public how much is actually being spent each year on the military, which is well over a trillion dollars annually, probably more than half of all federal discretionary (which excludes interest on the debt, some of which pays for prior wars) spending. So, it’s a very militarized economy, indeed.

This is today’s American ‘democracy’. Is it also ‘democracy’ in America’s allied countries? (Obviously, they are more democratic than America regarding just the incarceration-rate; but what about generally?) Almost all of those countries continue to say that America is a democracy (despite the proof that it is not), and that they are likewise. Are they correct in both? Are they allied with a ‘democracy’ against democracy? Or, are they, in fact, phonies as democracies? These are serious questions, and bumper-sticker answers to them won’t suffice anymore — not after invading Iraq in 2003, and Libya in 2011, and Syria right afterward, and Ukraine in 2014, and Yemen today, etc.

Please send this article along to friends, and ask for their thoughts about this. Because, in any actual democracy, everyone should be discussing these issues, under the prevailing circumstances. Taxpayer-funded mass-slaughter is now routine and goes on year after year. After a few decades of this, shouldn’t people start discussing the matter? Why haven’t they been? Isn’t this the time to start? Or is America so much of a dictatorship that it simply won’t happen? We’ll see.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Originally posted at Unz Review

There is almost unanimous agreement among climate scientists and organizations – that is, 97% of over 10,000 climate scientists and the various scientific organizations engaged in climate science research – that human beings have caused a dramatic increase in the amount of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide released into Earth’s atmosphere since the pre-industrial era and that this is driving the climate catastrophe that continues to unfold. For the documentary evidence on this point see, for example, ‘Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature’, ‘Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming’ and ‘Scientists Agree: Global Warming is Happening and Humans are the Primary Cause’.

However, there is no consensus regarding the timeframe in which this climate catastrophe will cause human extinction. This lack of consensus is primarily due to the global elite controlling the public perception of this timeframe with frequent talk of ‘the end of the century’ designed to allow ongoing profit maximization through ‘business as usual’ for as long as possible. Why has this happened?

When evidence of the climate catastrophe (including the pivotal role of burning fossil fuels) became incontrovertible, which meant that the fossil fuel industry’s long-standing efforts to prevent action on the climate catastrophe had finally ended, the industry shifted its focus to arguing that the timeframe, which it presented as ‘end of the century’, meant that we could defer action (and thus profit-maximization through business as usual could continue indefinitely). Consequently, like the tobacco, sugar and junk food industries, the fossil fuel industry has employed a range of tactics to deflect attention from their primary responsibility for a problem and to delay action on it.

These well-worn tactics include suggesting that the research is incomplete and more research needs to be done, funding ‘research’ to come up with ‘evidence’ to counter the climate science, employing scholars to present this ‘research’, discrediting honest climate scientists, infiltrating regulatory bodies to water down (or reverse) decisions and recommendations that would adversely impact profits, setting up ‘concerned’ groups to act as ‘fronts’ for the industry, making generous political donations to individuals and political parties as well as employing lobbyists.

As a result of its enormous power too, the global elite has been able to control much of the funding available for climate science research and a great deal of the information about it that is made widely available to the public, particularly through its corporate media. For this reason, the elite wields enormous power to shape the dialogue in relation to both the climate science and the timeframe.

Therefore, and despite the overwhelming consensus noted above, many climate scientists are reluctant to be fully truthful about the state of the world’s climate or they are just conservative in their assessments of the climate catastrophe. For example, eminent climate scientist Professor James Hansen referred to ‘scientific reticence’ in his article ‘Scientific reticence and sea level rise’, scientists might be conservative in their research – for example, dependence upon historical records leads to missing about one-fifth of global warming since the 1860s as explained in ‘Reconciled climate response estimates from climate models and the energy budget of Earth’ – and, in some cases, governments muzzle scientists outright. See ‘Scientist silencing continues for federally-funded research’. But many of the forces working against full exposure of the truth are explained in Professor Guy McPherson’s article ‘Climate-Change Summary and Update’.

However, in contrast to the elite-managed mainstream narrative regarding the climate timeframe, there is a group of courageous and prominent climate scientists who offer compelling climate science evidence that human beings, along with millions of other species, will be extinct by 2026 (and perhaps as early as 2021) in response to a projected 10 degree celsius increase in global temperatures above the pre-industrial level by that date. See ‘Will humans be extinct by 2026?’

Before outlining the essence of this article, it is worth noting that the website on which it is posted is ‘Arctic News’and the editors of this site post vital articles on the world’s climate by highly prominent climate scientists, such as Professor Peter Wadhams (Emeritus Professor of Polar Ocean Physics at Cambridge University and author of A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic), Dr Andrew Glikson (an Earth and paleoclimate scientist who is a visiting fellow at the Australian National University), Professor Guy McPhersonwho has written extensively and lectures all over the world on the subject, and ‘Sam Carana’, the pseudonym used by a group of climate scientists concerned to avoid too many adverse impacts on their research, careers and funding by declaring themselves publicly but nevertheless committed to making the truth available for those who seek it.

So, in a few brief points, let me summarize the evidence and argument outlined in the article ‘Will humans be extinct by 2026?’

The Climate Science of Destruction of the Biosphere

In the Arctic, there is a vast amount of carbon stored in soils that are now still largely frozen; this frozen soil is called permafrost. But as Arctic temperatures continue to rise and the permafrost thaws, in response to the warming that has occurred already (and is ongoing) by burning fossil fuels and farming animals for human consumption, much of this carbon will be converted into carbon dioxide or methane and released into the atmosphere. There is also a vast amount of methane – in the form of methane hydrates and free gas – stored in sediments under the Arctic Ocean seafloor. As temperatures rise, these sediments are being destabilized and will soon result in massive eruptions of methane from the ocean floor. ‘Due to the abrupt character of such releases and the fact that many seas in the Arctic Ocean are shallow, much of the methane will then enter the atmosphere without getting broken down in the water.’

Adversely impacting this circumstance is that the sea ice continues to retreat as the polar ice cap melts in response to the ongoing temperature increases. Because sea ice reflects sunlight back into Space, as the ice retreats more sunlight hits the (dark-colored) ocean (which absorbs the sunlight) and warms the oceaneven more. This causes even more ice melt in what becomes an ongoing self-reinforcing feedback loop that ultimately impacts worldwide, such as triggering huge firestorms in forests and peatlands in North America and Russia.

More importantly, however, without sea ice, storms develop more easily and because they mix warm surface waters with the colder water at the bottom of shallow seas, reaching cracks in sediments filled with ice which acts as a glue holding the sediment together, the ice melt destabilizes the sediments, which are vulnerable to even small differences in temperature and pressure that are triggered by earthquakes, undersea landslides or changes in ocean currents.

As a result, huge amounts of methane can erupt from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean and once this occurs, it will further raise temperatures, especially over the Arctic, thus acting as another self-reinforcing feedback loop that again makes the situation even worse in the Arctic, with higher temperatures causing even further methane releases, contributing to the vicious cycle that precipitates ‘runaway global warming’.

‘These developments can take place at such a speed that adaptation will be futile. More extreme weather events can hit the same area with a succession of droughts, cold snaps, floods, heat waves and wildfires that follow each other up rapidly. Within just one decade [from 2016], the combined impact of extreme weather, falls in soil quality and air quality, habitat loss and shortages of food, water, shelter and just about all the basic things needed to sustain life can threaten most, if not all life on Earth with extinction.’

The article goes on to outline how the 10 degree increase (above the pre-industrial level) by 2026 is likely to occur. It will involve further carbon dioxide and methane releases from human activity (particularly driving cars and other vehicles, flying in aircraft and eating animal products, as well as military violence), ongoing reduction of snow and ice cover around the world (thus reflecting less sunlight back into Space), an increase in the amount of water vapor (a greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere, a falling away of ‘aerosol masking’ (which has helped reduce the impact of emissions so far) as emissions decline, as well as methane eruptions from the ocean floor. If you would like to read more about this and see the graphs and substantial documentation, you can do so in the article cited above: ‘Will humans be extinct by 2026?’

The Ecology of Destruction of the Biosphere

Not that these scientists, who focus on the climate, discuss it but there are other human activities adversely impacting Earth’s biosphere which also threaten near-term extinction for humans, particularly given their synergistic impacts.

For example, recent research has drawn attention to the fact that the ‘alarming loss of insects will likely take down humanity before global warming hits maximum velocity…. The worldwide loss of insects is simply staggering with some reports of 75% up to 90%, happening much faster than the paleoclimate record rate of the past five major extinction events’. Without insects ‘burrowing, forming new soil, aerating soil, pollinating food crops…’ and providing food for many bird species, the biosphere simply collapses. See ‘Insect Decimation Upstages Global Warming’.

Moreover, apart from ongoing destruction of other vital components of Earth’s life support system such as the rainforests – currently being destroyed at the rate of 80,000 acres each day: see ‘Measuring the Daily Destruction of the World’s Rainforests’ – and oceans – see ‘The state of our oceans in 2018 (It’s not looking good!)’ –which is generating an extinction rate of 200 species(plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects and reptiles) each day with another 26,000 species already identified as ‘under threat’ – see ‘Red list research finds 26,000 global species under extinction threat’ – some prominent scholars have explained how even these figures mask a vital component of the rapidly accelerating catastrophe of species extinctions: the demise of local populations of a species. See ‘Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines’.

In addition, relying on our ignorance and our complicity, eliteskill vast areas of Earth’s biosphere through war and other military violence – see, for example, the Toxic Remnants of War Projectand the film ‘Scarred Lands & Wounded Lives’ – subject it to uncontrolled releases of radioactive contamination – see ‘Fukushima Radiation Has Contaminated The Entire Pacific Ocean – And It’s Going To Get Worse’– and use geoengineering to wage war on Earth’s climate, environment and ultimately ourselves. See, for example, ‘Engineered Climate Cataclysm: Hurricane Harvey’ and ‘The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction: “Owning the Weather” for Military Use’.

Separately from all of this, we live under the unending threat of nuclear war.

This is because insane political and corporate elites are still authorizing and manufacturing more of these highly profitable weapons rather than dismantling them all (as well as conventional weapons) and redirecting the vast resources devoted to ongoing military killing(US$1.7 trillion annually: see ‘Global military spending remains high at $1.7 trillion’) to environmental restoration and programs of social uplift.

By the way, if you think the risk of nuclear war can be ignored, you might find this recent observation sobering. In a review of (former US nuclear war planner) Daniel Ellsberg’s recent book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, Earth and paleoclimate scientist Dr Andrew Glikson summarized the book as follows: ‘This, then, is the doomsday machine. Not simply the existence of fission weapons or unspeakably destructive hydrogen bombs, but the whole network rigged together: thousands of them on hair-trigger alert, command and control equipment built in the 1970s and ’80s, millions of lines of antique code sitting on reels of magnetic tape or shuffled around on floppy discs even now. An architecture tended by fallible and deeply institutionalized human beings.’ See‘Two Minutes To Mid-Night: The Global Nuclear Suicide Machine’.

So, irrespective of whether elites or their agents or even we acknowledge it, Earth’s biosphere is under siege on many fronts and, very soon now, Earth will not support life. Any honest news source routinely reports one or another aspect of the way in which humans are destroying the Earth and perhaps suggests courses of action to respond powerfully to it. This, of course, does not include the insane global elite’s corporate media, which functions to distract us from any semblance of the truth.

How did all this happen?

How did human beings end up in a situation that human extinction is likely to occur within eight years (even assuming we can avert nuclear war)? And is there any prospect of doing enough about it now to avert this extinction?

To answer the first question briefly:We arrived at this juncture in our history because of a long sequence of decisions, essentially made by elites to expand their profit, power and privilege, and which they then imposed on us and which we did not resist powerfully enough. For a fuller explanation, see ‘Strategy and Conscience: Subverting Elite Power So We End Human Violence’.

In any case, the key questions now are simply these: Is it too late to avert our own extinction? And, if not, what must we do?

Well, I am not going to dwell on it but some scientists believe it is too late: we have already passed the point of no return. Professor Guy McPherson is one of these scientists, with a comprehensive explanation and a great deal of evidence to support it in his long and heavily documented article ‘Climate-Change Summary and Update’.

So, the fundamental question is this: If we assume (highly problematically I acknowledge) that it is possible to avert our own extinction by 2026, what must we do?

Because we need to address, in a strategic manner, the interrelated underlying causesthat are driving the rush to extinction, let me first identify one important symptom of these underlying causes and then the underlying structural and behavioral causes themselves. Finally, let me invite your participation in (one or more aspects of) a comprehensive strategy designed to address all of this.

As in the past, at least initially, the vast bulk of the human population is not going to respond to this crisis in any way. We need to be aware of this but not let it get in our way. There is a straightforward explanation for it.

Fear or, far more accurately, unconscious terror will ensure that the bulk of the human population will not investigate or seriously consider the scientific evidence in relation to the ongoing climate catastrophe, despite its implications for them personally and humanity generally (not to mention other species and the biosphere). Moreover, given that climate science is not an easy subject with which to grapple, elite control of most media in relation to it (including, most of the time, by simply excluding mention of key learning from the climate scientists) ensures that public awareness, while reasonably high, is not matched by knowledge, which is negligible.

As a result, most people will fearfully, unintelligently and powerlessly accept the delusions, distractions and denial that are promulgated by the insane global elite through its various propaganda channels including the corporate media, public relations and entertainment industries, as well as educational institutions. This propaganda always includes the implicit message that people can’t (and shouldn’t) do anything in response to the climate catastrophe (invariably and inaccurately, benignly described as ‘climate change’).

A primary way in which the corporate media reports the issue but frames it for a powerless response is to simply distribute ‘news’ about each climate-related event without connecting it either with other climate-related events or even mentioning it as yet another symptom of the climate catastrophe. Even if they do mention these connections, they reliably mention distant dates for phenomena like ‘heatwaves’ repeating themselves and an overall ‘end of century’ timeframe to preclude the likelihood that any sense of urgency will arise.

The net outcome of all this, as I stated above, is that the bulk of the human population will not respond to the crisis in the short term (as it hasn’t so far) with most of what limited response there is confined to powerlessly lobbying elite-controlled governments.

However, as long as you consider responding – and by responding, I mean responding strategically – and then do respond, you become a powerful agent of change, including by recruiting others through your example.

But before I present the strategy, let me identify the major structural and behavioral causes that are driving the climate catastrophe and destruction of the biosphere, and explain why some key elements of this strategyare focused on tackling these underlying causes.

The Political Economy of Destruction of the Biosphere

The global elite ensures that it has political control of the biosphere as well as Space by using various systems, structures and processes that it largely created (over the past few centuries) and now controls, including the major institutions of governance in the world such as national governments and key international organizations like the United Nations. For further information, see ‘Strategy and Conscience: Subverting Elite Power So We End Human Violence’.

It does this, for example,so that it can economically utilize, via the exploitative mechanisms of capitalism and its corporations (which the elite also created), domainsof the biosphere rich in resources, particularly fossil fuels, strategic minerals and fresh water. The elite will use any means – including psychological manipulation, propaganda issued by its corporate media, national educational institutions, legal systems and extraordinary military violence – to achieve this outcome whatever the cost to life on Earth. See‘Profit Maximization Is Easy: Invest In Violence’.

In short, the global elite is so insane that its members believe that killing and exploiting fellow human beingsand destroying the biosphereare simply good ways to make a profit. Of course, they do not perceive us as fellow human beings; they perceive and treat us as a great deal less. This is why, for example, the elite routinely uses its military forces to attack impoverished and militarily primitive countries so that they can steal their resources. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

But they are happy to steal from those of us living in western economies too, with Professor Barbara G. Ellis issuing the latest warning about yet another way this could easily happen. See ‘Depositors – Not Taxpayers – Will Take the Hit for the Next “2008” Crash Because Major Banks May Use the “Bail-In” System’.

Anyway, because of elite control of governments, it is a waste of time lobbying politicians if we want action on virtually all issues that concern us, particularly the ‘big issues’ that threaten extinction, such as the climate catastrophe, environmental destruction and war (especially the threat of nuclear war). While in very limited (and usually social) contexts (such as issues in relation to the right of women to abortions or rights for the LGBTQIA communities), when it doesn’t significantly adversely impact elite priorities, gains are sometimes made (at least temporarily) by mobilizing sufficient people to pressure politicians. This has two beneficial outcomes for elites: it keeps many people busy on ‘secondary issues’ (from the elite perspective) that do not impact elite profit, power and privilege; and it reinforces the delusion that democracy ‘works’.

However, in the contexts that directly impact elite concerns (such as their unbridled exploitation of the biosphere for profit), politicians serve their elite masters, even to the extent that any laws that might appear to have been designed to impede elite excesses (such as pollution generated by their activities) are readily ignored if necessary, with legal penalties too insignificant to deter phenomenally wealthy corporations. See ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’.

Of course, if any government does not obey elite directives, it is overthrown. Just ask any independently-minded government over the past century. For a list of governments overthrown by the global elite using its military and ‘intelligence’ agencies since World War II, see William Blum’s book Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II or, for just the list, see ‘Overthrowing other people’s governments: The Master List’.

How does the elite maintain this control over political, economic, military, legal and social structures and processes?

The Sociology of Destruction of the Biosphere

As explained inthe literature on the sociology of knowledge, reality is socially constructed. See the classic work The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. That is, if an individual is born or introduced into a society in which particular institutions are in control and behaviors such as chronic over-consumption, unlimited profit-making, rampant exploitation of the environment and grotesque violence against (at least some) people are practiced, then the typical individual will accept the existence of these institutions and adoptthe behaviors of the people around them even though the institutions and behaviors are dysfunctional and violent.

But while the sociology of knowledgeliterature recognizes that children ‘must be “taught to behave” and, once taught, must be “kept in line”’ to maintain the institutional order, this literature clearly has no understanding of the nature and extent of the violence to which each child is actually subjected in order to achieve the desired ‘socialization’. This terrorization, as I label it, is so comprehensive that the typical child quickly becomes incapable of usingtheir own intellectual and emotional capacities, including conscience and courage, to actually evaluate any institution or behavior before accepting/adopting it themselves. Obviously then, they quickly become too terrified to overtly challenge dysfunctional institutions and behaviors as well.

Moreover, as a result of this ongoing terrorization, inflicted by the significant adults (and particularly the parents) in the child’s life, the child soon becomes too (unconsciously) afraid to resist the behavioral violence that is inflicted on them personally in many forms, as outlined briefly in the next section,so that they are ‘taught to behave’ and are ‘kept in line’.

In response to elite-driven imperatives then, such as ‘you are what you own’ to encourage very profitable over-consumption, most people are delusionarily ‘happy’ while utterly trapped behaving exactly as elites manipulate them – they are devoid of the psychological capacity to critique and resist – and the elite-preferred behavior quickly acquires the status of being ‘the only and the right way to behave’, irrespective of its dysfunctionality.

In essence: virtually all humans fearfully adopt dysfunctional social behaviors such as over-consumption and profit-making at the expense of the biosphere, rather than intelligently, conscientiously and courageously analyzing the total situation (including the moral and ecological dimensions of it) and behaving appropriately in the context.

Given the pervasiveness and power of elite institutions, ranging from those mentioned above to the corporate media and psychiatry – see ‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry’– resistance to violent socialization (of both children and adults) requires considerable awareness, not to mention courage.

And so our fear makes virtually all of us succumb to the socialization pressure (that is, violence) to accept existing institutions and participate in widespread social behaviors (such as over-consumption) that are dysfunctional and violent.

The Psychology of Destruction of the Biosphere

This happens because each child, from birth, is terrorized (again: what we like to call ‘socialized’) until they become a slave willing to work and, in industrialized countries at least, to over-consume as directed.

Under an unrelenting regime of ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence, each child unconsciously surrenders their search in pursuit of their own unique and powerful destiny and succumbs to the obedience that every adult demands. Why do adults demand this? Because the idea of a powerful child who courageously follows their own Self-will terrifies adults. So how does this happen?

Unfortunately, far too easily and, strange though it may seem, it is not just the ‘visible’ violence (such as hitting, screaming at and sexually abusing) that we normally label ‘violence’ that causes the main damage, although this is extremely damaging. The largest component of damage arises from the ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that we adults unconsciously inflict on children during the ordinary course of the day. Tragically, the bulk of this violence occurs in the family home and at school. See ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

So what is ‘invisible’ violence? It is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to themSelf thus destroying their internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and behavioral dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically programmed to do).

When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine their sense of Self-worth and teach them to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.

The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, mothers, fathers, teachers, religious figures and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioral responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioral outcomes actually occur.

For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they express their feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing their feelings (for instance, by screaming at them when they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behavior that is generated by their feelings (for example, by hitting them, restraining them or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings.

However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for the biosphere because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviors, including some that are violent towards themself, others and/or the Earth.

Moreover, terrorizing the child has many flow-on effects. For example, once you terrorise a child into accepting certain information about themself, other people or the state of the world, the child becomes unconsciously fearful of dealing with new information, especially if this information is contradictory to what they have been terrorized into believing. As a result, the child will unconsciously dismiss new information out of hand.

In short, the child has been terrorized in such a way that they are no longer capable of learning (or their learning capacity is seriously diminished by excluding any information that is not a simple extension of what they already ‘know’). This is one important explanation why some people are ‘climate deniers’ and most others do nothing in response to the climate catastrophe. See ‘The Psychology of Denial’.

Consequently, under this onslaught of terror and violence, the child surrenders their own unique Self and takes on theirsocially constructed delusional identity which gives them relief from being terrorized while securing the approval they crave to survive.

So if we want to end violence against the biosphere, we must tackle thisfundamental cause. Primarily, this means giving everyone, child and adult alike, all of the space they need to feel, deeply, what they want to do, and to then let them do it (or to have the emotional responses they naturally have if they are prevented from doing so).

For some insight into the critical role that school plays in reducing virtually all children to wage slaves for employment in some menial or ‘professional’ role or as ‘cannon fodder’ for the military, while stripping them of the capacity to ask penetrating questions about the very nature of society and their own role in it, see ‘Do We Want School or Education?’

In summary, given that human society is so dysfunctional, beginning with the fact that human beings do not know how to parent or educate their children to nurture their unique and extraordinary potential, humans face a monumental challenge, in an incredibly short timeframe, to have any chance of survival.

And we are going to have to fix a lot more things than just our destruction of the biosphere if we are to succeed, given that ecologically destructive behavior and institutions have their origin in dysfunctional psychology, societies and political economy.

To reiterate however, it is our (often unconscious) fear that underpins every problem. Whether it is the fear getting in the way of our capacity to intelligently analyze the various structures and behaviors that generate the interrelated crises in which we now find ourselves or the fear undermining our courage to act powerfully in response to these crises, acknowledging and dealing with our fear is the core of any strategy for survival.

So what’s the plan?

Let’s start with you. If you consider the evidence in relation to destruction of our biosphere, essentially one of two things will happen. Either you will be powerful enough, both emotionally and intellectually, to grapple with this evidence and you will take strategic action that has ongoing positive impact on the crisis or your (unconscious) fear will simply use one of its lifelong mechanisms to remove awareness of what you have just read from your mind or otherwise delude you, such as by making you believe you are powerless to act differently or that you are ‘doing enough already’. This immobilizing fear, whether or not you experience it consciously, is a primary outcome of the terrorization to which you were subjected as a child.

So, if you sense that improving your own functionality – so that you can fully access your emotional responses, conscienceand courage – is a priority, try ‘Putting Feelings First’.

If you already feel able to act powerfully in response to this multi-faceted crisis, in a way that will have strategic impact, you are invited toconsider joining those participating in‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’,which outlines a simple plan for people to systematically reduce their consumption, by at least 80%, involving both energy and resources of every kind – water, household energy, transport fuels, metals, meat, paper and plastic – while dramatically expanding their individual and community self-reliance in 16 areas, so that all environmental concerns are effectively addressed. You might also consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

If you are interested in nurturing children to live by their conscience and to gainthe courage necessary to resist elite violence fearlessly, while living sustainably despite the entreaties of capitalism to over-consume, then you are welcome to make‘My Promise to Children’. To reiterate: capitalism and other dysfunctional political, economic, military, legal and social structures only thrive because our dysfunctional parenting robs children of their conscience and courage, among many other qualities, while actively teaching them to over-consume as compensation for having vital emotional needs denied. See ‘Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War’.

If you are interested in conducting or participating in a campaign to halt our destruction of the biosphere (or any other manifestation of violence for that matter) you are welcome to consider acting strategically in the way that the extraordinary activist Mohandas K. Gandhi did. Whether you are engaged in a peace, climate, environment or social justice campaign, the 12-point strategic framework and principles are the same. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy.

The two strategic aims and a core list of strategic goals to end war and to end the climate catastrophe, for example, are identified in ‘Campaign Strategic Aims’and, using these examples, it is a straightforward task to identify an appropriate set of strategic goals for your local environment campaign. As an aside, the strategic framework to defend against a foreign invading power or a political/military coup, to liberate your country from a dictatorship or a foreign occupation, or to defeat a genocidal assault is explainedin‘Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy’.

If you would like a straightforward explanation of ‘Nonviolent Action: Why and How it Works’ and an introduction to what it means to think strategically, try reading about the difference between ‘The Political Objective and Strategic Goal of Nonviolent Actions’.

If you anticipate violent repression by a ruthless opponent, consider planning and implementing any nonviolent action according to the explanation in‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression’.

Finally, if you are going to do nothing in response to this crisis, make it a conscious decision to do nothing. This is far preferable to unconsciously and powerlessly doing nothing by never even considering the evidenceor by simply deluding yourself. It also allows you to consciously revise your decision at some point in future if you so wish.

Conclusion

The evidence in relation to destruction of the Earth’s biosphere, leading to ongoing and rapid degradation of all ecosystems and their services, is readily available and overwhelming. The many and varied forms of destruction are having synergistic impact. An insignificant amount of the vast evidence in relation to this destruction is sampled above.

There is a notable group of prominent climate scientists who present compelling evidence that human extinction will occur by 2026 as a result of a projected 10 degree celsius increase in global temperatures above the pre-industrial level by this date. The primary document for this is noted above and this document, together with the evidence it cites, is readily available to be read and analyzed by anyone.

Largely separately from the climate catastrophe (although now increasingly complicated by it), Earth’s sixth mass extinction is already advancing rapidly as we destroy habitatand, on our current trajectory, all species will soon enter the fossil record.

Why? Because we live in a world in which the political, economic, military, legal and social structures and processes of human society are utterly incapable of producing either functional human beings or governance mechanisms that take into account, and respect, the ecological realities of Earth’s biosphere.

So, to reiterate:We are on the fast-track to extinction. On the current trajectory, assuming we can avert nuclear war, some time between 2021 and 2026 the last human will take their final breath.

Our only prospect of survival, and it still has only a remote chance of succeeding, is that a great number of us respond powerfully now and keep mobilizing more people to do so.

If you do absolutely nothing else, consider rearranging your life to exclude all meat from your diet, stop traveling by car and aircraft, substantially reduce your water consumption by scaling down your ownership of electronic devices (which require massive amounts of water to manufacture), and only eat biodynamically or organically grown whole food.

And tell people why you are doing so.

This might give those of us who fight strategically, which can include you if you so choose, a little more time to overturn the structural and remaining behavioral drivers of extinction which will require a profound change in the very nature of human society, including all of its major political, economic, military, legal and social institutions and processes (most of which will need to be abolished).

If this sounds ‘radical’, remember that they are about to vanish anyway. Our strategy must be to replace them with functional equivalents, all of which are readily available (with some briefly outlined in the various documents mentioned in the plan above).

‘It won’t happen’, you might say? And, to be candid, I sincerely believe that you are highly probably right. I have spent a lifetime observing, analyzing, writing about and acting to heal dysfunctional and violent human behavior and, for that reason, I am not going to delude myself that anything less than what I have outlined above will achieve the outcome that I seek: to avert human extinction. But I am realistic.

The insane individuals who control the institutions that are driving extinction will never act to avert it. If they were sane enough to do so, they would have been directing and coordinating these institutions in taking action for the past 40 years. This is why we must resist them strategically.Moreover, I am only too well aware that the bulk of the human population has been terrorized into powerlessness and won’t even act. But our best chance lies in offering them our personal example, and giving them simple and various options for responding effectively.

It is going to be a tough fight for human survival, particularly this late in the ‘game’. Nevertheless, I intend to fight until my last breath. I hope that you will too.

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.

Curious thing about H. sapiens is that we are clever enough to document — in exquisite detail — various trends that portend the collapse of modern civilization, yet not nearly smart enough to extricate ourselves from our self-induced predicament.

This was underscored once again in October when scientists reported that flying insect populations in Germany have declined by an alarming 75 per cent in the past three decades accompanied, in the past dozen years, by a 15 per cent drop in bird populations. Trends are similar in other parts of Europe where data are available. Even in Canada, everything from casual windshield “surveys” to formal scientific assessments show a drop in insect numbers. Meanwhile, domestic populations of many insect-eating birds are in freefall. Ontario has lost half its whip-poor-wills in the past 20 years; across the nation, such species as nighthawks, swallows, martins and fly-catchers are down by up to 75 per cent; Greater Vancouver’s barn and bank swallows have plummeted by 98 per cent since 1970. Heard much about these things in the mainstream news?

Too bad. Biodiversity loss may turn out to be the sleeper issue of the century. It is caused by many individual but interacting factors — habitat loss, climate change, intensive pesticide use and various forms of industrial pollution, for example, suppress both insect and bird populations. But the overall driver is what an ecologist might call the “competitive displacement” of non-human life by the inexorable growth of the human enterprise.

On a finite planet where millions of species share the same space and depend on the same finite products of photosynthesis, the continuous expansion of one species necessarily drives the contraction and extinction of others. (Politicians take note — there is always a conflict between human population/economic expansion and “protection of the environment.”)

Remember the 40 to 60 million bison that used to roam the great plains of North America? They — along with the millions of deer, pronghorns, wolves and lesser beasts that once animated prairie ecosystems — have been “competitively displaced,” their habitats taken over by a much greaterbiomass of humans, cattle, pigs and sheep. And not just North Americans — Great Plains sunshine also supports millions of other people-with-livestock around world who depend, in part on North American grain, oil-seed, pulse and meat exports.

Competitive displacement has been going on for a long time. Scientists estimate that at the dawn of agriculture 10,000 years ago, H. sapienscomprised less than one per cent of the total weight of mammals on the planet. (There were probably only two to four million people on Earth at the time.) Since then, humans have grown to represent 35 per cent of a much larger total biomass; toss in domestic pets and livestock, and human domination of the world’s mammalian biomass rises to 98.5 per cent!

One needs look no further to explain why wildlife populations globally have plunged by nearly 60 per cent in the past half century. Wild tigers have been driven from 93 per cent of their historic range and are down to fewer than 4,000 individuals globally; the population of African elephants has imploded by as much as 95 per cent to only 500,000 today; poaching drove black rhino numbers from an already much reduced 70,000 in 1960 to only 2,500 individuals in the early 1990s. (With intense conservation effort, they have since rebounded to about 5,000). And those who still think Canada is still a mostly pristine and under-populated wilderness should think again — half the wildlife species regularly monitored in this country are in decline, with an average population drop of 83 per cent since 1970. Did I mention that B.C.’s southern resident killer whale population is down to only 76 animals? That’s in part because human fishers have displaced the orcas from their favoured food, Chinook salmon, even as we simultaneously displace the salmon from their spawning streams through hydro dams, pollution and urbanization.

The story is similar for familiar species everywhere and likely worse for non-charismatic fauna. Scientists estimate that the “modern” species extinction rate is 1,000 to as much as 10,000 times the natural background rate. The global economy is busily converting living nature into human bodies and domestic livestock largely unnoticed by our increasingly urban populations. Urbanization distances people psychologically as well as spatially from the ecosystems that support them.

The human band-wagon may really have started rolling 10 millennia ago but the past two centuries of exponential growth greatly have accelerated the pace of change. It took all of human history — let’s say 200,000 years — for our population to reach one billion in the early 1800s, but only 200 years, 1/1000th as much time, to hit today’s 7.6 billion! Meanwhile, material demand on the planet has ballooned even more — global GDP has increased by over 100-fold since 1800; average per capita incomes by a factor of 13. (rising to 25-fold in the richest countries). Consumption has exploded accordingly — half the fossil fuels and many other resources ever used by humans have been consumed in just the past 40 years. (See graphs in: Steffen, W et al. 2015. The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, page(s): 81-98.)

Why does any of this matter, even to those who don’t really give a damn about nature per se? Apart from the moral stain associated with extinguishing thousands of other life-forms, there are purely selfish reasons to be concerned. For example, depending on climate zone, 78 per cent to 94 per cent of flowering plants, including many human food species, are pollinated by insects, birds and even bats. (Bats — also in trouble in many places — are the major or exclusive pollinators of 500 species in at least 67 families of plants.) As much as 35 per cent of the world’s crop production is more or less dependent on animal pollination, which ensures or increases the production of 87 leading food crops worldwide.

But there is a deeper reason to fear the depletion and depopulation of nature. Absent life, planet earth is just an inconsequential wet rock with a poisonous atmosphere revolving pointlessly around an ordinary star on the outer fringes of an undistinguished galaxy. It is life itself, beginning with countless species of microbes, that gradually created the “environment” suitable for life on Earth as we know it. Biological processes are responsible for the life-friendly chemical balance of the oceans; photosynthetic bacteria and green plants have stocked and maintain Earth’s atmosphere with the oxygen necessary for the evolution of animals; the same photosynthesis gradually extracted billions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere, storing it in chalk, limestone and fossil fuel deposits, so that Earth’s average temperature (currently about 15 C) has remained for geological ages in the narrow range that makes water-based life possible, even as the sun has been warming (i.e. stable climate is partially a biological phenomenon.); countless species of bacteria, fungi and a veritable menagerie of micro-fauna continuously regenerate the soils that grow our food. (Unfortunately, depletion-by-agriculture is even faster — by some accounts we have only just over a half-century’s worth of arable soils left).

In short, H. sapiens depends utterly on a rich diversity of life-forms to provide various life-support functions essential to the existence and continued survival of human civilization. With an unprecedented human-induced great global die-off well under way, what are the chances the functional integrity of the ecosphere will survive the next doubling of material consumption that everyone expects before mid-century?

Here’s the thing: climate change is not the only shadow darkening humanity’s doorstep. While you wouldn’t know it from the mainstream media, biodiversity loss arguably poses an equivalent existential threat to civilized existence. While we’re at it, let’s toss soil/landscape degradation, potential food or energy shortages and other resource limits into the mix. And if you think we’ll probably be able to “handle” four out of five such environmental problems, it doesn’t matter. The relevant version of Liebig’s Law states that any complex system dependent on several essential inputs can be taken down by that single factor in least supply (and we haven’t yet touched upon the additional risks posed by the geopolitical turmoil that would inevitably follow ecological destabilization).

Which raises questions of more than mere academic interest. Why are we not collectively terrified or at least alarmed? If our best science suggests we are en route to systems collapse, why are collapse — and collapse avoidance — not the primary subjects of international political discourse? Why is the world community not engaged in vigorous debate of available initiatives and trans-national institutional mechanisms that could help restore equilibrium to the relationship between humans and the rest of nature?

There are many policy options, from simple full-cost pricing and consumption taxes; through population initiatives and comprehensive planning for a steady-state economy; to general education for voluntary (and beneficial) lifestyle changes, all of which would enhance global society’s prospects for long-term survival. Unique human qualities, from high intelligence (e.g., reasoning from the evidence), through the capacity to plan ahead to moral consciousness, may well be equal to the task but lie dormant — there is little hint of political willingness to acknowledge the problem let alone elaborate genuine solutions (which the Paris climate accord is not).

Bottom line? The world seems in denial of looming disaster; the “C” word remains unvoiced. Governments everywhere dismissed the 1992 scientists’ Warning to Humanity that “…a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided” and will similarly ignore the scientists’ “second notice.” (Published on Nov. 13, this warning states that most negative trends identified 25 years earlier “are getting far worse.”) Despite cascading evidence and detailed analysis to the contrary, the world community trumpets “growth-is-us” as its contemporary holy grail. Even the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are fixed on economic expansion as the only hammer for every problematic nail. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases reach to at an all-time high, marine dead-zones proliferate, tropical forests fall and extinctions accelerate.

Just what is going on here? The full explanation of this potentially fatal human enigma is no doubt complicated, but Herman Melville summed it up well enough in Moby Dick: “There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.”

William Rees, FRSC is a professor at the University of British Columbia and former director of the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) at UBC.

Originally published by The Tyee

Sanctions left and sanctions right. Financial mostly, taxes, tariffs, visas, travel bans – confiscation of foreign assets, import and export prohibitions and limitations; and also punishing those who do not respect sanctions dished out by Trump, alias the US of A, against friends of their enemies. The absurdity seems endless and escalating – exponentially, as if there was a deadline to collapse the world. Looks like a last-ditch effort to bring down international trade in favor of — what? – Make America Great Again? – Prepare for US mid-term elections? – Rally the people behind an illusion? – Or what?

All looks arbitrary and destructive. All is of course totally illegal by any international law or, forget law, which is not respected anyway by the empire and its vassals, but not even by human moral standards. Sanctions are destructive. They are interfering in other countries sovereignty. They are made to punish countries, nations, that refuse to bend to a world dictatorship.

Looks like everybody accepts this new economic warfare as the new normal. Nobody objects. And the United Nations, the body created to maintain Peace, to protect our globe from other wars, to uphold human rights – this very body is silent – out of fear? Out of fear that it might be ‘sanctioned’ into oblivion by the dying empire? – Why cannot the vast majority of countries – often it is a ratio of 191 to 2 (Israel and the US) – reign-in the criminals?

Imagine Turkey – sudden massive tariffs on aluminum (20%) and steel (50%) imposed by Trump, plus central bank currency interference had the Turkish Lira drop by 40%, and that ‘only’ because Erdogan is not freeing US pastor Andrew Brunson, who faces in Turkey a jail sentence of 35 years for “terror and espionage”. An Izmir court has just turned down another US request for clemency, however, converting his jail sentence to house arrest for health reason. It is widely believed that Mr. Brunson’s alleged 23 years of ‘missionary work’ is but a smoke screen for spying.

President Erdogan has just declared he would look out for new friends, including new trading partners in the east – Russia, China, Iran, Ukraine, even the unviable EU, and that his country is planning issuing Yuan-denominated bonds to diversify Turkey’s economy, foremost the country’s reserves and gradually moving away from the dollar hegemony.

Looking out for new friends, may also include new military alliances. Is Turkey planning to exit NATO? Would turkey be ‘allowed’ to exit NATO – given its strategic maritime and land position between east and west? – Turkey knows that having military allies that dish out punishments for acting sovereignly in internal affair – spells disaster for the future. Why continue offering your country to NATO, whose only objective it is to destroy the east – the very east which is not only Turkey’s but the world’s future? Turkey is already approaching the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and may actually accede to it within the foreseeable future. That might be the end of Turkey’s NATO alliance.

What if Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China – and many more countries not ready to bow to the empire, would jail all those spies embedded in the US Embassies or camouflaged in these countries’ national (financial) institutions, acting as Fifth Columns, undermining their host countries’ national and economic policies? – Entire cities of new jails would have to be built to accommodate the empire’s army of criminals.

Imagine Russia – more sanctions were just imposed for alleged and totally unproven (to the contrary: disproven) Russian poisoning of four UK citizens with the deadly nerve agent, Novichok – and for not admitting it. This is a total farce, a flagrant lie, that has become so ridiculous, most thinking people, even in the UK, just laugh about it. Yet, Trump and his minions in Europe and many parts of the world succumb to this lie – and out of fear of being sanctioned, they also sanction Russia. What has the world become? – Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, would be proud for having taught the important lesson to the liars of the universe: “Let me control the media, and I will turn any nation into a herd of Pigs”. That’s what we have become – a herd of pigs.

Fortunately, Russia too has moved away so far already from the western dollar-controlled economy that such sanctions do no longer hurt. They serve Trump and his cronies as mere propaganda tools – show-offs, “we are still the greatest!”.

Venezuela is being sanctioned into the ground, literally, by from-abroad (Miami and Bogota) Twitter-induced manipulations of her national currency, the Bolívar, causing astronomical inflation – constant ups and downs of the value of the local currency, bringing the national economy to a virtual halt. Imported food, pharmaceuticals and other goods are being deviated at the borders and other entry points, so they will never end up on supermarket shelves, but become smuggle ware in Colombia, where these goods are being sold at manipulated dollar-exchange rates to better-off Venezuelan and Columbian citizens. These mafia type gangs are being funded by NED and other similar nefarious State Department financed “NGOs”, trained by US secret services, either within or outside Venezuela. Once infiltrated into Venezuela – overtly or covertly – they tend to boycott the local economy from within, spread violence and become part of the Fifth Column, primarily sabotaging the financial system.

Venezuela is struggling to get out of this dilemma which has people suffering, by de-dollarizing her economy, partly through a newly created cryptocurrency, the Petro, based on Venezuela’s huge oil reserves and also through a new Bolivar – in the hope of putting the brakes on the spiraling bursts of inflation. This scenario reminds so much of Chile in 1973, when Henry Kissinger was Foreign Secretary (1973-1977), and inspired the CIA coup, by “disappearing” food and other goods from Chilean markets, killing legitimately elected President Allende, bringing Augusto Pinochet, a horrendous murderer and despot, to power. The military dictatorship brought the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of people and lasted until 1990. Subjugating Venezuela might, however, not be so easy. After all, Venezuela has 19 years of revolutionary Chavista experience – and a solid sense of resistance.

Iran – is being plunged into a similar fate. For no reason at all, Trump reneged on the five-plus-one pronged so-called Nuclear Deal, signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015, after almost ten years of negotiations. Now – of course driven by the star-Zionist Netanyahu – new and ‘the most severe ever’ sanctions are being imposed on Iran, also decimating the value of their local currency, the Rial. Iran, under the Ayatollah, has already embarked on a course of “Resistance Economy”, meaning de-dollarization of their economy and moving towards food and industrial self-sufficiency, as well as increased trading with eastern countries, China, Russia, the SCO and other friendly and culturally aligned nations, like Pakistan. However, Iran too has a strong Fifth Column, engrained in the financial sector, that does not let go of forcing and propagating trading with the enemy, i.e. the west, the European Union, whose euro-monetary system is part of the dollar hegemony, hence posing similar vulnerability of sanctions as does the dollar.

China – the stellar prize of the Big Chess Game – is being ‘sanctioned’ with tariffs no end, for having become the world’s strongest economy, surpassing in real output and measured by people’s purchasing power, by far the United States of America. China also has a solid economy and gold-based currency, the Yuan – which is on a fast track to overtake the US-dollar as the number one world reserve currency. China retaliates, of course, with similar ‘sanctions’, but by and large, her dominance of Asian markets and growing economic influence in Europe, Africa and Latin America, is such that Trump’s tariff war means hardly more for China than a drop on a hot stone.

North Korea – the much-touted Trump-Kim mid-June Singapore summit – has long since become a tiny spot in the past. Alleged agreements reached then are being breached by the US, as could have been expected. All under the false and purely invented pretext of DPRK not adhering to her disarmament commitment; a reason to impose new strangulating sanctions. The world looks on. Its normal. Nobody dares questioning the self-styled Masters of the Universe. Misery keeps being dished out left and right – accepted by the brainwashed to-the-core masses around the globe. War is peace and peace is war. Literally. The west is living in a “peaceful” comfort zone. Why disturb it? – If people die from starvation or bombs – it happens far away and allows us to live in peace. Why bother? – Especially since we are continuously, drip-by-steady drip being told its right.

In a recent interview with PressTV I was asked, why does the US not adhere to any of their internationally or bilaterally concluded treaties or agreements? – Good question. – Washington is breaking all the rules, agreements, accords, treaties, is not adhering to any international law or even moral standard, simply because following such standards would mean giving up world supremacy. Being on equal keel is not in Washington’s or Tel Aviv’s interest. Yes, this symbiotic and sick relationship between the US and Zionist Israel is becoming progressively more visible; the alliance of the brute military force and the slick and treacherous financial dominion – together striving for world hegemony, for full spectrum dominance.  This trend is accelerating under Trump and those who give him orders, simply because “they can”. Nobody objects. This tends to portray an image of peerless power, instilling fear and is expected to incite obedience. Will it?

What is really transpiring is that Washington is isolating itself, that the one-polar world is moving towards a multipolar world, one that increasingly disregards and disrespects the United States, despises her bullying and warmongering – killing and shedding misery over hundreds of millions of people, most of them defenseless children, women and elderly, by direct military force or by proxy-led conflicts – Yemen is just one recent examples, causing endless human suffering to people who have never done any harm to their neighbors, let alone to Americans. Who could have any respect left for such a nation, called the United States of America, for the people behind such lying monsters?

This behavior by the dying empire is driving allies and friends into the opposite camp – to the east, where the future lays, away from a globalized One-World-Order, towards a healthy and more equal multi-polar world. – It would be good, if our world body, the members of the United Nations, created in the name of Peace, would finally gather the courage and stand up against the two destroyer nations for the good of humanity, of the globe, and of Mother Earth.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog; and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

I sometimes watch a show on TV about New Hampshire while eating dinner. It always includes a history segment and I like it because it puts our current times nestled into a larger framework..

One of the most interesting ones was about Livermore, NH — a long abandoned town. According to the TV show: the town was entirely owned and operated by the Grafton County Lumber Company, which was owned by three members of the Saunders family and two others. They also owned much, much more. They owned the town school, the only store in town and the boarding houses in which most town members lived. They also owned the family dwelling units while charging big bucks for everything in the town == from rent to food..

It was a logging town. Workers were paid at the end of the 1800’s a dollar a day and with specialty skills — $1.25 USD. In other words, the company was making money hand over fist by bilking workers of their money for housing and food (bought at the store while the company was also making huge profits in lumber sales.

Now a resident in the next town over with three pretty daughters noticed that the loggers who were unmarried had little to do at night. So the resident opened up a conversation club in Livermore for the loggers to relax and get to know their fellow loggers. .. The resident sent his three daughters to tell Livermore loggers of the club and it was a big hit!

Initially the next town’s resident would have his three attractive daughter frolic in some waterway in Livermore when loggers got off of work for the day. Then they would approach the loggers to talk of the club. That method posed as a great advertisement for the club.

Well, the owners of the town (and imagine your town completely owned by some organization like Monsanto or Pepsi Cola), were not happy about the club and either bribed a judge or got a legal stay against the club with a huge fine to be paid by the club owners. When the family got wind of it, they were long gone from their own nearby town.

Livermore shut down due to the obtainable timber being too far away since the forests had already been completely ravaged near town. So like many logging towns,due to local resource overshoot, it shut down and was abandoned. There was just not anything of great financial value to ravage left in the local environs from the natural world.

Yes, whole towns and nations can disappear through resource overshoot. A long period of history have taught us that with Livermore being just one of many more recent examples.

Livermore – White Mountain History whitemountainhistory.org/Livermore.html history of abandoned town of Livermore NH, History of Livermore New … of the company that would operate the mills, the Grafton County Lumber Company.

Now if you think that you like all sorts of paper products like books and newspapers (with their dioxin loading), disposable chopsticks, wooden furniture, lumber, cardboard packaging and so on, please do consider that the Earth IS losing its forests bit by bit.

Amazon Deforestation Rate Up 29 Percent From Last Year, Study …

https://www.npr.org/…/deforestation-of-the-amazon-up-29-percent-from-last-year-study...

Nov 30, 2016 – That’s the second year in a row that deforestation in the Amazon quickened; last year, the pace rose by about 24 percent. The estimated deforestation rate, released Tuesday by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), is based on satellite imagery.

Deforestation Facts, Information, and Effects | National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation/

Jul 25, 2017 – Forests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but swaths half the size of England are lost each year. The world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation. The biggest driver of deforestation is agriculture.

Sally Dugman is a writer from MA, USA

Professor Emeritus of Economics at MIT, Peter Temin, argues that the ongoing decline of the American middle class has resulted in the emergence of two distinct countries within the United States (U.S.), typical of developing nations.  In The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, Temin describes the U.S. as two countries, one composed of a small number of people with access to a glut of resources and power, and the other composed of the vast majority who labor with minimal access to the same resources.  Temin argues that this division (dual economy) is similar to that of developing and Third World nations and that the status of the middle class, in terms of standard of living, is not what it once was forty years ago.

Temin documents gains in productivity and wages and how the two closely paralleled each other from 1945 to 1975.  Then in 1971 wages started to become stagnant and have remained so until the present.From 1945 to 1975 two-thirds of middle class income accounted for 60 percent of total U.S. earnings.  In contrast, middle-class households in 2014 earned about 40 percent. Adjusted for inflation, the incomes of goods-producing workers have been flat since the mid-1970s.  What has resulted is a “dual economy” in the U.S.according to Temin, based on what he describes as the “FTE sector” — people who work in finance, technology, and electronics verses the “low-wage sector.” Workers in the first sector tend to thrive financially while workers in the second sector encounter economic hardship and unsustainable financial debt.

Temin applied the work of Nobel Prize winning economist, W. Arthur Lewis- designed in the 1950s to analyze the workings of developing countries – to the U.S. in an effort to investigate how inequality has grown in America.The model, known as the Lewis model or “dual sector model” identifies how the majority population of a developing country’s low-wage sector has virtually no influence over public policy. The high-income sector, through its dominance in public policy,is able to suppress wages in the majority low-income sector. Maintaining this downward pressure on wages has benefitted the high-income sector’s increased financial status through income and investments.Thus the high-income sector in the U.S., like that of developing nations, continues to dominate public policy in terms favorable to themselves through regressive tax structures, the deregulation of corporate enterprises, and privatization of public goods and infrastructure investment.

According to Temin, the dual sector economy has also emerged as a consequence of:  (1) weakening New Deal and Great Society programs; (2) abandoning the War on Poverty and replacing it with the War on Drugs;(3) “big money” in politics via Citizens United;and (4) diverting public funds into the “military-industrial complex.”He argues that what has been perpetuated in the process is a structure that predetermines economic “winners and losers” and depletes essential public funding for infrastructure development.The crucial point for Temin is that the “dual economy” has thus increased class divisions in the U.S. and that economic deprivation,like that of developing nations, appears to be a permanent feature of the economy.

In order to reverse this trend,Temin argues for increased “spending’ and “investment” in public sector infrastructure.  This translates into the expansion of public funding in education, modernizing freeways and bridges, affordable transportation at the local and national levels,and forgiving crippling mortgages and student loan debt.  Temin also calls for a revived labor movement where unions bargain more aggressively on behalf of middle-class wage earners.  If not, Temin warns that the middle class will continue to fade if progressive public policies are not implemented quickly to counter the dual economy.According to Temin, neoliberalism and globalization have served as the conceptual framework for transforming the U.S. into a Third World nation.

While Temin’s suggestions – to remedy the dual economy and the resultant class divisions within U.S. society – are well intended, I am convinced that Temin’s progressive Keynesian New Deal, Great Society policies, (and Robert Reich’s Saving Capitalism, Joseph Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work, and Paul Krugman’s End This Depression Nowstrategies)are no longer viable economic options.  This is because the monetarist-Keynesian “revolving door” has not guaranteed economic and social justiceas cited by economists such as Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. I argue with Cass Sunstein, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman,that a minimum standard of living “guarantee” is now needed in response to the Great Recession and its lingering effects, the dual economy Third World development, and increased class division in the U.S.

The guarantee,of a basic minimum level of subsistence, is nothing new;it has already been introduced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944 as a second Bill of Rights or Economic Bill of Rights (1944).The general provisions call for essential human provisions, such as, employment, food, clothing, housing, leisure time, a living wage income, regulated commerce, medical care, social security, and education.In his State of the Union Address, FDR suggested that the nation should now implement, a second “bill of rights” in response to the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s argument was that the “political rights” guaranteed by the United States Constitution had “proved inadequate to assure equality in the pursuit of happiness” and that an “economic bill of rights” must guarantee eight specific rights:

1. Employment (right to work)
2. Food, clothing, and leisure
3. Farmers’ rights to a fair income (and/or worker’s rights to fair income)
4. Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
5. Housing
6. Medical Care
7. Social Security
8. Education

I further argue that the implementation of FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights implies: (1) the rejection of neoliberalism and globalization as the basis for normative economic behavior; (2) the prioritization of labor over capital in major strategic industries and economic enterprises in society; (3) a democratic economy and social welfare policy that prioritizes economic and human rights under the eight provisions listed in FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights; and (4) an adherence to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (specifically economic and human rights) to which the United States is a signatory.  In this Economic Bill of Rights, citizens will then possess the basic right to work and a minimum standard of living to provide a decent standard of living and a necessary foundation for participation within a democratic society.  This entails the recognition of fundamental human rights for all citizens that cannot be legislated away, but rather recognized as a permanent feature within the constitution of the United States and international human rights.

Democratic Political Economy

According to the Economic Policy Institute the majority of U.S.citizen’s financial affairs have reached a crisis level. The current economic reality for most middle class citizens has been one in which their standard of living has steadily declined.  As Pew Research reports, in 1970 three of every ten income dollars went to upper-income households while today it is five of every ten. The Social Security Administration reports that more than half of U.S. citizens make less than $30,000 per year and that more than half of U.S. families have virtually no savings and would need to assume significant debt or sell assets to cover an emergency expense. Approximately two-thirds of U.S. citizens have less than $1,000  in their savings and the number of families spending more than half their incomes on rent has increased by a stunning 50% in ten years.

The growing inequality data is nothing new. Economic research indicates that this trend has been developing over the past four decades and that the concentration of wealth in the U.S. has even translated into political representation that favors the wealthy over and above the middle class and poor, similar to Temin’s findings via Lewis’s “dual sector model.”  In this sense it should be of no surprise that further “economic growth” would be advocated by elites (President William Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Phil Graham) and in fact led to the abolition of the Glass-SteigellAct of 1933 in order to incentivize financial institutions by deregulating markets. Tragically, however, this led to the subsequent “housing bust” of 2008 and the Great Recession.  As a result of the Great Recession and the past forty years of economic division within society, the institution of neoliberal globalized markets is now in question.

Clearly, the implementation of FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights involves moving away from an asymmetrical dominance in economic power to a qualitative change in social relationships. This “shift” in priorities is aimed at achieving human solidarity by securing and guaranteeing human and economic rights as basic needs that provide all people with a minimum standard of living as Marx argued for at the First International in 1873 “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!”  Thus a democratic political economy understood within this conceptual framework must necessarily embrace an institutional structure, such as a democratic government entity, to implement and oversee a society based on the fulfillment and protection of human and economic rights through social justice. Democratic understood in this context implies that the accountability of an institutional structure implementing an Economic Bill of Rights would be, presumably, accountable to the people it is intended to serve.

A democratic political economy in this tradition rests upon a concern for “equality” without which “freedom” is, arguably, baseless.Ultimately, advocacy of equality is a value judgment in which persons are born equal, in the sense that their equal humanity is more important than their different endowments. Social critics, such as Cornel West,“value” equality, not necessarily on the pragmatic grounds of its economic effects alone, but rather for intrinsic value as well because: (1) the poorest members of society have a fundamental human right to sustain their basic needs; (2) no distribution of wealth equates precisely between financial reward and actual labor and a nearly equal distribution is more likely to approximate justice than a less equal one; and (3) the more evenly wealth and resources are distributed, the greater welfare it promotes within the common good.

While democratic political economists may differ on the degrees of equality they seek, all apparently agree that some trend toward a framework for an egalitarian society is optimal, i.e., one where people are not separated from each other by divisions of wealth and resources that deny the basic subsistence rights of the human person (e.g. food, clothing, shelter, work, leisure, education, retirement, health care, transportation, extended leave from work for child care, spousal care or elder care, etc.).Implied throughout the democratic political economy perspective is the view that neoliberal capitalism is inherently exploitative and that a “plan” is needed to transition society form a neoliberal capitalist consumer society to a more egalitarian collectivist one prioritizing fundamental economic and human rights.  For David Schweickartthis can be realized in an “Economic Bill of Rights” or worker cooperatives where workers are entitled to the profits they create and democratic egalitarian control over capital and the means of production. In this regard, capital has a moral responsibility to prioritize labor.

Moral Duty of Capital

Signs of a democratic political economy can be traced to the father of modern capitalism, Adam Smith, who understood well the dangers of greed and its potential to destroy people’s lives.In the Wealth of Nations (1776) Smith warns that,“all for ourselves and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”In factone of Smith’s earlier writings in the Theory of Moral Sentiments,Smith reveals a prior context of moral restraint in matters of economics, if anything, to eschew social unrest that would challenge the accumulation of wealth by the rich. Smith nonetheless argues in the Wealth of Nations that, “wherever there is great property, there is great inequality … civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”

Here it is important to note that Smith argues that the state has a moral duty to assess the needs of both the rich and poor based on an ability to financially contribute to society insofar as “the subject of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government (tax), as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities, that is in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”Smith argues that the greater share of this financial contribution rest with the rich when he states, “it is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”Smith then argues for a defense of a living wage and a labor theory of value (worker’s rights to the profits they create as surplus value) when he states, “It is but equity … that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerable well fed, clothed and lodged.”Here, Smith’s view of the market presupposes moral criteria of justice and fairness in economic matters and that what Adam Smith envisioned when he composed the Wealth of Nations is not accurately reflected in neoliberal arrangements.  In this sense, there is a moral duty to labor as Smith conceptualizes eighteenth century capitalism.

Radical Analysis

Liberal Keynesian economists such as Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz argue that neoliberal capitalism and the failure to“break up” the mega conglomerate financial institutions and corporations that dominate modern economic life, is one of the leading reasons for the problems associated with the Great Recession, economic polarization and increased class division in the U.S.Paul Krugman has gone on record stating that because of the Great Recession, mainstream economics (neoclassical and Keynesian schools of thought) has been forced to address left-wingor radical solutions.Krugman seems to be surprised at where his analysis has led him when he states, “aren’t we really back to talking about capital versus labor?  Isn’t that an old-fashioned, almost Marxist sort of discussion, out of date in our modern information economy? Well, that’s what many people thought; for the past generation discussions of inequality [within orthodox economics] have focused overwhelmingly not on capital versus labor but on distributional issues between workers … But that may be yesterday’s story.”Moreover, in a related blog entry entitled “Human Versus Physical Capital,” Krugman writes, “If you want to understand what’s happening to income distribution in the twenty-first century economy, you need to stop talking so much about skills, and start talking much more about profits and who owns the capital. Mea culpa: I myself didn’t grasp this until recently. But it’s really crucial.”  Thus Krugman admits that he has been forced to reexamine past debates dealing with the contradictions within capitalist formation: (1) the conflict between labor and capital; and (2) the growth of monopoly power within corporations.

Krugman is not completely convinced that these two reasons alone are why the U.S. economy is still “deeply depressed” and “corporate profits are at a record high.”  Rather, Krugman is most concerned with the dramatic drop in the labor share of GDP. While he attributes some of this drop to labor-saving innovations in technology, which he refers to as the “rise of robots,” Krugman focuses on the labor-capital problem as the underlying cause for the drop in labor’s share of GDP. He states, “I think it’s fair to say that the shift of income from labor to capital has not yet made it into our national discourse. That shift is happening – and it has major implications.”  Krugman continues, “If income inequality continues to soar we are looking at a class-warfare future … increasing business concentration could be an important factor in stagnating demand for labor, as corporations use their growing monopoly power to raise prices without passing the gains on to employees.”

Of course the capitalist monopoly thesis is all too familiar to Marxian economists.  Radical thinkers who identify monopoly power as the single largest factor in causing the Great Recession – Barry Lynn in Cornered (2010) and John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney’sThe Endless Crisis, presaged by Michal Kalecki’s Theory of Economic Dynamics on monopoly power– are numerous and unequivocal analyses of monopoly capitalism. From the Marxist perspective, monopoly power is endemic to capitalist development.  Indeed, Krugmanand other Keynesians have no other viable economic critique available other than the Marxist analysis as they turn their attention to growing inequality and monopoly power as the core component for the cause of the Great Recession.

Joseph Stiglitz, in The Price of Inequality, presents similar arguments to Krugman’s. As Stiglitz makes clear, the problem is that in the current economic crisis “the share of wages” in the economy “has actually fallen, while many firms are making good profits.”  Stiglitz devotes an entire chapter of his book to the “increased monopoly power in the United States” which has been the result, in his view, of neoliberal policies and anti-regulatory environments. Stiglitz argues that this creates a “negative-sum game” whereby the giant corporations gain, while the economy as a whole loses. All of this is consistent with the paradox of rapidly rising profits, stagnant real wages, and persistent unemployment and the “price of inequality.”

But for Stiglitz, Krugman, Reich and other liberal economists, the policy solution is to be found in implementing, or reviving, effective antitrust laws, government regulation of the economy, and progressive income tax as social welfare strategies for “fixing” the economy, or put more dramatically, “saving capitalism.”On the other hand, structural problems inherent to capitalism such as the downward pressure on wages, the ‘boom-bust” business cycle of capitalism, increasing class inequality and monopoly power – all of which undermine the economy and understood as inherent tendencies within the capitalist system itself -are not analyzed by liberal Keynesians as systemic contradictions within a capitalist economy.  For Reich, Stiglitz and Krugman, that the conflict between labor and capital is itself the core problem that promotes these contradictions and eventual economic hardships on people, is left to policy remediation.  The failure to guarantee economic rights as guarantee to all persons in the U.S. is absent from this perspective.

Exploitation

The Marxist theory of capitalist exploitation is critical in order to understand the rationale for transitioning away from neoliberal capitalism to a democratic political economy based on economic rights. The argument, succinctly put, is that wage laborers, according to Marx, are exploited by their employers since wage earners create the surplus value to which the employer and stockholders garnish the lion’s share. This is basically the core argument of what has become Marx’s “labor theory of value,” and concept of labor alienation and exploitation.Put another way, the surplus value created by a laborer is intrinsically related to the labor that has been spent on producing the product.  Capital did not create the value; labor did.

The income from a finished product is then divided between labor (wages) and capital overhead.  After these costs the surplus value is taken by the employer in the form of capital profit.  According to Marx, exploitation occurs when workers are subordinated to the status of capital and the wages received by workers do not reflect the surplus value of their efforts.The “lion’s share” of the wealth is retained by the employer at the expense of the worker, thus “making a profit” essentially means taking away from the workers the huge amount of value they create resulting from their labor. This is what Marx describes as “capitalist exploitation.”

But identifying capitalist exploitation is only part of the problem in analyzing the contradictions of capitalism.  Marx argues that capitalist exploitation invariably undermines capital itself precisely because workers have less money to spend in a market economy. The lack of income, due to downward pressure on wages, leads to a decline in purchasing power of workers and is eventually felt by the capitalist class in stagnation, recession and even inflation. This according to Marx perpetuates economic crisis for society at large through layoffs, underemployment, and unemployment.

Here it is important to note that radicals see exploitation and economic crisis as constituting an inherent element of capitalist-worker relations and thus generates inequalities. Consequently, asymmetrical distributions of wealth and power create individual and class antagonisms across the entire social strata, which in turn create further inequalities that undermine the economic well-being of the working class. In fact, radicals argue that capitalist arrangements themselves threaten the precise nature of democratic societies both in modern market societies as well as developing ones since many capitalists conclude that democratic rights, specifically those rights demanding economic participation, ought to be subordinated to neoliberal enterprises.

Conclusion: An Economic Bill of Rights

The effects of the Great Recession disaster have been real: reduced income, unemployment, home foreclosures, bankruptcies, evictions and homelessness, lost pensions, 401Ks depleted, unsustainable educational debt, bankruptcy, family and marital stress, reports of increased hunger and homelessness, etc. Most Americans hurt by this disaster have “played by the rules” only to be devastated financially by what economists identify as the cause of this Great Recession: the abolition of the Glass-Steagell Act (1933). This trend has been used to “scapegoat” along the lines of ethnicity, race, gender, and social class.  In fact, current research indicates that a very small percentage of the U.S. population is immune from falling into poverty and experiencing underemployment and underemployment, in the current economic climate.  This perceived experience of economic vulnerability is a result of neoliberal market failure and resulting random misfortunes beyond the control of people.  In turn, this has damaged the American Dream of upward social mobility which is at an all-time low among developed nations.  Thus the urgent need for an Economic Bill of Rights as put forth by FDR with the implicit understanding that the law’s ability, through public policy, to interfere with individual liberty run amuck in the current atmosphere corporate plutocratic rule mandates a fundamental restructuring of values that prioritized economic rights as human rights.

In the attempt to provide a solution for the economic decline of neoliberal capitalism via a human rights model that would better secure the fundamental rights of citizens in U.S. society,I argue for: (1) the rejection of market rationality (neoliberalism) as the basis for normative behavior; (2) a democratic economy and social welfare policy that prioritizes economic rights as human rights; and (3) the prioritization of labor over capital in economic endeavors in order to create justice and a healthy economy. I argue that this formulation underlies an economic Bill of Rights, securing the economic rights of citizens.  The foundation of this economic Bill of Rights is grounded on RodneyPeffer’s “basic rights” principle termed “Radical Rawlsian.”

The question arises, according to Peffer, as to how to render unto people what it is that they deserve (Economic Bill of Rights) and what it is that people deserve in the first place.  According to Peffer, Rawls’s Theory of Justice, that is, the reprioritizing and distribution of scarce resources to the least advantaged, based on a legislative outcome in a democratic society, is insufficient as a policy outcome.  The current “liberal” social justice framework argued by Rawls and operative in the U.S. in the New Deal and Great Society programs, such as social security, welfare, Medicare, affirmative action, etc., are politically expendable.  In spite of this perceived problem, Peffer nevertheless, attempts to reconstruct New Deal and Great Society programs and build on Rawls’s concept of justice in a revision he describes as “Radical Rawlsianism.”  In doing so, Peffer presents a case for a social justice and economic rights guarantee securing a more democratic, equitable, and egalitarian society based on what Peffer describes as the “basic rights principle.”

Peffer asserts that the argument for what constitutes the makeup of Rawls’ idea of justice incorporates a good deal of intellectual space for a concept of “fairness,” too, and the space this creates for discussing fairness as a facet of “radical justice.”  Yet radical justice depends on a more rudimentary concept that is egalitarian—a concept known as “the maximum equal liberty principle.”  Albeit this iteration of Rawls’ concept of social justice is a modified one when conjoined with the radically egalitarian notions of social justice (i.e., “justice as equality”) found in the constructs ofKai Nielsen, Thomas, Henry Shue and James Nickel.Nevertheless, it is here that Peffer’s above mentioned “basic rights principle” attempts to secure “basic needs” which can be understood as a fundamental right to work and for that matter basic “economic rights.”  To this, Rawls defers to democratic legislation; Peffer argues to the contrary in that economic rights are human rights not subject to the perceived fairness of a legislative agenda.  In this regard,Peffer’s Radical Rawlsian model provides a foundation for the implementation of FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights as a Second Bill of Rights.

In his Theory of Justice, Rawls argues that justice is the first priority or virtue of social institutions in that justice itself – and specifically social justice – is a moral anchor for society.  In Rawls’s “original position” knowledge and understanding of oneself and who they are in relation to others, is concealed by a metaphorical “veil of ignorance.” Presumably, since none would prefer to be disadvantaged, Rawls argues that people would come to agree on equality insofar as all would agree to “primary social goods” – specifically, opportunity, liberty, income, wealth, and the precepts for self-respect – to form part of a social justice foundation. The only exception that Rawls permits to the equality he elaborates is his “difference principle” where the priority for the redistribution of societal recourse is allocated first to the most in need in society.

For social philosophers such as Rodney Peffer, under liberal and Rawlsian notions of justice, there is no bottom line guarantee of justice since this can be negotiated in the interest of fairness.  Specifically, minorities, women, the working class and the poor, could see their status decline, rather than improve with respect to the “difference principle” rearranging of social justice priorities on behalf of the marginalized.  For Peffer, the “original position” and “vail of ignorance” modifiers mean nothing definitively in terms of policy without a “basic rights principle” as the framework for a Second Bill of Rights.  Here, under the Radical Rawlsian model, a minimum standard of living is recognized as a fundamental component of human existence.

Final Note

The original Bill of Rights guarantees freedom from government interference in a citizen’s life.  The second Bill of Rights (Economic Bill of Rights) asserts a freedom for a minimum basic level of existence.  The next set of rights to be considered is a third Bill of Rights, or an Environmental Bill of Rights that guarantees the right to environmental health and freedom from environmental pollution.  This right must necessarily include policies that embrace environmental restoration and the promotion of a green planet since public environmental health is inherent to both a political and economic bill of rights.

Environmental Bill of Rights

An Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR), such as the one passed by the legislature of Ontario, Canada in 1993, provides the people of Ontario rights to participate in environmental decision-making. The EBR is upheld by the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, which could be translated into the domain of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in terms of the United States.  Two major pillars of this ERB are founded upon energy conservation and climate change.

The EBR in Ontario, Canada, gives citizens the right, under specific circumstances to:

1. notification and comment on environmentally significant government proposals using the Environmental Registry.
2. request a ministry to review a law or to investigate harm to the environment

to appeal a ministry decision.

3. sue for harm to a public resource.
4. sue for public nuisance causing environmental harm.
5. be protected from employer reprisals for using the above rights.

The EBR also lays out responsibilities for those ministries that are prescribed to develop and publish a Statement of Environmental Values (SEV) that guides the ministry when it makes decisions that might affect the environment.  The ministry must consider the SEV when it makes an environmentally significant decision and this must consider the SEV when deciding to conduct a Review or Investigation (RI) under the EBR.  The minister must post notices on the Environmental Registry for environmentally significant Acts, regulations and policies, and to consider these comments when making their decisions.  The minister must report annually on the ministries’ compliance with the EBR.

Edward J Martin, California State University, Long Beach

Introduction
The US Chamber of Commerce warns against the consequences of new tariffs on Chinese imports proposed by the administration of President Donald Trump.

The top business lobbying group said the tariffs dramatically expand the harm to American consumers, workers, businesses, and the US economy. It said the Trump administration lacks a coherent strategy to address QUOTE China’s theft of intellectual property and other harmful trade practices. The chamber also demanded that Washington hold serious discussions with Beijing. Trump has threatened 25 percent tariffs on 200 billion dollars of Chinese imports. He says this is in response to China’s retaliatory tariffs on 50 billion dollars-worth of US products.

PressTV:
What is your take on this:

PK
The key word is “threatened” – Trump has threatened an additional 25% import tariffs on 200 billion worth of Chinese imports – to retaliate for China’s retaliation, so to speak. Chinese retaliation was to be expected and is fully justified. It is clear, that China will not reverse their import tariffs for US goods. Why would they?

China is poised to negotiate one a one-to-one even level, but not on the basis of the US dictating the rules. Trump and his “masters” must realize that.

Then the additional reason of “China’s theft of intellectual property…” is today more a joke than reality. In many areas of technology development – especially certain precision electronics and foremost alternative energy – China is world’s ahead of the United States. But nobody talks about it. China will soon be number one in alternative energy production – which China will be exporting to the world, to the detriment of the US-led petrol industry.

Maybe that’s what Trump is focusing on – attempting to detract from what is really threatening a big junk of the US economy, the notorious dependence on hydrocarbon energy – the number one polluter an environmental destructor today.

And there is another factor, perhaps the number ONE target of Trump’s ever-increasing tariffs for Chinese exports, or rather US imports of Chinese goods:

That’s the Chinese currency, the Yuan.

It is known since long to many treasuries of countries around the world, that the Chinese Yuan is a much safer investment or reserve currency than the US dollar which is based on hot air, or not even, while the Yuan is based on a solid Chinese economy and on gold.

Not only has the Yuan been admitted officially in the IMF’s basket of SDRs – Special Drawing Rights, which consists of the five key reserve currencies – US Dollar, UK pound, Japanese Yen, Euro – and now also the Chinese Yuan.

The yuan is not only for most countries around the globe a very interesting investment currency, not a bullying currency as is the US dollar, always with severe strings attached, but the yuan is also growing rapidly as a reserve currency replacing the dollar.

Levying tariffs to hurt China’s exports and economy – and the Yuan’s strength, may be the key reason behind this deconstructive tariff game Trump is playing.

However, China has a strong market dominance in Asia and tariffs will do limited harm, besides, China has many other means to further retaliate, for example, devaluating the Yuan vis-à-vis the US dollar.

So, keep tuned. There will probably be more to come.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organizationaround the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

That an economic world war has already started is beyond dispute. Whether it is Washington or Trump who has lost it is immaterial but between the sanctions imposed on several countries and prohibitive tariffs inflicted on friends and foes alike most are warning against a catastrophe, not just for those directly involved, but the world generally.

Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal is, arguably, at the heart of the recent trade spats between the US and the five co-signatories. Although it must be said that US sanctions were not unique to Iran. Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea and Russia and many others were and are victims of American sanctions declared on a capitalist whim. Iran itself was victimised on no other pretext than its Islamic Revolution.

As has become customary America has no compunction about lying. Russia was sanctioned on trumped up charges of invading East Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, meddling in the 2016 American presidential elections and, the most recent charge of “highly likely” having poisoned a former, inconsequential Russian double agent, who is an MI6 asset. But, thus far the Russian economy has not succumbed. Instead, on 1 March 2018 President Putin announced what was to upset US military superiority irretrievably, at least for several decades to come: Russia has developed weapons against which there is no defence.

Abandoning the JCPOA on the pretext that Washington wants the treaty renegotiated opened the way to a new barrage of sanctions against Iran with Trump declaring that state parties and commercial entities found breaking them will be penalised. The other five signatories/guarantors to the JCPOA protested. Russia already a victim of US sanctions openly declared that she will continue normal relations with Iran.

China, with tariffs already imposed on her for some nefarious allegations among them currency manipulation, which to all intents and purposes has escalated into a trade war, saw fit to find ways around the sanctions against Iran. In anticipation of the November threat on import of Iranian oil China has increased its monthly volume substantially setting a ceiling well above the present, in readiness. India, another major Iran oil importer, has followed suit.

But China is the world’s second largest economy and the Renminbi is now part of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket of currencies. Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” program of turning China into an advanced manufacturing powerhouse is, too, no reason for the US to cheer. A further manifestation of China’s growing economic muscle is the launch of the Petroyuan last March. There is, therefore, no disputing that China is signalling its challenge to US economic dominance. To make matters worse China is no military walkover, not even for the USA.

For their part the European signatories, namely, Britain, France and Germany were disgruntled. The JCPOA debacle resulted in the reactivation of the ‘blocking statute’ to protect European companies doing business in Iran. But Washington had by then assaulted Europe with the 25% steel and aluminium tariffs slapped on Mexico, Canada, China, Russia et al.. Brussels retaliated with a US$3.3 billion in tariffs against US products. However, fearing an escalation Europe pledged to increase imports of American soy bean and LNG.

America’s NATO allies are, therefore, not off-limits. Given the strain in relations with Turkey in recent years it is not surprising that tariffs would hit Ankara too. On the pretext that Turkey is holding an American citizen under house arrest for spying, the Turkish lira is now in a tailspin. Qatar, a Turkish ally, has pledged financial support. In fact, there is an obvious overall realignment going on where Turkey is visibly going the Eurasian way.

Meanwhile, when sanctioned by the Obama administration Russia looked East towards China as an ally, now declared a strategic alliance. Trump then is forced, at least for now, to write off a hot war as an option to bring everyone to heel. Defeat in Syria is no help.

Fortunately for Trump, whose 2020 re-election depends on the success of his first term, today’s war is hybrid, asymmetrical and can be executed on several platforms simultaneously. An economic assault by the world’s number 1 economy under the circumstance must seem to him feasible. Fortunately for the world, America’s economy is groaning under the burden of massive debts caused by her perpetual war policy, one intended to keep the military industrial complex ticking over nicely.

Thus far the annual US$1 trillion defence budget is financed by printing dollars, the world’s number one reserve currency facilitating international trade. The Petrodollar takes care of the oil trade the world over because OPEC under Saudi influence will not have it any other way. Why? Because it buys them US protection.

But to overcome unreasonable American sanctions and exorbitant tariff increases that go against WTO regulations, countries are beginning to trade in their own currencies and the Euro. The oil and gas trade has found an alternative in the Petroyuan, which has shown strong growth indicating that it has the ability to challenge the Petrodollar. Its success will destroy the US dollar’s dominant position.

Trump himself appears unable to push his campaign pledges through. On the foreign front, under him Russophobia has gotten worse. At home “Making America Great Again” is driving him ever fiercer towards protectionism and trade wars. As a result the US is now regarded as unpredictable, unreliable and maybe even dangerous. So why is Trump pushing hard on sanctions and tariffs?

Despite his Helsinki meeting with Putin Trump has imposed even harsher sanctions on Moscow based on unproven allegations made by London reminiscent of the false narrative leading to the Iraqi invasion.

On China Trump threatens further tariffs as high as US$500 billion. Can China withstand such an onslaught? Beijing, however, holds over a trillion US dollars in American debt instruments. When push comes to shove will this be weaponised?

A combination of factors have, therefore, come together to drive the trade wars: the American mid-term elections; military defeat in Syria; and, de-dollarisation. And, Trumphas adopted Bush’s uncompromising position of either the world is with the US, or against the US. As it stands the world is looking a lot like it is “against” the US  except for such fading powers as Britain and Japan, and Australia, never a power centre.

An off-ramp is, then, sorely needed especially when the trade wars haveadded momentum to de-dollarisation which, when accomplished, loosens the stranglehold of the dollar over the global economy. When the trade wars have backfired on Washington can Trump be persuaded to step back from the brink and gracefully accept the end of US hegemony?

But what if the US will not relinquish its imperial ambitions? What if the US is not looking for an off-ramp? If so, why wouldn’t she? Could it be that her imperial agenda is long term and not easily surrendered?

It is fair to argue that with regard Iran and Turkey — and Syria, too –all three being staunch supporters of Palestine, America is looking for trouble in an effort to execute the Zionist “Greater Israel” project, which objective is to make Israel the regional imperial power, which in turn is the proxy for the West, namely, the United States. Greater Israel would roughly stretch from the Nile in the West to the Euphrates in the East into Iraq, north through Lebanon to southern Turkey and in the south it cuts the Arabian peninsula into two, all areas very rich in oil and gas.

Nevertheless, this does not completely explain Trump’s global rampage. But if the Greater Israel project is a part of a Zionist US imperial plan — in less emotive terms the neo-conservative global New World Order — then a plausible answer is possible. The trade war is Washigton’s strategy of choice as a first phase to bring the world to its knees.

But why should Moscow and Beijing surrender to Washington’s imperial will when they hold the trump card, the former militarily and the latter financially? President Putin has said, “Why would we want a world without Russia?” And, would not President Xi be thinking the same?

Askiah Adam, JUST Executive Director

3rd World must demand justice for her kids!  Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s, cry “God bless America? No, no, God damn America for her crimes against humanity!” And American film maker Michael Moore’s “sick and twisted violent people that we’ve been for hundreds of years, it’s something that’s just in our craw, just in our DNA. Americans kill people, because that’s what we do. We invade countries. We send drones in to kill civilians.”

The elite of Wall Street’s speculative investment banking must see profit and power for capital accumulation in reestablishing its former control over Yemen, perhaps the poorest nation in the world. Yemen is a nation with a strong cultural heritage and proud Islamic integrity. Perhaps if it was less so, many thousands of lives of children of Yemen would not have been taken and continue to be taken by USA through the bombing of its lackey Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The resiliency of the Yemeni under attack is fierce.

The USA has been fueling, arming and target selecting for the Saudi airstrikes for three years. In November 2017, Save the Children reported that 130 children were dying every day, with 50,000 children already believed to have died in 2017. The U.N. officials said more than 20 million people, including 11 million children, are in need of urgent assistance, with 7 million totally dependent on food assistance. The U.N. has called it the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world.” 

(- As yours truly reports this story of yet another bloody US ‘foreign policy,’ a 2008 TV video clip of Rev. Jeremiah Wright auto interjects here, “God bless America? No, no, God damn America for her crimes against humanity!”) – crimes then, and not ‘foreign policy.’

In November of 2017, the United Nations urged the Saudi-led coalition to allow the U.N. humanitarian flights to Aden and Sanaa to resume, and to reopen the blockaded ports of Hodeida and Salif for food and medical deliveries. UN officials said,

“Even with a partial lifting of the blockade, the World Food Program estimates that an additional 3.2 million people will be pushed into hunger. If left untreated, 150,000 malnourished children could die within the coming months,”

Cholera came with the US backed Saudi bombing. Cholera is a bacterial infection, it causes severe diarrhea which leads to dehydration and often death. Cholera is a virulent infection; it can kill within hours of onset. Saudi aerial bombardment of the national electrical grid in April 2015 left the Sana’a wastewater plant without power. Untreated wastewater began to leak out into irrigation canals and drinking water supplies. By the end of 2017, one million cases of cholera had been reported.

The above ghastly report is of ten months ago. By now, the situation is beyond imagination.

A recent air strike that targeted a school bus and killed forty children finally brought some solemn criminal mainstream media coverage, but no one familiar with US history would expect mercy or justice from Americans, because murdering children by the millions for money and power is a recognized  American way of life. 

a “sick and twisted violent people” 

Last February, in a video made just a few hours after the news of the Newtown school massacre broke, film maker Michael Moore, in a video, addressed Americans as the sort of “sick and twisted violent people that we’ve been for hundreds of years, that it’s something that’s just in our craw, just in our DNA…. Americans kill people,” because that’s what we do. We invade countries. We send drones in to kill civilians. We’ve got five wars going on right now where our soldiers are killing people–I mean, five that we know of”

Bomb in Yemen school bus strike was US-supplied – CNN – CNN.com

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/middleeast/us-saudi-yemen-bus-strike…/index.html

6 days ago – The bomb used in a devastating attack on a school bus in Yemen was … (227 kilogram) laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, (#3 Butterfield Boulevard, El Paso, Texas) “The schoolboys on a field trip in Yemen were chatting and laughing. Then came the airstrike”

“Working with local Yemeni journalists and munitions experts, CNN has established that the weapon that left dozens of children dead on August 9 was a 500-pound laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of the top US defense contractors.

The bomb is very similar to the one that wreaked devastation in an attack on a funeral hall in Yemen in October 2016 in which 155 people were killed and hundreds more wounded. In March of that year, a strike on a Yemeni market — this time reportedly by a US-supplied precision-guided MK 84 bomb — killed 97 people.”

Destiny Had Yemeni Kids’ Names On the Bomb Made in Texas

To bad the Texans working for Lockheed Martin could not have known where this bomb was destined to explode. If they had known, they might have been able to personalize the bomb by writing on the side of the bomb, next to where the manufacturer’s brand name, Lockheed Martin, is stamped, the names of the kids that would be vaporized or blown to pieces, e.g. ‘to Ali and Mohammad and Mehmet and Aabidah (means ‘worshipper’ in Arabic) and Azhar (flower) and Dannia (beautiful)’ and the names of the other thirty-four darling little Yemeni children.

The Texans Had to Know Their Bombs Would Kill

The Texans who manufactured the big beautiful shiny 500 pound guided laser bomb must have only known that the bomb they were fashioning was most probably going to kill some people somewhere. It did not concern the Texans making the bomb who dies and where. The Texans leave who dies where and when up to someone else to decide. This seems to corroborate what Michael Moore says about killing having been in the craw or DNA of Americans for a couple hundred years.

In this case the bomb was made to sell along with tons of other WMD to Saudi Arabia in a ten billion dollar sale, which President Trump spoke very proudly of as giving employment to so many Americans. This writer asked himself, ‘How many people do I know around the world, in Asia, Africa and Latin America, who would be willing to be employed making weapons of mass destruction that would probably kill children?’ The reader, wherever he or she might be, might ask him or herself the same question. My answer was, “Nobody I know anywhere.” 

This bomb was made in Texas by Texans who, might well be feeling some shock about it, but as Michael Moore in his film Bowling At Columbine showed graphically, all America is involved in the WMD killing industry. Though it is no secret that these weapons are taking millions of lives, even millions of children lives, a vast and critical amount of Americans remain pleased with US military action around the globe, always preposterously described as ‘protecting American freedoms.’

In the coming multi-polar world the absurdities, illogic and insanity that justifies US NATO UN genocide will no longer be successfully propagated. These outrageous fabrications just wont wash when exposed to the light of day by new major sources of information emanating from Asia, Africa and Latin America that will appear as economic power shifts Eastward and Southward led by China, whose population is greater than that of Europe and the US combined.

In the meantime, people of majority humanity in Africa, Asia and Latin America should be aware of their continuing to be incessantly targeted for economic control, political subjugation, financial plunder and when necessary, genocidal military action for regime change by the colonial-neocolonial capitalist imperialism of First World nations of Caucasian population.

Yesterday, at least 31 civilians, mostly children were killed in yet another Saudi-led airstrike in Yemen’s Hudaydah

Also yesterday, a warning: A country on the brink: millions starve in war-torn Yemen

USA! USA! The American Way!

The killing of millions of children  must all be urgently talked about everywhere. When it becomes a topic of conversation inside and outside the home all over the world, something will be done, not before.  First put a stop to it. Afterward justice.

Postscript

An archival research peoples historian activist would like to end his  call for the world to speak out, with a review of American genocidal crimes against humanity’s children, but first a odd question.

How Many Americans Does It Take to Slaughter a Third World Child? by Jay Janson  Dissident Voice, April 9th, 2010

How much effort, by how many Americans, has gone into producing each child’s violent death during undeclared wars in Third World nations? Some innocent child made poor and disadvantaged for its country’s history of brutal colonial occupation and plunder by industrial powers that continue to exploit through neocolonialist financial oppression, killed by foreign invaders of American nationality.

The question might equally be asked regarding each dead Korean child or each Laotian, Vietnamese, Cambodian child, of each child who was killed in its own various Latin American or African country, and since 9/11, each Pakistani, Afghani, Iraqi, Somali, Libyan, South Sudanese, and Yemeni, child, all so precious and lovely while they were alive during the time allotted to them by destiny and the military necessities of Americans.

Below are seven multiple answers to the question — how many Americans does it take to collaterally slaughter¹ a child during an undeclared American war on some of each child’s countrymen?

1. Takes only one American finger to press a button on an American weapon of mass destruction to end a child’s life. 
2. It takes two Americans — one on the ground to call in the coordinates for a strike, the other in the air, or half a world away sitting in a facility somewhere in the U.S. Mid-Wests, to fix the cross hairs on the area where the child is. 

3. It takes hundreds of collaborating American servicemen and officers involved in a military presence or maneuver at some particular place and time that sets the stage for the calling in of a missile strike. 

4. It takes hundreds of thousands of Americans at home engaged in the manufacture, transport and maintenance of weapons, some realizing their part in making the killing of children possible, but others shutting this out of mind, grateful for the money earned.

5. It takes a minimum of tens of millions of Americans openly supporting the killing in which each child’s slaughter is a part,

6. It take generations of Americans frightened into silently accepting the dispatching of each child by command of mentally disadvantaged political leaders and the all-wars-promoting conglomerates of the information media cartel under the ownership of, and controlled by, the criminally insane power elite of the Financial-Military-Industrial-Complex. 

7. It has taken, and continues to take, a rather limited number of Americans in the entertainment and information industry working hard over half a century as network anchors, commentators, station managers, talk-show hosts, editors and reporters to bring about the activity of Americans described in each of the foregoing six answers to the query — how many Americans does it take to collaterally slaughter a child in a third world country? 

Syria! Through America’s elite speculative investors’ CIA control, not only over the US government, but through critical power and influence, so many other nations’ governments, over the last eight years tens of thousands of terrorist recruits of the Saudi Arabia based Wahhabi sect Islamic State have entered Syria through Turkey and Jordan, continually armed to the teeth and provided with brand new Toyota trucks indirectly or directly by the US. At the same time CIA fed criminal Western media successfully sees to its viewers listeners and readers preposterously believing that the US military was fighting this terrorist army (while seeing to it being armed with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to better fight the Syria Army). A quarter of a million Syrian children have lost their lives in this US created ‘civil war.’ No mercy possible from racist capitalist colonial neocolonial capitalist USA imperialism.

The same Islamic State and sundry other terrorist armies were created to conquer Shiites in Iraq and elsewhere because powerful Shiite Iran, with all its oil and independence, is a designated enemy of Israel and must be destroyed as Iraq and Libya were. Seven years ago your author had published Syria: CIA, M16, French, Mossad, Saudi Involvement Unreported In Imperialist Media Countercurrents, 6/27/2011

And in 2018, questioned, Where Was the 3rd World While Americans Armed & Supplied Terrorists To Destroy Syria? OpEdNews, 5/6/2018 The title question is directed to people in nations that have been invaded and bombed by Americans or Europeans in uniform. Article points to an inevitable thunderous awakening of voices from this overwhelming majority of Humanity.

Libya! Where was any Third World outcry and solidarity when the colonial powers bombed Africa like never before, openly destroying Africa’s most prosperous nation after a Western media scam about a fictitious popular uprising?

Of course, sadly, Gaddafi in his old age seems to have let his guard down, interacting with his revolution’s powerful enemies, apparently half-trusting them as he tried to keep Libya’s huge oil income intact for his huge altruistic projects, allowing the internationally powerful criminal media of the West to pin a senseless bombing of a passenger plane filled with women and children on Africa’s revolutionary hero. One day history books will tell the truth about the destruction of beautiful Arab socialist Libya and the retribution that followed many years afterward.

Published this year: No Uprising Gaddafi Loved by Libyans Confessed Italian PM Berlusconi As Italian NATO Planes Bombed OpEdNews, 2/14/2018

Published in 2011,: There Was No Libyan Peaceful Protest, Just Murderous Gangs and CNN Nic Robertson countercurrents.org Kerala, India 6/16/2011 https://countercurrents.org/janson160611.htm

An in depth study and day by day chronicle of events unreported from the beginning :
Capitalism’s Warplanes: CIA & al Qaeda Destroy Socialist Libya’s 53rd Highest Living Standard OpEdNews, 4/21/2011

Iraq! more than million children’s lives taken as their beloved country was utterly destroyed, but even before the 2003 US led deadly invasion:
As many as 576,000 Iraqi children may have died since the end of the Persian Gulf war because of economic sanctions imposed by the Security Council, according to two scientists who surveyed the country for the Food and Agriculture Organization.

60 Minutes CBS (5/12/1996): Interviewer Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.

Madeleine Albright, a former Head of the New York Stock Exchange,
must think that she knows the value of half a million dead Iraqi children.

Afghanistan! An in depth study and day by day chronicle of events unreported from the beginning of and earlier CIA-fed Western media coverup:  Carter Had CIA Armed Fundamentalist Terrorists War Against Afghan Women’s Liberation & Education OpEdNews, 12/22/2010. A CIA covert cruel attack on the people of Afghanistan as a pawn in the Cold War gave birth to US backed civil war, 8 yrs of Soviet military intervention, 11 yrs of terrorist war lord devastation; 5 yrs of Taliban restoration of peace, 10 yrs of US invasion/occupation war. Who can stop the gunning down of Taliban as if they, and not David Rockefeller’s wealthy America, had 9/11 guilt for creating al-Qaida? Jimmy Carter could! 

Somalia! The nearly twenty years of US NATO UN war against what was a popular conservative Islamic Courts government that has surly taken more than a million children’s lives from military action and starvation are chronicled in Merciless US NATO UN Genocide in Somalia Brought Nairobi Shopping Mall Blowback! Opednews, 10/14/2013

South Sudan! Since 2014 the CIA is assumed to be funding a rebellion that has taken tens of thousands of lives of children. See: April 5, 2017, Thomas Mountain, CounterPunch, South Sudan “Rebels” and the CIA: Show Me the Money! 

The reader will surly remember the greatest Holocaust in proportion amount taking of children’s lives in Korea, Congo, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Central America and then the Middle East, all excused and forgotten in CIA-fed Western media.

The US began this horrendous journey in Korea. At least a million beloved Korean babies and children were killed when Koreans put their country back together again after the United States had cut it in half and installed a murderous dictator, whose secret police and special forces massacred 100,000 Korean communists, socialists unionists, members of the Korean government the US Army overthrew and anyone who fought against the division of Korea. Before the northern Korean government’s military forces easily liberated the south in one month with little opposition and some good deal of welcoming. In response, to the North Korean invasion (of what had been the southern part of their own country), ” bombed and napalmed cities, towns and villages across the North. The bombing was long, leisurely and merciless, even by the assessment of America’s own leaders. “Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — 20 percent of the population,” said Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, bombed everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another.” After running low on urban targets, U.S. bombers destroyed hydroelectric and irrigation dams in the later stages of the war, flooding farmland and destroying crops. Although the ferocity of the bombing was criticized as racist and unjustified elsewhere in the world, it was never a big story back home.

All the US invasions and bombings to bring about regime change since 1945, when the UN adopted the Nuremberg Principles of International Law into the UN Charter, were illegal, and some day, after the UN is reorganized under democratic principles, the USA and its partners will face mega massive lawsuits over the taking of many millions of children’s lives, the maiming of other millions and destroying the childhood of even more millions orphaned.

Humanity must not to look for mercy or justice from within the USA or Europe. It is money that has long come to take up all space in the hearts of those espousing Western civilization. And here below is an example of Western ‘democratic’ values currently still ongoing:

$2,000 for a Dead Afghan Child $100,000 for Any American Who Died Killing it www.uruknet.info/?p=55594 6/30/2009 Uruknet

After the airstrike which the Afghan government claimed killed well over a hundred ordinary country folk, came the report that the families of those killed, and subsequent Afghani dead falling in harms way of the US military, can apply to receive up to $2,000 compensation. This is the price the great United States of American puts on an Afghan or Pakistan human being, while awarding $100,000 to families of Americans who die while fighting and killing wherever.

Letting Americans Get Away With Murder! Mass Murder Of Children!

Yours truly, with both Korean and Vietnamese family, has written this lengthly tract about crimes Americans keep committing against other peoples children by the millions, with the intention of provoking in the world at large some intense discussion sooner than otherwise.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s furious outcry during a Sunday sermon in Church to an African America congregation, “God bless America? No, no, God damn America for her crimes against humanity!” was seen and heard overseas by a lot of people, yet no echo of that anguished cry was heard from anywhere, not even from fellow clergy to this writer’s knowledge, which is nothing remarkable since Rev. Martin Luther King’s own African American Baptist Church would not back King’s condemning the American genocide in Vietnam and elsewhere, nor back King’s calling his government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”

This video sound bite minute of Rev. Wright damning America was telecasted throughout many days as a joke. The TV anchors and commentators were seen to smile or chuckle afterward. Rev. Wright’s passionate angry shout, his finger pointed up in the air was sound bit over and over again obviously as a ridiculous and terrible thing to say about the exceptionally wonderful American nation, and was meant to affect negatively the presidential campaign of a candidate, who quickly disassociated himself from Rev. Wright, who had been his family’s pastor. Did the charisma TV news commentators enjoy, intimidate viewers all around the world, who might have otherwise strongly felt in agreement with damning America for crimes against humanity?

Does not the entire population of the world accept Western domination to the point of allowing the mass murder of children by Americans and American led coalitions without calling for implementation of international law? Why does no one speak up? All delegates to the UN General Assembly Debate of 2015, heralded the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations, but no delegate even mentioned that 2015 was the same 60th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Principles of International Law being adopted into the UN Charter.

Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark states that by Article Six of the US Constitution, The Nuremberg Principles of International Law are part of the law of the land, yet even nations under various forms of attack from the United States government never quote the Nuremberg Principles or the Convention on Genocide.

At UN Syria Failed to Call for Nuremberg Justice re US Funded Terrorist Invasions OpEdNews, 10/18/2015 Years from now when the East resumes world leadership after five centuries of savage European racist domination and the UN is free of colonial powers control, people will look back in astonishment to UN debates in which nations bombed and invaded by the US and NATO were unable call for justice under the Nuremberg Principles of international law. Syria allowing the US to get away with genocide in 2015 is one example.

In UN of Appearances Latin Americans Don’t Call for Nuremberg Prosecution – In 2009 Gaddafi Did OpEdNews, 10/9/2015  Though Argentina Bolivia Cuba Ecuador Venezuela and Nicaragua condemned US wars and murderous exploitation during this year’s UN Gen. Debate, they as other delegates, lamented the current deplorable condition of today’s world of death and destruction, of poverty and starvation calling for everyone to work to rectify the situation. No delegate even once called for justice through prosecution. Gadaffi did! His UN speech quoted.

At UN General Debate Iran Fails to Call for Nuremberg Justice OpEdNews, 10/4/2015 Article is in regard to the address of President Hassan Rouhani of Iran before the UN General Assembly during its 2015 General Debate, the general atmosphere of appeasement during the debate, and an unwillingness, even by delegates of nations bombed and invaded by US or NATO, to uphold the UN Charter that contains the Nuremberg Principles of international law. Part of a series of articles on the UN General Debate.

It seems obvious that even the governments of nations not within the CIA net of control or major influence are wont to antagonize the US, Britain and France for their solidarity in power for deadly violence and sanctions. For this diplomatic kow-towing to the still powerful USA yours truly looks to the ordinary wonderful human beings of majority humanity to spontaneously initiate talk of justice for those who suffered or are suffering deadly plundering and the taking of their children’s lives. In this age of technology racing forward in ever faster personal cell phone world-wide communication and finger-tip computer access to all information in print it must be just a matter of time before justice becomes a demand everywhere in the beleaguered so called Third World.

Where there is injustice over a long period of time, before there is a correction and justice served, people will have first begun to talk about the injustice, complain about it and desire justice, and when it becomes a topic of conversation at home within the family, among friends, in the cafes, in the market place, in the street, in the work place, in places of worship, in schools and institutions of higher learning throughout the world, a demand for justice will arise and a way will be found.

“Silence is Treason!” cried Rev. Martin Luther King after describing the death and degradation of the children of Vietnam by Americans in his New York City sermon ‘Beyond Vietnam a Time to Break Silence,’ given one year before King was shot in the head, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/
mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

“So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns … thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals…children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food… children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.” 

But Americans remained treasonously silent, tens of millions even supporting the killing in Vietnam and the bombings and invasions of other small countries that followed.

Some of us work to somehow make this killing millions of children come to be topic of conversation in the Third World, even just a few minutes earlier than otherwise, for the children’s lives that will be saved.

Why wait for the eventual arrival of the non-confrontational, kind and loving sanity of Chinese civilization and socialism to end our children’s suffering violent death and maiming for Western capital accumulation?

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and in the US by Dissident Voice, Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Minority Perspective, UK and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign, and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign, which Dissident Voice supports with link at the end of each issue of its newsletter.

The phenomenon of a random pattern of winds coalescing into a hurricane may not be caused by global warming, but warmer ocean temperatures powering it up is entirely possible.  Hawaii is experiencing one of the two worst hurricanes in its history, and last week Kerala in India, was flooded almost in its entirety by a record-breaking monsoon season leaving a million people homeless.

Not only is CO2 rising to levels not seen heretofore in several million years, but the human fingerprint is indelible and irrefutable.  The consistent delta 13C negation proves it through the absence of this carbon isotope in the fossil fuels used.  Magnifying the problem are the newly-observed increasing amplitudes of the tropospheric temperature cycle; here the researchers refer to the trigger of ‘external forcings’ implying a human hand.

Like Rip Van Winkle, Donald Trump is fast asleep, seemingly unaware of the window for action on climate change closing, while he recommends increased coal consumption — a preposterous throwback supported by Republicans in Congress.  What will it take to stir him from his sleep of childish vain glory?–  water balloons thrown at Mar-a-Lago by a 100,000 demonstrators strikes a suitably puerile note …

Our global temperatures are up 1.2 degrees Celsius changing weather patterns.  The dry spells are longer and worsened by high temperature records in numerous places including Portugal and Greece.  And the world seems to be burning up:  Wildfires in Greece, Australia, Central Africa, eastern China, Brazil and in the U.S.  According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, 71,449 wildfires occurred here in 2017 burning 10 million acres.

Each year over 300,000 people die as a consequence of wildfires, over half that number in Sub-Saharan Africa, the less-developed countries suffering disasters the worst.  Now that Trump has cut the budget for Regional Climate Centers, which generate the weather early warning information helping to control and prevent wildfires, the U.S. might be adding more to this macabre body count.

Extended dry spells are followed by rain, pouring down in the copious quantities carried by warmer air, and in weather-events once uncommon but now more frequent.  The refrain, ‘We have never experienced this before’ is repeated often — in Japan last month, in Kerala last week, and in Hawaii now …  Hawaii, which also had 50 inches of rain earlier this year.  Weather events supposed to occur once in a hundred years are destined to become more frequent.

Monsoon floods as in Kerala are an annual event on the Indian subcontinent but not in their present devastating form.  In 2010, the Indus in Pakistan flooded in biblical proportions:  20 million people were displaced, 2000 died, and one-fifth of Pakistan’s land area was affected.  The long-term problem, however, is scarcity as warming affects its source, the ice-melt in the Himalayas.

Climate change will force cooperating and understanding between countries or will lead to devastating wars.  Both India and Pakistan use the Indus and its tributaries.  The Mekong river is shared by six countries, and upstream China has built dams causing problems downstream.  The Nile was monopolized by Egypt but now  Ethiopia is building a dam upstream.

The world has to find a way to deal purposefully with climate change and in the peaceful sharing of resources.  Consequences otherwise are too unsettling to contemplate.

Dr Arshad M Khan (http://ofthisandthat.org/index.html) is a former Professor based in the U.S. whose comments over several decades have appeared in a wide-ranging array of print and internet media.  His work has been quoted in the U.S. Congress and published in the Congressional Record.

The new data on GDP have raised a political storm, with the back series for GDP growth since 1993-94 becoming available. Its importance lies in the fact that in 2015, a new series was announced which showed India’s GDP growing faster than the earlier series had shown. This was politically advantageous to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government which came to power in 2014.

The NDA claimed that the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA II) government had messed up the economy and it had turned it around. But, in the new series, the rate of growth during the last two years of UPA II was also higher than what the old series showed so that the economic performance under the UPA also did not look so bad. What the new series also showed was that the NDA had inherited an economy with GDP growing at 8.4% in the second quarter of 2014. Most macroeconomic variables had also recovered from their lows in 2013.

Data show that after the NDA took over, the rate of growth fell and then rose to a peak of 8.65% in 2015-16 Q4. After that it fell for five consecutive quarters — to 5.57% by 2017-18 Q1. The two shocks to the economy (demonetisation and then the GST) had a big negative impact on the rate of growth. This is not even captured in the new data since a shock requires a change in methodology for calculation of GDP. The political slugfest between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress is due to data showing that the average growth rate under the UPA I and II was higher than what has been achieved during the present NDA regime.

There are three distinct aspects to the controversy. First, why was the back series —now the bone of contention — needed? Second, what do the data show? And, third, why was the rate of growth during the UPA regimes higher?

An economy produces a large number of goods and services and new ones are added all the time. The production of all these items has to be estimated in order to calculate the rate of growth of the economy. This requires lots of data, which is a tall order. So, a select set of items is taken to represent the entire production. The question which arises is: How accurate are the data?

Technology poses another challenge. Older items become redundant and newer ones need to be included.

So, as time passes, the earlier series of data does not represent the true growth rate of the economy and needs to be modified. That is why the old series is replaced by a new one periodically. The earlier series (from 2004-05) was replaced by a new series (from 2011-12). Another question arises: How do the data from the new series compare with those of the old series? Is it that growth was also higher earlier? Analysts have demanded a back series whenever a new series is prepared. There were problems with the new series which is why the back series was not generated automatically. This is also why the new committee (which has presented its report) was set up.

The difficulty with the new series (2011-12) was because it not only changed the bundle of items used to calculate growth but also used a more extensive data base (of companies) called MCA21. This data base was available from 2006-07. However, it kept changing every year and did not stabilise till 2010-11 — so it was not comparable across years and could not be used to generate the back series. This is also why the task of the committee was a difficult one and it could not mechanically generate the back series.

The committee had to use a new method which has its own assumptions, which are likely to be debated by experts. A bias in the results seems to be that the growth rate in the new time series for the earlier part (the 1990s) is lower than in the old series whereas it is higher for the later part (the 2000s). It is also unable to take the black economy and the changes in the unorganised sectors into account. The report has been submitted to the National Statistical Commission which will finalise it. Therefore, government functionaries are arguing that the data cited by the media are not final.

It is interesting that the criticism is more about the causes of the higher rate of growth under the UPA than the methodology of the study. The implicit admission is that the economy did grow faster under the UPA but due to wrong policies (allowing the fiscal deficit to rise, undue expansion of bank loans, etc). The argument is that these have led to non-performing assets (the twin balance sheet problem), higher inflation and current account deficit.

But the higher growth was on the back of a 38% rate of investment and a 36% rate of savings achieved by 2007-08. These are now down to 32% and 30%, respectively. The 2007-08 crisis was a global one but the Indian economy continued to grow when many other economies were slowing down due to increase in fiscal deficit from its record low in 2007. The crisis of 2012-13 was due to the rise in petroleum prices and largely due to international factors.

However, the current slowdown is largely policy induced and less due to international factors. The twin shocks (demonetisation and the GST) have played havoc with the unorganised sector (not yet captured in the data). Household savings have declined sharply and the investment climate remains poor with large numbers of dollar millionaires leaving the country. The government might consider leaving the data debate to experts and not making it a political one.

Arun Kumar is Malcolm S. Adiseshiah Chair Professor, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi

Behavior acculturated to ancestral norms, originally necessitated by occupation, is the focus of a new study in China with interesting ramifications for climate change.  In general, farming requires more stable relationships than, say, herding with the constant movement of animals.  Now the authors have taken farming a step further:

They observed that northerners were three times more likely than southerners to push an obstructing chair in a Starbucks out of the way; southerners eased themselves around in order not to inconvenience whosoever had placed the chairs.  The behaviors were true to type as northerners are considered brash and aggressive, while southerners are conflict averse and deferential.

The authors ascribe the behavior to ancestral occupation.  Wheat is farmed in the north, and such dry-land farming is more individualized than rice farming in the south.  The latter requires complex irrigation systems for paddies and forces cooperation and coordination among multiple families.  The interdependence also means it is crucial not to offend anyone.  This ancestral culture prevailed despite the fact that most descendants were no longer farmers.

The question of which people change their environment and who change themselves is an important one at a time when the world has to face the existential challenge of climate change.  In the last couple of years we have seen a cooperative Europe facing a quintessential maverick, as in Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump lives in his own world ignoring the mounting research and irrefragable evidence for climate change with its human fingerprint that can no longer be disputed.  Worse still are the consequences and the inevitable danger of conflict fueled by resource needs.  Thus the melting of Arctic ice has made possible new sea pathways, opening up oil and gas exploration, and pitting Russia, the U.S., Canada and other Arctic countries against each other.

China is now in virtual control of solar panel manufacture through a heavily subsidized industry against which producers in other countries are unable to compete.  The U.S. imposed tariffs in 2017 and India might follow suit.

As electric car use increases, the demand for the rare minerals necessary for their batteries has begun to soar.  Unfortunately the Congo with its incessant tribal wars is by far the largest producer of cobalt.  Nickel has varied sources including Indonesia and the Philippines although the largest reserves are in Australia, Brazil and Russia.  Chile has the highest reserves of Lithium followed by China, while Australia is the top current producer.  The scramble for these resources is underway and producer countries have begun to guard their reserves through tariffs and controls.

Perhaps the most fraught issue is that of sharing water.  For millennia one country has relied on the Nile.  The annual flooding in ancient Egypt brought new alluvial soil yielding rich harvests.  Even now more than 95 percent of the country’s mostly farmer population lives on the river’s banks in an area approximately 5 percent of Egypt’s land mass.  That whole way of life could be in jeopardy depending on how quickly Ethiopia chooses to fill a huge reservoir behind a vast damn it is constructing.

China shares the Mekong with six other countries and is the only one not a member of the Mekong River Commission.  The problem is upstream dams and delicate negotiations for the equitable treatment of downstream farmers and fishermen.

Then there are India and Pakistan, perennial enemies, now nuclear supercharged.  They share the Indus and some of its tributaries.  Thanks to the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, they have never fought a water war although there have been others.  Now India is planning upstream dams.  The situation can only worsen if the sources in the Himalayas diminish with global warming.

How should humans respond to these environmental challenges?  Should diffuse bodies deal with associated problems, and/or should there be a world environment court as a last resort against individualistic mavericks?

The Paris Agreement deals with greenhouse gas emissions and continues to function. It has added new members, despite the US withdrawal, which, by the way, is not effective until November 2020 leaving open the possibility of a newly elected president rescinding it.

The Montreal Protocol, dating back to 1987, protected the depleting ozone layer through the control of substances, chlorine and bromine,  causing the problem.  The culprits hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were to be phased out and replaced by hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).  The latter lacking chlorine are safe in this regard.

Governor Jerry Brown is independently hosting the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco (Sept. 12-14) next month to “put the globe back on track to prevent dangerous climate change and realize the historic Paris Agreement.”

Then there is the New York Declaration on Forests (2014) which pledges to halve the rate of deforestation by 2020 and to end it by 2030.  It resulted from dialogue among governments, corporations and civil society following the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in New York.

Meanwhile, China produces 20 percent of emissions and it will need to address the consequences of its Belt and Road Initiative.  However, an agreement between China and the US, the two largest polluters, could open the intriguing possibility of the US returning to the Paris accord.

Such diffuse bodies dealing with the myriad problems emanating from climate change and the evident cooperation of different actors relegate an out-of-sync Trump into a discordant minority.  While the US remains a hugely important party responsible for 18 percent of global emissions, a hopeful sign is that other politicians in the country are clearly not following President Trump’s lead.

These ad hoc arrangements might work for the present.  But what of the future?  What of environmental degradation leading eventually to mass migrations, even wars for scarce resources?  We have the benefit of Europe’s experience with large numbers of refugees from America’s wars in Libya, the Middle East and Afghanistan; the welcome mat has been gradually rolled back.  How effectively will the UN Security Council counter environmental wars, particularly those involving China or other countries with veto power ?  That all such questions need to be addressed and soon is a no-brainer, and COP 24 (Dec 3-14, 2018) could be an appropriate venue to begin the discourse.

Author’s Note:  Aside from minor changes, this article first appeared on Counterpunch.org.

Dr Arshad M Khan (http://ofthisandthat.org/index.html) is a former Professor based in the U.S. whose comments over several decades have appeared in a wide-ranging array of print and internet media.  His work has been quoted in the U.S. Congress and published in the Congressional Record.

Hothouse Earth is this summer’s Uninhabitable Earth, a chilling reminder of how close we are to possibly fatal climate change. The Steffen et al PNAS paper is a review of the climate science concerned with the interplay of ten potential tipping points which when triggered by temperature rise due to anthropogenic warming could potentially push the Earth out of it’s present supportive climate and into a 4 or 5C warmer state where civilization as we know it would collapse and, with much of the planet uninhabitable, humanity’s very existence would be threatened.

“There is a risk that feedback processes intrinsic to the Earth System could form a “tipping cascade”, in which the feedbacks act like a row of dominoes,” lead author Will Steffen told Newsweek. “Such a cascade would very likely take the trajectory of the Earth System out of human control and towards much hotter conditions that we call “Hothouse Earth””.

This compelling new science paper should  prompt demand for real, effective climate mitigation. Don’t legislators and those in government whose duty it is to prepare for disaster and emergency read climate science? But instead of igniting debate about needed effective climate mitigation after at least three decades of failure, this latest warning from the science community is being ignored. The death of all we know and love could be as close as another decade or two of inaction but the powers that be don’t want to know.

It is important to remember that almost all of the world’s nations have agreed to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in climate mitigation agreements signed on to from the Rio Summit in 1992 to the Paris Accord specifically to prevent the irreversible runaway global warming that the paper warns about. Our governments have recognized the existential danger and promised to reduce emissions – but only a few have actually instigated effective mitigation.

The paper should be a wake up call about how close we are to unimaginable catastrophe and to question the present pretend mitigation and implement real emission reduction instead. The planet is dangerously close to Hothouse Earth but the global rightward shift on climate change ignores the science and the power people in our society don’t know what they don’t know. Paris targets are not being met. Governments are backing away from even cosmetic mitigation efforts pushed by rampant fossil fuel development and continuing petrostate politics. Moderate climate action is failing.

With time running out after decades of denial and procrastination, effective mitigation now must be disruptive. “A fast, emergency-scale transition to a post-fossil fuel world is absolutely necessary to address climate change”. “It would mean an immediate, sustained global mobilization of a sort that has no precedent in human history”. “We cannot afford to pursue past strategies, aimed at limited gains towards distant goals. In the face of both triumphant denialism and predatory delay, trying to achieve climate action by doing the same things, the same old ways, means defeat. It guarantees defeat.”

The paper’s authors stress that mitigation is still possible but “a deep transformation based on a fundamental reorientation of human values, equity, behavior, institutions, economics, and technologies is required”.

But this scale of disruption is not allowed. Solution aversion rules and realists studiously ignore the emerging climate science. Lukewarming is the new climate denial.  Media coverage of the Steffen et al paper has ebbed to just attacks on climate alarmists from entrenched deniers. There has been no leadership from anyone significant in government or business using the Hothouse Earth paper as an opportunity to press for needed climate action to prevent runaway warming.

Considering what is at stake and the urgent mitigation timeline, we should be having an open and informing debate about climate as an emergency and with consideration of all possibly effective mitigation paths, but instead there is only news of new pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure investment.

Those who recognize the runaway warming danger are like patients with a diagnosis of a very treatable cancer who have been repeatably blocked from timely, effective treatment so that their cancer is now probably fatal. Hopefully there is still time for effective climate mitigation but unless there is leadership – especially from business which arguably has the most to lose and must free up government ability to act – soon all of us will be in a place where action to protect all we know and love is no longer possible.

Bill Henderson is a frequent contributor on Climate Change

US President Donald Trump and his top economic adviser Larry Kudlow have effectively rejected the dire IPCC Report on 1.5C that warns that a disastrous exceedance of the Paris 1.5 degree Centigrade global warming limit is only 10 years away and that burning coal must be completely phased out by 2050. The pro-coal COALition Australian Government has been even more forceful in rejecting the IPCC recommendation.  Trump America and Trumpist Australia are  backed in their effective climate change denialism  by the US Murdoch media empire and have declared  war on the planet, a War on Terra.  Humanity must protect itself and the Biosphere  from these terracidal, neoliberal crazies.   

The latest IPCC Report is entitled “Global warming of 1.5 °C”  and details the numerous bad outcomes of a global +1.5 degree Centigrade (+1.5C) of warming versus the catastrophic outcomes from a +2C warming.  Thus, for example, the IPCC Report indicates  a further 70-90% decline of coral reefs at +1.5C versus a more than 99% loss at +2C. Critically, the IPCC Report says that for less than +1.5C  coal burning must cease by 2050, The IPCC  Report also indicates that the terminal CO2 pollution budget for a 66% chance of avoiding +1.5C is 420 Gt CO2 and that this will be used up in 10 years at the present rate of pollution of 42 Gt CO2 per year [1-3].  

Importantly, the present global warming of 1.0-1.2C is already having a big effect around the world in terms of greater intensity forest fires in North America, Europe and Australia, drought throughout the world, exceptionally damaging high precipitation events, and devastating  high energy hurricanes and associated storm surges impacting Island Nations and indeed coastal regions of the US [4, 5]. There is a worsening climate genocide – presently it is estimated that 0.4 million people die from the effects of climate change each year [6, 7]. However this may be an under-estimate because climate change disproportionately impacts Third World people in tropical and sub-tropical countries in which 16 million people die avoidably from deprivation each year [8]. Indeed 7 million people die each year from the effects of air pollution from burning carbon fuels  [9]. However it gets worse. Thus several top climate scientists have estimated that only about 0.5 billion people will survive this century if climate change is not requisitely addressed, this translating to about 10 billion climate change-related premature deaths this century (at an average of 100 million per year) [5].

Now rational risk management that is crucial for societal and indeed global safety successively involves (a) accurate data, (b) science-based analysis  involving  the critical testing of potentially  falsifiable hypotheses, and (c) informed, science-based systemic change to minimize risk [10].  However capitalism, and in particular  its present  terminal manifestation in remorseless neoliberalism, seeks to maximize the  freedom of the smart and advantaged to exploit human and natural resources for private profit [11-14], and a crucial resource to be thus destroyed is  truth. Truth is the first victim in the War on Terra, whether this is through lying by commission or lying by omission [15-17].  

Put succinctly, Polya’s 3 Laws of Economics (that mirror the 3 Laws of Thermodynamics underlying chemistry and physics) state that (1) Price minus COP (Cost of Production) equals profit; (2) Deception about COP strives to a maximum; and (3) No work, price or profit on a dead planet. The corresponding 3 Laws of Thermodynamics state that (1) the energy of a system is constant, (2) the entropy (disorder,  lack of information content) of the world  inexorably increases, and (3) zero molecular  motion at absolute zero (0) degrees Kelvin  (minus 273.15 degrees Centigrade). Accordingly neoliberalism follows Polya’s Second Law of Economics in perverting the truth for private profit, and hence successively perverting rational risk management through (a) lies, deceit, spin, censorship and intimidation, (b) anti-science, spin-based analysis involving the selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan and profitable position, and (c)  propaganda-based blame  and shame that inhibits  the primary accurate reportage required for science-based rational risk management [18].

Western democracies have become Kleptocracies, Plutocracies, Murdochracies, Lobbyocracies,  Corporatocracies and Dollarocracies in which Big Money purchases people, politicians, parties, policies, public perception of reality, more power and more private profit. This positive feedback loop has led to huge, damaging and deadly wealth disparity with the One Percenters now owning  half the wealth of the world [19-21 ].   This wealth disparity means that 16 million people die avoidably from deprivation each year on Spaceship Earth with One Percenters in charge of the flight deck [8]. The rejection of the latest expert IPCC Report and its dire, science-based warnings by the corrupt Lobbyocracies and Corportatocracies of Trump America and pro-coal Australia is a further example of this deadly perversion of rational risk management leading in this instance to a worsening  climate genocide in which perhaps only 0.5 billion people will survive  this century [5] and  speciescide, ecocide, and ultimate omnicide and terracide in relation to the Biosphere [22, 23].

Set out below are (A) quotations from Trump America and Trumpist Australian figures who reject the IPCC Report, and (B) quotations from Australian, US and World figures who have recognized the seriousness of the IPCC Report.

(A) Bad guys – quotations from Trump American and  Trumpist Australian figures who reject the IPCC Report.

America.

Donald Trump (US president) on the IPCC Report: “It was given to me and I want to look at who drew it, You know, which group drew it, because I can give you reports that are fabulous and I can give you reports that aren’t so good” [24].

Larry Kudlow (director of the National Economic Council and Trump’s top economic adviser): “Personally, I think the UN study is way, way too difficult. I won’t say it’s a scare tactic, but I think they overestimate. I don’t think we should panic. I don’t think there’s an imminent catastrophe coming. But I think we should look at this in a level-headed and analytic way” [25].

Australia.

Matt Canavan (Australian Coalition Government  Resources Minister): “So many argue that coal markets are in structural decline when nothing could be further than the truth. Last year, coal-generated electricity grew by much more than any other energy source in our region. In effect, 33 Hazelwood power stations were brought on-line last year in the Asia-Pacific. Our coal is the envy of the world and we should promote it proudly – not only does it create less pollution in other countries, it supports the jobs of thousands of hard-working Australians” [26].

Josh Frydenberg (former Minister for Energy and the Environment and present Treasurer and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party) : “If we take coal out of our energy system, the lights will go out on the east coast of Australia – it’s as simple as that” [27].

Scott Morrison (Australian Coalition Prime Minister in an interview with extremist shock-jock Alan Jones on 2GB Radio): “No we’re not held to any of them at all Alan, nor are we bound to go and tip money into that big climate fund, we’re not going to do that either. So, I’m not going to spend money on global climate conferences and all that sort of nonsense, I’m not going to get in there – […] So long as we’re not throwing money into some global climate fund and getting pulled around by the nose by all these international agencies when it comes to these other reports. I mean the same report that’s coming out today, said a year ago the policies were fine. You know, we’re investing in the Reef to ensure that’s secure. We’re taking the practical action that you need to take, but we don’t get led around by the nose by these organisations” [28].

Melissa Price (Australian Coalition  Environment Minister, in an Interview with ABC): “[…] Coal does form a very important part of the Australian energy mix, and we make no apology for the fact that our focus at the moment is on getting electricity prices down. I just don’t know how you could say by 2050 that you not going to have technology that’s going to enable good, clean technology when it comes to coal. […] I mean, I just think that’s…  You know, that would be irresponsible of us to be able to commit to that” [28, 29]. Melissa Price betrayed an extraordinary ignorance of basic high school science and mathematics by commenting on the IPCC Report thus: “They [the IPCC]  have now published a report which outlines possible path, possible pathways –  now this is not something that is proscriptive but it is possible pathways – to meet these targets – you know, what’s the feasibility of those targets, the costs and also the benefits of limiting global warming to 1.5 per cent Celsius compared to 2 per cent” [30].

Minerals Council of Australia on the IPCC Report and ongoing Australian coal exploitation: “New high-efficiency, low-emissions (HELE) coal-fired electricity generation plants will be a part of this mix. HELE technologies significantly reduce emissions from coal-fired electricity generation” [29].

Angus Taylor (Australian Coalition Government Energy Minister):  “[the Government would] not be distracted from our goal of lowering power prices for Australian households and small businesses. A debate about climate change and generation technologies in 2050 won’t bring down current power prices for Australian households and small businesses” [29].

(B) Good guys – quotations from Australian, US and World figures who have recognized the seriousness of the IPCC Report.

America.

Hillary Clinton (former US Secretary of State and presidential candidate): “We have barely 10 years to ward off catastrophic warming with destabilizing effects for all of us. Our children and grandchildren deserve action, and action now” [28].

Al Gore (former US Vice President and presidential candidate): “The Paris Agreement was monumental, but we must now go further, ratchet up commitments and develop solutions that meet the scale of the climate crisis. The report will encourage the development of new technologies, which is important. However, time is running out, so we must capitalise and build upon the solutions available today. Solving the climate crisis requires vision and leadership. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has become a rogue outlier in its shortsighted attempt to prop up the dirty fossil fuel industries of the past. The administration is in direct conflict with American businesses, states, cities, and citizens leading the transformation” [28].

Bernie Sanders (US Democrat Senator for Vermont and unsuccessful candidate for being the Democratic Party presidential candidate in 2016): “What the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said is that we have 12 years—12 years to substantially cut the amount of carbon in our atmosphere or this planet, our country, the rest of the world, is going to suffer irreversible damage. We are in crisis mode and you have an administration that virtually does not even recognize the reality of climate change and their policies, working with the fossil fuel industry, are making a bad situation worse” [24].

Australia.

Adam Bandt (Australian Greens MP in the House of Representatives and Greens climate and energy spokesperson): “As people digest the IPCC report, the penny is dropping that 2030 is the real deadline, a mere 12 years away. The IPCC is telling us that of the 16 coal-fired power stations on the eastern seaboard, at least 10 need to go in the next 12 years. Currently only two are scheduled to go before 2030 and some people are even talking about extending those” [29]. In a press release Adam Bandt stated: “If we don’t quit coal, we are screwed. Business as usual under Liberal and Labor is a death sentence. 2030 is our new deadline. The report confirms we may hit 1.5 degrees as early as 2030, which could trigger multi-metre sea-level rises as the Greenland ice sheet collapses and parts of Antarctica are lost. The current drought should be enough to get us to act, but this report highlights that the extreme weather we’re experiencing now will only get worse. The report makes clear emissions need to peak now and that we need ‘rapid and far reaching transitions’ across the whole economy. In other words, we should be mobilising for war against climate change. We should be hitting the emergency button in Canberra. Instead, we have a coal-addled Prime Minister and a coal-conflicted Labor leader.” This report is extremely conservative in its assumptions about likely temperature rises, sea level rise and feedbacks that will drive further warming, which only further reinforces the need for emergency action” [31].

Mark Butler (Australian Labor Opposition Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy): “We think 50 per cent [renewable energy] by 2030 is the right thing to do and obviously things aren’t going to stop at 2030. Over the course of the 2030s there will be further transition in our energy sector, not through decisions made in 2018 but decisions that will be made over the course of the 2020s. We need a government that is serious about this challenge and puts in place policies across the economy to start reducing greenhouse gases” [26].

Bill Shorten (Labor Opposition Leader): “[Coalition is facing] an existential decision … do they accept that climate change needs to be dealt with or not? The idea that they are walking away from that is madness… We’ve got to end the climate change war. Unfortunately it’s not going to end with bipartisanship – it will come if and when we are elected” [32].

Penny Wong (Labor Opposition Acting Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change and Energy): “ Today’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report is a reality check for the Morrison Government about the real consequences of its continuing divisions over need for real action to tackle climate change. The report starkly and graphically outlines the world we face: the prospect of exceeding a 1.5 degree temperature rise by 2040.At 1.5C we lose 70-90% of the world’s warm coral reefs (on top of loss to date). There will be more extreme hot days, and more extreme droughts. At 1.5C we will see the consequences of climate-related risks to our health, our livelihoods, our food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth. This is a risk from which we cannot hide. And yet, Scott Morrison and his divided Liberals have absolved themselves from any responsibility in tackling climate change. The government’s own data shows they will fail to meet their already inadequate Paris targets with pollution rising all the way to 2030. The Liberal Party has capitulated to the hard-right and will continue to wage their anti-science, anti-renewables, anti-climate change agenda.While the Liberals have given up, Labor will not shirk our responsibility to future generations – we’re committed to 50 per cent renewables by 2030, a 45 per cent cut in emissions by 2030 (on 2005 levels), and net zero emissions by 2050. Labor’s targets will cut pollution; bring down power prices and transition Australia to a clean economy with good new jobs, innovative new industries and lower energy costs. It’s time Australians had a government that cares about the same issues they care about as well as our international climate obligations. That includes taking real action to combat climate change – a Shorten Labor Government will deliver on that promise” [33].

World.

Adnan Z. Amin (director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA): “IRENA’s analysis shows that renewable energy and energy efficiency represent the most cost-effective pathway for achieving 90% of the energy-related CO2 emission reductions needed to meet the ‘well below 2 degrees objective’ of the Paris Agreement. The world of energy is witnessing rapid and disruptive changes. Renewables already account for around a quarter of global electricity generation. In the last six years, renewable power capacity additions outpaced additions from fossil fuels and nuclear power combined. However, if we are to meet our climate goals, renewables deployment must accelerate six times faster than today” [28].

François de Rugy (French energy minister): “In France, the government has set an ambitious target to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. But we need more than ever to continue our efforts. At the end of the month, we will present our new low carbon strategy. Deployment of clean mobility, phasing out of fossil fuels, [decrease] our energy consumption and our waste production. We must not weaken now” [28].

Antonio Guterres (UN Secretary-General): “This report by the world’s leading climate scientists is an ear-splitting wake-up call to the world. It confirms that climate change is running faster than we are, and we are running out of time… I urge all countries to make the Katowice Climate Conference a success and heed the counsel of the world’s top scientists: raise ambition, rapidly strengthen their national climate action plans, and urgently accelerate implementation of the Paris Agreement…  We must rise to the challenge of climate action and do what science demands before it is too late” [28].

Claire Perry (UK minister for energy): “I welcome the strong scientific analysis behind today’s IPCC report and its conclusions are stark and sober. As policymakers we need to work together to accelerate the low-carbon transition to minimise the costs and misery of a rapidly warming world” [27].

Svenja Schulze (German Federal Environment Minister): “Every tonne of CO2 avoided, every tenth of a degree of global warming avoided counts, and this transformation brings with it many changes and a great opportunity to make our economy more sustainable and make our society more liveable” [28].

Final comments.

The climate change denialist,  climate criminal and fervently “America first” US Trump Administration has opted to pull out of the Paris Agreement and has now effectively rejected the IPCC Report.  Similarly, a climate criminal Australia under a US lackey,  neoliberal, pro-coal COALition Government is adamant that Australia will be involved in  long term coal exploitation. The Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Australian Government has firmly rejected the IPCC Report. The explanation is simple: Australia is a Lobbyocracy, Murdochracy and Corporatocracy and has such huge coal, gas and iron ore reserves that if they were fully exploited would mean Australia exceeding the whole world’s 2009 terminal carbon pollution budget by a factor of 3 [34].  Indeed the effective climate change denialist, US Murdoch News Corp media empire has secured about 70% of Australian city daily newspaper readership and the Murdoch media have variously ignored or savaged the IPCC report [35].

America and Australia are among world leaders in  annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, with America ranking 22nd  and Australia 14th (or 4th taking its huge coal and gas exports into account) [36]. However some very poor countries also rate high on this scale and a fairer estimation of culpability is annual per capita GHG pollution weighted for per capita income. In relation to “income weighted annual per capita GHG pollution” America ranks 7th and Australia ranks 3rd (or 2nd if including its huge GHG-generating exports) [37].

While America leads the world in absolute GHG pollution (13.1 Gt CO2-e for the US versus 6.8 Gt CO2-e for China and 0.4 Gt CO2-e for India), Australia’s absolute GHG pollution is 1.3 Gt CO2-e (or 2.8 Gt CO2-e  if including its huge GHG-generating exports) [36]. Under the, IPCC Report-rejecting, pro-coal COALition Government,  Australia is among the world leaders for the following 14 climate criminal activities or parameters: (1) annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution, (2) live methanogenic livestock exports,  (3) natural gas exports,  (4) recoverable shale gas reserves that can be accessed by hydraulic fracturing (fracking),  (5) coal exports, (6) land clearing and deforestation, (7) speciescide – species extinction, (8) coral reef destruction, (9) whale killing  and extinction threat through global warming, (10) terminal carbon pollution budget exceedance,   (11) per capita carbon debt, (12) GHG generating iron ore exports, (13) climate change inaction, and (14) being an accessory to climate genocide [3].

Existentially climate change-threatened Humanity must act firmly in  the face of a worsening climate emergency and ongoing effective climate change denial by climate criminal countries exemplified by Trump America and Trumpist Australia. Decent Humanity must act by (a) informing everyone they can,  (b)  urging and applying  Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all disproportionately  climate criminal  politicians, parties, corporations and countries, and (c) unite under the banner of “punish climate criminals” to declare that the climate criminal political and corporate leaders of today will not be able to evade future arraignment and judicially-imposed draconian punishment for their greed-driven, depraved indifference to the warnings from the world’s scientists .   

References.  

[1]. IPCC, “Global warming of 1.5 °C”, 8 October 2018: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/ .

[2]. IPCC, “Global warming of 1.5 °C. Summary for Policymakers”, 8 October 2018: http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf .

[3]. Gideon Polya, “IPCC +1.5C Avoidance Report – Effectively Too Late, But Stop Coal Burning For “Less Bad” Catastrophes”, Countercurrents, 12 October 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/10/12/ipcc-1-5c-avoidance-report-effectively-too-late-but-stop-coal-burning-for-less-bad-catastrophes/ .

[4]. Pacific Islands Development Forum 4 September  2015 “Suva Declaration on Climate Change”: http://pacificidf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/PACIFIC-ISLAND-DEVELOPMENT-FORUM-SUVA-DECLARATION-ON-CLIMATE-CHANGE.v2.pdf .

[5]. “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .

[6]. DARA, “Climate Vulnerability Monitor. A guide to the cold calculus of a hot planet”, 2012, Executive Summary pp2-3: http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2012/ .

[7]. DARA report quoted by Reuters, ”100 mln to die by 2030 if world fails to act on climate”, 28 September 2012: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/26/climate-inaction-idINDEE88P05P20120926 .

[8]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes a succinct history of every country and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/  .

[9]. “Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths .

[10]. “Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home .

[11]. Brian Ellis,”Rationalism. A critique of pure theory”, Australian Scholarly, Melbourne, 2017.

[12]. Brian Ellis, ”Social Humanism. A New Metaphysics”,  Routledge , UK , 2012).

[13]. Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Social Humanism. A New Metaphysics” By Brian Ellis –  Last Chance To Save Planet?”, Countercurrents,  19 August, 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya190812.htm .

[14]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “Rationalism” by Brian Ellis”, Countercurrents, 14 August 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/08/14/review-rationalism-by-brian-ellis/ .

[15]. “Lying by omission is worse than lying by commission because at least the latter permits refutation and public debate”, Mainstream Media lying : https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/lying-by-omission .

[16]. “Mainstream media censorship”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/home  .

[17]. “Mainstream media lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/  .

[18]. Gideon Polya, “Polya’s 3 Laws Of Economics Expose Deadly, Dishonest  And Terminal Neoliberal Capitalism”, Countercurrents, 17 October, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya171015.htm .

[19]. Thomas Piketty,  “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” ( Harvard University Press, 2014).

[20]. Gideon Polya, “Key Book Review: “Capital In The Twenty-First Century” By Thomas Piketty”,  Countercurrents, 1 July, 2014: https://countercurrents.org/polya010714.htm

[21]. Gideon Polya, “4 % Annual Global Wealth Tax To Stop The 17 Million Deaths Annually”,  Countercurrents, 27 June, 2014: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya270614.htm .

[22]. William J. Ripple, 15,364 signatories from 184 countries, “World scientists’ warning to Humanity: a second notice”, Bioscience, 13 November 2017: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/bix125/4605229 .

[23]. Gideon Polya, “Over 15,000 scientists issue dire warning to humanity on catastrophic climate change and biodiversity loss”, Countercurrents, 20 November 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/11/20/over-15000-scientists-issue-dire-warning-to-humanity-on-catastrophic-climate-change-and-biodiversity-loss/ .

[24]. Jake Johnson, “With planet in “crisis mode”, Bernie Sanders rips  Trump White House for “dangerous” dismissal of climate science”, EcoWatch, 15 October 2018: https://www.ecowatch.com/bernie-sanders-rips-trump-white-house-2612569174.html .

[25]. Hayley Miller, “Trump’s top economic aide on dire UN climate change report: no need to “panic”” , Huffington Post, 15 October 2018: https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/larry-kudlow-climate-change_us_5bc35628e4b01a01d68ba03b .

[26]. Mark Ludlow, “The IPCC report heralds the return of the coal culture wars”, Australian Financial Review, 9 October 2018: https://www.afr.com/news/politics/the-ipcc-report-heralds-the-return-of-the-coal-culture-wars-20181008-h16dvi .

[27]. Giles Parkinson, “Coalition’s breathtakingly stupid response to IPCC climate report”, Renew Economy, 9 October 2018: https://reneweconomy.com.au/coalitions-breathtakingly-stupid-response-to-ipcc-climate-report-46898/ .

[28]. Marian Willuhn, “World reacts to IPCC Report”, PV Magazine, 9 October 2018: https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2018/10/09/world-reacts-to-ipcc-report/ .

[29]. Michael Slezak, “Climate target set by IPCC requires 12 Australian coal-fired power stations to close: Parliamentary  Library report”, ABC News, 13 October 2018: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-13/coal-power-stations-needed-to-close-to-meet-ipcc-target-report/10368194 .

[30]. Sabra Lane, “Melissa Price: Paris commitment, IPCC and the Opera House”, ABC News, 9 October 2018: http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/melissa-price-paris-commitment,-ipcc-and-the-opera-house/10354540 .

[31]. Adam Bandt, Greens press release, “IPCC report hits the climate emergency button: Greens”, 8 October 2018: https://greensmps.org.au/articles/ipcc-report-hits-climate-emergency-button-greens .

[32]. Katharine Murphy, “Bill Shorten: “We’ve got to end the climate change war”, The Guardian, 13 October 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/oct/13/bill-shorten-weve-got-to-end-the-climate-change-war .

[33]. Penny Wong (Labor Opposition Acting Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change and Energy), “Reality of climate change too hard for the Liberals”, press release, 8 October 2018: https://www.pennywong.com.au/media-releases/reality-of-climate-change-too-hard-for-the-liberals/ .

[34]. Gideon Polya, “Australia ‘s Huge Coal, Gas & Iron Ore Exports Threaten Planet”, Countercurrents, 15 May 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150512.htm .

[35]. ABC Media watch, “Climate coverage. News Corp’s contempt for climate science revealed in its coverage of last week’s IPCC report”, 15 October 2018: https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/climate-coverage/10377090 .

[36]. Gideon Polya, “ Revised Annual Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Pollution For All Countries – What Is Your Country Doing?”, Countercurrents, 6 January, 2016: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya060116.htm .

[37]. Gideon Polya, “Exposing And Thence Punishing Worst Polluter Nations Via Weighted Annual Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Pollution Scores”, Countercurrents, 19 March, 2016: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya190316.htm .

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript

) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/  ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine  ;  Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home  ; Gideon Polya Writing: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ ; Gideon Polya, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Polya ) . When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/  .

William Nordhaus shaping vulnerable minds in his Yale classroom – Oct. 8, 2018.  (Photo credit: Yale/ ©Mara Lavitt)

How ironic for the Washington Post to opine “Earth may have no tomorrow” and, two pages later, offer up the mini-bios of William Nordhaus and Paul Romer, described as Nobel Prize winners.

Without more rigorous news coverage, few indeed will know that Nordhaus and Romer are epitomes of neoclassical economics, that 20th century occupation isolated from the realities of natural science. Nordhaus and Romer may deserve their prizes for economic modeling, but each gets an F in advanced sustainability.

Nordhaus won his prize (actually the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”— not the Nobel Prize per se) for his mastery of mathematical modeling. He applied his skills to carbon taxes for lowering greenhouse gas emissions. All along he prescribed economic growth – the key driver in greenhouse gas emissions—as the way to afford such taxes!

In 1991 Nordhaus uttered one of the most iconic sentences in the history of unsustainability: “Agriculture, the part of the economy that is sensitive to climate change, accounts for just 3% of national output. That means that there is no way to get a very large effect on the US economy” (Science, September 14, 1991, p. 1206).  Think about that. He must have set a graveyard’s worth of classical economists (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill…) to rolling. They’d be rolling in laughter if the folly of Nordhaus wasn’t so dangerous.

No follow-up should be needed to expose the ludicrous nature of Nordhaus’s statement, but just in case: Agriculture is the very foundation of the economy. No agriculture, no anything else. Think about it. Any hit on agriculture—whether from climate change, bad luck, or stupid policies—has a magnified effect on the entire, integrated economy. Nordhaus’s “3%” statement was a classic case of ivory-tower cluelessness.

Too many trees for seeing the forest?

Romer, meanwhile, deserves some credit for his elegant theory of “endogenous technological change,” which took the work of Robert Solow (the father of economic growth theory) to the next level by describing in nuanced detail how R&D leads to technological progress. That said, there has never been a bigger forest missed for so many trees. For him, all that mattered was capital and labor; he said nothing about land, natural resources, or the environment.

Some readers may recall Julian Simon, the ultimate Pollyanna who claimed in the 1980s (and I paraphrase after thoroughly reviewing his 813 page Ultimate Resource II during my post-doc studies), “Sure, there are environmental problems caused by growth, but the more people we have, the more brains we have to solve the problems. Therefore, the more people we have the better, without limit forever.” Romer’s work amounted to a highly nuanced repetition of Simon’s self-christened “grand theory.”

Romer said in a nutshell: We have capital and labor. Part of the labor force is devoted to research and development (R&D). As limits arise, we get over them with more R&D. So we need ever more people, with ever more devoted to R&D, to keep raising the bar for GDP.

For Romer, it was as if ideas alone could overcome water shortages, biodiversity loss, mineral depletion, soil erosion, pollution, and climate change. As if ideas could be perpetually borne out of human minds struggling in a degrading environment, a warming climate, and an imperiled agricultural base (not to mention a crowded, noisy, and stressed out society). Romer was like a cook thinking up recipes with no idea where the ingredients would come from.

A generation and then some of economists and business students have been led to the exceedingly dangerous myth that there is no limit to either population or economic growth. Nordhaus and Romer have done as much as anyone to lead them into such a fallacy. Yet politicians and publics heed their advice, while the media regurgitates their fallacious notions.

Does Earth have “no tomorrow,” as the Washington Post wondered? One thing is for sure: Any hope for a happy tomorrow on Earth means rejecting the neoclassical economics of today. Even when such economics wins the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.”

Dr. Brian Czech is an author, teacher, full-time conservation biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and a recognized authority on Ecological Economics. Described by Publisher’s Weekly as “as good at popularizing economics as Carl Sagan was science,” Dr. Czech argues that mainstream economics is based on a dangerously flawed theory of economic growth, which can be dismantled through ecological principles. His first book Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train has become a popular manifesto for Ecological Economists as a roadmap to a sustainable future, and he has also produced a video, The Steady State Revolution: Uniting Scientists and Citizens for a Sustainable Society.

The solidarity economy is a global movement to build a post-capitalist world that puts people and planet front and center, rather than the pursuit of blind growth and profit maximization. It isn’t a blueprint but a framework that includes a broad range of economic practices that align with its values: solidarity, participatory democracy, equity in every dimension including race, class and gender, sustainability and pluralism, which means that it can’t be a one-size-fits all approach. Nevertheless, the notion of buen vivir, or living well and in harmony with nature and each other permeates everything the movement does.

Some of these practices are old and some are new; some are mainstream and others are ‘alternative.’ Solidarity economy practices exist in every sector of the economy: production, distribution and exchange, consumption, finance and governance/state. People often think about cooperatives and credit unions which are collectively owned and managed by their members, but they are just one example. Others include community land trusts, participatory budgeting, social currencies, time banks, peer lending, barter systems, gift exchange, community gardens, ideas around ‘the commons,’ some kinds of fair trade and the sharing economy, and non-monetized care work.

The idea of the solidarity economy is to build on and knit together all of these practices in order to transform capitalism by lifting up and encouraging the ‘better angels of our nature.’

The idea of the solidarity economy is to build on and knit together all of these practices in order to transform capitalism by lifting up and encouraging the ‘better angels of our nature.’ Rather than making a virtue out of the pursuit of calculated self-interest, profit maximization, and competition—the things that underpin capitalism—this economy nurtures our capacity for solidarity, cooperation, reciprocity, mutual aid, altruism, caring, sharing, compassion and love. Increasingly, research across many disciplines has shown that we are hard wired to cooperate—that in fact, the survival of the human species has depended on our ability to work together.

If this sounds like something you want to support, here are seven ways to help build the solidarity economy.

1. Increase self-provisioning and community production.

Throughout history communities have grown and foraged for food; built roads, irrigation systems and housing; developed medicines and made clothing, furniture and art in order to sustain themselves. But under capitalism we are incentivized to buy all this stuff and so need jobs to earn money in order to pay for it. Since the 2008 global economic meltdown there have been increasing fears about the instability and fragility of this kind of economy. Add to this the projection that 40 per cent of jobs in the US could be replaced by Artificial Intelligence and automation and it becomes even more urgent to think about how communities can provide more for themselves in order to survive impending economic collapse or massive job destruction.

Community production includes low-tech ways of meeting needs like growing food and raising chickens in community gardens and ‘edible’ urban landscapes, as well as swap-meets, mutual aid networks and skill-shares. But it also extends to democratizing cutting-edge technologies. In Detroit, for example, (where some communities have been living with massive joblessness for decades), the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership and Incite/Focus, a ‘fablab’ that puts cutting-edge fabrication technology into community hands, support a whole spectrum of community production experiments from permaculture, swapmeets and skillshares to 3D printed buildings and digital fabrication using Computer Aided Design (CAD).

2. Move your money.

If you have an account at a big bank, consider moving your money to a local credit union. Credit unions are financial cooperatives that are owned by and run for the benefit of their members—the account holders. Better yet, find a community development credit union which is committed to serving low and moderate income communities. Credit unions are just like a bank in that you can open up a savings or checking account, get an ATM/Debit card, and take out a loan, but (on the whole) they have not engaged in the kinds of predatory lending and other financial shenanigans that crashed the economy in 2008.

3. Invest in or gift to new economic institutions.

There are a many ways to support the solidarity economy financially. For example, ‘Direct Public Offerings’ (DPOs) have become a popular and successful way to raise capital for co-ops. DPOs reach out to the community to find investors who are willing to accept relatively low rates of interest because they believe in the mission of the enterprise. Lending circles, an age-old practice that has become increasingly popular, bring together a group of people who contribute a set amount each month, and each member gets a turn to receive the whole pot of money at zero interest. There’s also the option of participating in crowdfunding campaigns or gifting money and other forms of support to solidarity economy organizations and networks.

4. Prioritize housing for use not speculation.

Our current real estate system leads to crazy outcomes. At a conservative estimate, for example, over half-a-million people in the US sleep on the streets each night even though there are 5.8 million vacant units (excluding seasonal and for-sale housing). One reason for this mismatch is that housing has increasingly become a speculative commodity—an asset to gamble with for huge potential gain—rather than to meet human needs. Not only does speculation add to the housing shortage by keeping units off the market and driving up prices, it can also implode, as it did spectacularly in 2008, leading to a global economic meltdown.

If you are looking at housing options, consider ‘limited equity’ housing like community land trusts and some housing co-ops and co-housing developments that take housing out of the speculative market. In these approaches re-sale prices are capped in order to maintain affordability. Concerns have been raised about preventing low and moderate income people from building wealth through real estate appreciation in this way, but it is the limited equity model that makes prices affordable in the first place.

5. Be your own boss—look for a job in a worker co-op or start your own.

Worker co-ops are owned and managed by their workers, who decide how to run their business and what to do with the profits—share them, reinvest them in the enterprise, and/or allocate some of them to community projects. This is in contrast to a capitalist business where the owners capture all the profits generated through the labor of the workers—a process of exploitation as well as class struggle.

Some cities like New York and Madison, Wisconsin, are investing millions of dollars to incubate and finance worker co-ops as part of an inclusive economic development strategy to create jobs and wealth building opportunities in low-income communities and communities of color. If you’re interested in this form of economic democracy you can look for a job in an existing co-op or start your own. That’s challenging but there’s a growing support system that provides co-op training programs and other forms of support to help you navigate your way.

6. Connect with and talk to others in the emerging economic system.

If you’re interested, learn more about what’s happening and consider joining the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network or RIPESS (the Intercontinental Social Solidarity Economy Network) for other parts of the world. If you’re a writer then write about it; if you’re a student, study it; if you’re a teacher, teach about it; if you’re an activist, nudge your organization to adopt a solidarity economy framework. If you’re a politician, then promote policies that support it; if you’re already involved in an institution like a co-op, find ways to connect with others to build supply chains that work on solidarity principles. There are a million ways to help make the solidarity economy stronger and more visible. Even just talking about it is valuable.

7. Live the principles.

Capitalism nurtures competitive, calculating, and self-interested values and behavior, but Elinor Ostrom (who won a Nobel prize for her work on the commons) and others have documented how community-managed resources like forests, fisheries, pasturelands and water can be managed more efficiently, sustainably and equitably than those in private hands, provided that there are rules and enforcement mechanisms to prevent anyone from taking unfair advantage

We need to build an economy that is premised on the whole of our beings and that leans towards solidarity in this way. We are all engaged in the valuable social and economic work of providing care for our children, elders, neighbors, and communities—not for money, but from our innate capacity for love, friendship, reciprocity, caring and compassion. So recognize that the solidarity economy is all around you and that you already live it. Nurture your better angels and live it well.

Emily Kawano is a founder of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, served on the RIPESS Board for 8 years, and co-directs Wellspring Cooperative. She has a Ph.D in economics from UMass, Amherst where she joined the Center for Popular Economics and served as director for nine years

Originally published by OpenDemocracy.net

The Global #RiseForClimate actions are just one example of many that the climate justice movement is building the power needed to transform the economy and put in place policies to confront climate change.  The ingredients exist for the climate justice movement to rapidly succeed. A challenge is not knowing how much time we have. Scientists have been conservative in their estimates, and feedback loops could rapidly increase the impacts of climate change.

The costs of not acting are high. The benefits of investing in a clean energy economy would be widespread. We need to keep building the movement.

Source: New Climate Economy

The Climate Crisis Is Already Devastating

The urgency of the climate crisis is obvious and cannot be reasonably denied. ABC News reported about the horrific California wildfires, saying there is an “undeniable link to climate change.” They wrote, “Experts have said that rising temperatures linked to climate change are making the fires larger, more dangerous and more expensive to fight.” This year’s fires broke records set by last year’s fires, leading Governor Jerry Brown to describe them as the “new normal” caused by years of drought and rising temperatures.

Researchers at Columbia University and the University of Idaho reported in 2017 that human-caused warming was drying out forests, causing peak fire seasons across the West to expand every year by an average of nine days since 2000. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the 2017 fire season cost more than $2 billion, making it the most expensive fire season on record.

Extreme heat is becoming more common because of climate change. Since 2001, 17 of the 18 warmest years on record have occurred. Records were broken all over the world this year. Record heat is also contributing to more ferocious storms. Storms with heavy rain and high winds are increasing, as the Union of Concerned Scientists warns.

Michael Mann, an atmospheric science professor at Penn State University, clarifies the science:

“What we can conclude with a great deal of confidence now is that climate change is making these events more extreme. And its not rocket science, you warm the atmosphere it’s going to hold more moisture, you get larger flooding events, you get more rainfall. You warm the planet, you’re going to get more frequent and intense heat waves. You warm the soils, you dry them out, you get worse drought. You bring all that together and those are all the ingredients for unprecedented wildfires.”

Our Lives Matter from #RiseOnClimate Flickr.

Economic Cost of Climate Impacts Is Rising

Global warming will hit the US economy hard, particularly in the South. The Richmond branch of the Federal Reserve Bank cites a study that finds refusing to combat climate change could utterly devastate the South’s entire economy. The Fed notes, “higher summer temperatures could reduce overall U.S. economic growth by as much as one-third over the next century, with Southern states accounting for a disproportionate share of that potential reduction.”

There is a correlation between higher temperatures and lower factory production, lower worker productivity and lower economic growth. An August 2018 report found: “The occurrence of six or more days with temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit reduces the weekly production of U.S. automobile manufacturing plants by an average of 8 percent.”

Ironically, the oil and gas industry, which is accused of undermining climate science, is now asking government to protect it from the impacts of climate change. When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, swamping Houston, it caused an immediate 28 cents per gallon increase in the price of oil. After Harvey a Texas commission report sought $61 billion from Congress to protect Texas from future storms. Joel N. Myers, of AccuWeather, predicted in 2017 that the total losses from Harvey “would reach $190 billion or one percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.” The cost of a 60 mile seawall along the Texas coast is initially projected to be $12 billion.

Harvey broke the record set by Hurricane Katrina, which cost $160 billion.  The 10 most destructive hurricanes caused an estimated $442 billion in losses. Out of 27 extreme weather events in 2016, researchers for the American Meteorological Society have correlated 21 of them to human-caused climate change.

A 2018 Climate Change Assessment report for  California estimated climate change:

“could soon cost us $200 million a year in increased energy bills to keep homes air conditioned, $3 billion from the effects of a long drought and $18 billion to replace buildings inundated by rising seas, just to cite a few projections. Not to mention the loss of life from killer heat waves, which could add more than 11,000 heat-related deaths a year by 2050 in California, and carry an estimated $50 billion annual price tag.”

Impacts are seen throughout the United States. A report found that “since 2005, Virginia has lost $280 million in home values because of sea-level rise.” A 2018 study found coastal properties in five Southeastern states have lost $7.4 billion in potential value since 2005. The 2017 Hawaii Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report estimates the lost value of flooded structures and land at over $19 billion. Additionally, Hawaii’s roadways, bridges and infrastructure will cost $15 billion to repair and replace. The National Flood Insurance Program is losing $1.4 billion annually largely due to claims in 284 coastal counties. The Congressional Budget Office  finds the program is already $20.5 billion in the red even after the government forgave $16 billion in debt last fall.

These are just some of the many costs — food, agriculture, fishing, oceans, storms, fires, droughts, heat, flooding and more are going to worsen significantly.

Climate change could be the cause of the next economic collapse due to the cost of climate damage, an insurance industry crisis, or stranded assets, as over-investing in carbon energy has caused a fragile carbon bubble.

Equity, Justice, #WeRiseForClimate from Flickr

The US Can Transform To A Climate Justice Economy Now

While there has been progress on clean energy, it is inadequate and sporadic compared to the urgent needs. We need dramatic escalation with clear goals — keep fossil fuels in the ground, use agriculture and wetlands to sequester carbon, deploy renewable energy, build climate justice infrastructure and transition to a new economy based on sustainability, democracy and equity.

This week, the world’s largest wind farm opened. It can power 590,000 homes in the UK. Another planned wind farm could provide the power for 2 million homes. The world is only scratching the surface of the potential of wind and solar.

We can no longer afford the old carbon energy economy. A new climate economy would add $26 trillion to the global economy by 2030, a conservative estimate. It will create 65 million new jobs and prevent 700,000 premature deaths. This transformation provides an opportunity to create the future we want based on economic, racial and environmental justice.

Just as we are underestimating the high costs of climate change, we have also “grossly underestimated the benefits and opportunities unlocked by smart, connected, distributed energy technologies,” David Roberts writes in Vox. We will look back after the transition and wonder why we waited as we will see “the benefit of quieter, safer, more livable cities and better respiratory health, we’ll wonder why we ever put up with anything else — why we nickel-and-dimed the transition to electric buses, long-haul trucks, and passenger vehicles; why we fought over every bike lane and rail line.” We can also implement Solutionary Rail – a network of electrified railroads that also serves as an energy grid serving rural areas and relieving roads of trucks.

The 2018 New Climate Economy Report reports time is running out; extreme damage from climate change is being locked in. We need a sustainable trajectory by 2030. The developing world needs infrastructure and much of the developed world’s infrastructure is failing. The report finds, “The world is expected to spend about US$90 trillion on infrastructure in the period up to 2030, more than the entire current stock today. Much of this investment will be programmed in the next few years.” We need to spend this on creating a new sustainable economy.

Adele Peters quotes Helen Mountford, lead author of the Global Commission project, “If we get that infrastructure right, we’re going to put ourselves on the right path. If we get it wrong, we’ll be very much stuck on that wrong pathway.”

The report examined five areas: cities, energy, food and land use, water, and industry. Building sustainable, efficient, clean energy infrastructure will reduce health costs, and increase productivity and innovation. This requires policy based on equity, cutting fossil fuel subsidies while increasing the price of carbon, and investing in sustainable infrastructure.

The good news is we have the ability and technology to make the transition. We know what works. We lack the leadership, but this leadership void can be filled by the people. When we lead, the leaders will follow.

As the crisis hits and national consensus solidifies, people will need to demand a new economy based on equity, fairness, democratized energy and serving the necessities of the people and planet. This new democratized economy could include a federal buyout of the top US-based, publicly-traded fossil fuel companies. It could include the reversal of disastrous privatization with nationalization of key industries and public ownership of energy utilities to serve the public interest, rather than private interests.

Polling on risks of climate change. Yale Program on Climate Communication, 2018.

National Consensus Is Solidifying For Climate Action

Despite mis-leadership by power holders and lack of commercial media coverage, people know climate change is having major negative impacts and want to action taken to confront it. Yale reports that polls show 83% want research funded on alternative energy, 77% want CO2 regulated as a pollutant, 70% want strict limits on CO2 from coal-fired power plants, and 68% even favor a carbon tax on polluters.

Obama’s policies on climate were inadequate, and he led massive building of oil and gas infrastructure. The current administration denies climate change exists, hides research on climate, is reversing Obama’s positive steps and opposes the national consensus. This is going to lead to a climate justice boomerang. More storms and the cost of climate change will cause people to rebel and demand the transformation political elites have refused.

There is an impressive mobilized movement; not just the Global #RiseForClimate, but people putting their bodies on the line and risking arrestto stop carbon infrastructure. Activists are successfully delaying the approval of pipelines, often with Indigenous leadership as their rights are crucial for climate justice. Activists are arguing their resistance against polluters is being done out of climate necessity and are sometimes succeeding.

Oil companies are being sued for hiding the truth about climate change – former scientists are exposing them – and are now being forced to disclose climate change risks to shareholders. Activists are confronting investors of carbon infrastructure and insurance companies on coal. Workers are confronting unions on the issue. Youth are suing for a livable climate future.

The movement is building power. The path needed is clear, but escalation is urgent.

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers are directors of Popular Resistance

In examining the future, we must look to the past.

As we watch the media today, we are spoon fed more and more propaganda and fear of the unknown, that we should be afraid of the unknown and have full faith that our government is keeping us safe from the unknown. But by looking at media today, those of us who are old enough will be reminded of the era of Cold War news articles, hysteria of how the Russians would invade and how we should duck and cover under tables in our kitchens for the ensuing nuclear war. Under this mass hysteria all Western governments were convinced that we should join Western allies to fight the unknown evil that lies to the east. Later through my travels in Russia during the height of the Cold War with a peace delegation, we were shocked by the poverty of the country, and questioned how we ever were led to believe that Russia was a force to be afraid of. We talked to the Russian students who were dismayed by their absolute poverty and showed anger against NATO for leading their country into an arms race that they could not win. Many years later, when speaking to young Americans in the US, I was in disbelief about the fear the students had of Russia and their talk of invasion. This is a good example of how the unknown can cause a deep rooted paranoia when manipulated by the right powers.

All military is expensive, and we can see in Europe that the countries are reluctant to expand their military spending and find it hard to justify this to their people. In looking at this scenario, we can ask ourselves what is beneficial about this hysteria and fear caused on both sides. All armies must have an enemy to deem them necessary. An enemy must be created, and the people must be convinced that there is need for action to safeguard the freedom of their country.  Right now, we can see a shifting of financial power from old Western powers to the rise of the Middle East and Asia. Do we honestly believe that the Western allies are going to give up their power? My suggestion is: not easily. The old dying empires will fight tooth and nail to protect their financial interests such as the petrol dollar and the many benefits that come through their power over poverty-stricken countries.

Firstly, I must say, that I personally believe that Russia is not by any means without faults. But the amount of anti-Russian propaganda in our media today is a throwback to the Cold War era. We must ask the question: Is this leading to more arms, a bigger NATO? Possibly to challenge large powers in the Middle East and Asia, as we see the US approaching the South China seas, and NATO Naval games taking place in the Black Sea. Missile compounds are being erected in Romania, Poland and other ex-Soviet countries, while military games are set up in Scandinavia close to the Russian border to practice for a cold climate war scenario. At the same time, we see the US President arriving in Europe asking for increased military spending. At the same time the USA has increased its budget by 300 billion in one year.

The demonization of Russia is, I believe, one of the most dangerous things that is happening in our world today. The scapegoating of Russia is an inexcusable game that the West is indulging in. It is time for political leaders and each individual to move us back from the brink of catastrophe to begin to build relationships with our Russian brothers and sisters. Too long has the elite financially gained from war while millions are moved into poverty and desperation. The people of the world have been subjected to war propaganda based on lies and misinformation and we have seen the results of invasions and occupations by NATO disguised as “humanitarian intervention” and “right to protect”. NATO has destroyed the lives of millions of people and purposely devastated their lands, causing the exodus of millions of refugees. The people around the world must not be misled yet again. I personally believe that the US, the UK and France are the most military minded countries, whose inability to use their imagination and creativity to solve conflict through dialogue and negotiation is astonishing to myself and many people. In a highly militarized, dangerous world it is important we start to humanize each other and find ways of cooperation, and build fraternity amongst the nations. The policies of demonization of political leaders as a means of preparing the way for invasions and wars must be stopped immediately and serious effort put in to the building of relationships across the world. The isolation and marginalization of countries will only lead to extremism, fundamentalism and violence.

During our visit to Moscow we had the pleasure of attending a celebration of mass at the main Orthodox Cathedral. I was very inspired by the deep spirituality and faith of the people as they sang the entire three-hour mass. I was moved by the culture of the Russian people and I could feel that their tremendous history of suffering and persecution gave them sensitivity and passion for peace.

Surely it is time that we in Europe refuse to be put in a position where we are forced to choose between our Russian and American brothers and sisters. The enormous problems that we are faced with, such as, due to climate change and wars, mass migration and movement of peoples around the world, need to be tackled as a world community. The lifting of sanctions against Russia and the setting up of programs of cooperation will help build friendships amongst the nations.

I call on all people to encourage their political leaders in the US, EU and Russia to show vision and political leadership and use their skills to build trust and work for peace and nonviolence.

Mairead Maguire (www.peacepeople.com)was awarded the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work to help end the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland.  Her fierce activism has continued in numerous global causes serving the cause of peace.

The history of Earth is marked by at least seven major mass extinctions, including asteroid impact effects 580 million years ago, the end Ordovician glaciation, late Devonian asteroid impacts, end-Permian volcanism and ocean anoxia, end-Jurassic volcanism and Cretaceous-Tertiary asteroid impact—mostly associated with an extreme rise in atmospheric CO₂. Currently the seventh mass extinction of species is taking place, mainly as a consequence of CO₂rise at a rate close to that induced by an asteroid impact (Figure 1). The Seventh mass extinction is triggered by a species which harnessed transfer of carbon from the Earth’s crust to the atmosphere and has split the atom, but is failing to control the consequences. Such is the scale and the rate of the unfolding climate catastrophe that, in the words of Joachim Schellnhuber, the EU’s chief climate scientist, it threatens the life support systems of the planet.

The glacial-interglacial oscillations of the Pleistocene (from 2.6 million years ago to 11,500 years ago), are giving way to a human-induced extreme thermal event that is leading to the melting of the large ice sheet, a rise in sea level by many meters and ultimately tens of meters, dangerous hurricanes, floods and droughts.

As extreme weather events are killing and injuring hundreds of thousand people and a huge numbers of animals in parts of the globe (https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism), the origin of these developments is largely covered-up by the mainstream media. Petty issues are endlessly propagated by the press and in parliaments. It is business as usual among the privileged minorities, emitting carbon at accelerated rates as they drive and fly around a warming world.

Figure 1. Comparison of the rate of temperature rise between (1) the last glacial termination (14,000 – 11,500 years ago); (2) Paleocene-Eocene thermal event 56 million years ago; (3) 1750-2016 AD Anthropocene event; (4) asteroid impact.

With this perspective, the ignorance of the majority, enhanced by vested interests-controlled mainstream media, and the criminality of atmosphere-polluting lobbies, may only become clear when survivors finally comprehend the loss of large parts of the habitable Earth.

With this perspective the political furor over the difference between 26 percent and 50 percent reduction in emission favored by the different parties is meaningless, since neither target can prevent the amplifying CO₂ feedbacks from continuing to warm the atmosphere, land and oceans (http://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/earth-at-risk-of-entering-a-hothouse-climate).

In true Orwellian Newspeak fashion, the “powers to be” have changed the language, from “climate change” and “global warming” to “electricity power prices”, namely from the future of live on Earth to the hit pocket nerve, a Faustian Bargain which underpins the sacrifice of future generations and much of nature.

The Seventh mass extinction does not rise exclusively from global warming, and can be brought about, separately or in combination, by design or accident, through the probability of a global nuclear cataclysm. As time goes on, this possibility becomes a probability and inevitably a certainty, an increasingly likely prospect on a warming planet burdened by resource wars. The hapless inhabitants of planet Earth are given a non-choice between progressive global heating and the coup-de-grace of a nuclear winter.

From the Romans to the third Reich, the barbarism of rich empires surpasses that of small marauding tribes. It is mainly among the wretched of the Earth that true charity is to be found, where empathy is learnt through suffering.

Further experiments with the fate of Earth are underway. Once new generations of the Hadron Collider have been deemed “safe,” pending further science fiction-like experiments dreamt by ethic-free scientists, Earth may or may not become a black hole. Unfortunately little doubt exists regarding the consequences of the continuing use of the atmosphere, the lungs of the biosphere, as open sewer for carbon gases.As stated by the renown oceanographer Wallace Broecker in 1986, “The inhabitants of planet Earth are quietly conducting a gigantic experiment. We play Russian roulette with climate and no one knows what lies in the active chamber of the gun.”

Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleoclimate scientist

At the beginning of the journey stood the most famous two sentences of Marx, which I read as a college student:

“Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point however is to change it.”¹

I was immediately faced with a dilemma. There was no need for me to interpret the world; that had already been done for us by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin et al. But, I thought, in order to be able to contribute to changing the world, I must at least understand it. The purpose was clear to me: to work for creating a socialist/communist society. But for understanding the world, I knew I must read a lot, at least a lot of Marx, Engels and Lenin, a lot of history plus current affairs, and also a lot of modern Marxist literature on the social sciences.
For the average socialist/communist activist, however, it was the sheer volume of reading required for the purpose that posed the greatest difficulty. She must work to earn her livelihood, work for her conviction, and read a few of the relevant texts. As for me, I had the ambition, and I thought I also had the cerebral capacity, to read all the important works of Marx, Engels, Lenin et al. But being materially in the position of an average activist, it was clear to me in my early youth that I could only become an activist, not a Marxologist.

The Moscow Trials and Destalinization

In 1953 – I was then 17 and in college – I realized how little I knew, when I heard for the first time of the notorious Moscow Trials of 1936–1938,² in which several famous leaders of the Russian revolution were accused of treason, convicted, and then executed. What was worse, I heard it from an anti-communist class mate. I was shocked to hear that Stalin, our great leader of those days, was the perpetrator of these and similar other crimes against several hundred thousand innocent and patriotic citizens and communists. When asked, my communist classmates said they had never heard of it before. But, they opined, it surely was imperialist propaganda.

I had started reading the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the course of this reading, I later got the official version of the story: the accused were traitors, agents of the enemy etc. This story haunted me for a few years. How could so many communist leaders and activists of the revolution have been traitors, I wondered. The issue was settled in 1956, when Khrushchev, in his secret speech to the 20th Congress of the CPSU(B) confirmed the veracity of what was formerly dubbed imperialist propaganda.

1956, when a thorough destalinization began in the Soviet Union, was a watershed year. It resulted in a huge, indescribable mental shock, not only for me, but also, I think, for all young communists of those days, who used to think of the Soviet Union as if it were a golden country, our materialized utopia. Thereafter, I began gradually distancing myself from the Soviet model of socialism.

But among older communists, at least in India, there was no outbreak of disloyalty to the Soviet communist leadership. If asked, they used to say, in the general sense: if in the past mistakes have been made, then it is good that they are being corrected. For me, it was only a logical and rational reaction, not a satisfactory one. Was it simply a case of the leader making a few mistakes? It troubled me very much that the crimes were committed in the name of a communist revolution and in the name of defending a “socialist” state inspired by Marx and his theories. After all, Marx and Engels had endorsed use of force in their kind of revolution. In the concluding para of their Manifesto, they write inter alia, “The communists … declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of …”. We Indians knew that Mahatma Gandhi had strictly and on principle opposed any use of violence in our independence movement. Yet questions regarding. ends and means had not crossed my mind before 1956.

 Destalinization was also the cause and 1956 the time when my interest in Marx and Marxism began to wane. I thought, it could not be that just two thinkers of the second half of the 19^th century, however brilliant they might have been, had thought through all the problems of mankind, even those that would arise many decades after their death. It could not be, I thought further, that the results of their analysis of the situation prevailing in the 19^th century were also valid in the 20^th century. So I started taking an interest in other subjects and other thinkers too, e.g. in Malthusianism, and Keynesianism.

Failure of the Russian and the Chinese Revolution

Both the October Revolution (1917–1921) and the Chinese Revolution (1930s to 1949) were made or at least led by people who were communists and Marxists, at least they said they were inspired by Marxism. After success on the battlefields, they tried to build up in their respective countries a socialist society following economic and political principles they claimed were based on and/or derived from Marxism. In the long run both revolutions failed. The Russians and the Chinese themselves willfully reintroduced capitalism in their countries. The Russians openly confess to capitalism, whereas Chinese society is today in reality a capitalist one that is only ruled by self-styled “communists”.

Can their failures be put down to flaws in the ideology called Marxism? Today, on the occasion of the 200th birth anniversary of Marx, when his total theoretical-intellectual contribution to recent world history is being discussed, criticized, and celebrated, this question needs to be answered. But before that come the questions (1) whether the vision of socialism that the Soviet Russians and the Chinese, the Cubans and the Vietnamese tried to realize – and thereby failed – was really the Marxist one, and (2) whether it was at all realizable. We should not seek an answer to them just in the academic sense of seeking truth for the sake of truth, but also and especially in the practical sense. For if we fail to get the right answer to these questions, we may, in our zeal, make many more mistakes: We may then pursue a wrong goal or choose the wrong path to reach the right goal, or we may make a wrong choice in regard to both.

Marxian and Marxist

There are some disputes regarding the content of Marxism. Once, when he was told about a person who was claiming to be a Marxist while expressing un-Marxist views, Marx replied in frustration: “All I know is that I am not a Marxist.” Ever since, it has become useful to differentiate between the terms Marxian and Marxist. Marxian would mean: strictly based on what Marx himself has written. And Marxist would mean: based on Marxian thoughts as developed and presented by Engels, Lenin and later theoretician-adherents of Marx. For this reason, Marxist theory cannot be regarded as a monolithically consistent theory. Even in the works of Marx himself, inner contradictions and errors have been found by Marx scholars. No wonder. After all, Marx’s writing career stretched over some forty years. Also no wonder that some Marx scholars have reportedly found it necessary to differentiate between the writings of the young (early) Marx and those of the mature (later) Marx.

Fortunately, we can give a quick and short reply to the question put above (in connection with the crimes of Stalinist USSR and failure of the Soviet and Chinese Revolutions). Pure Marxists say, in the general sense: what has all that to do with Marx and Marxian theory? Nothing. None of the socialist/communist revolutions that have taken place till now has been a Marxian revolution. To give just one recently published example, Paresh Chattopadhyay, an eminent Marx scholar, wrote³ criticizing a description of the Cuban Revolution as a Marxist one:

“However, what kind of revolution are we speaking of? ….. we are invited to aMarxian kind of socialism. The rub is precisely here. Why is the need for bringing in Marx whose whole outlook on socialism is the exact opposite? To refresh our memory, there is no ‘socialist dictatorship’ in Marx’s universe of discourse. For Marx it is a postulate that the laboring people must emancipate themselves. This is the outcome of the ‘autonomous movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority’. And this self-emancipation means the … establishment of a ‘union of free individuals’, which alone is socialism. It follows, secondly, that this is not the task of a group styling itself as the vanguard irrespective of the group’s revolutionary ardor and spirit of self-sacrifice.”

Critique of Pure Marx

I trust Chattopadhyay’s scholarship. This must be a correct paraphrase of the Marxian ideal of socialist revolution (emancipation, as he also calls it.). This quote deals with the questions regarding who and how of a socialist revolution, i.e. the questions: who are the agents of the revolution (emancipation), and how do they go about it – before, during, and after the revolution proper? But it also shows how wrong, how unrealistic, and how utopian in the negative sense Marx has been. For hardly any revolution that has been called proletarian, socialist, or people’s revolution, successful or not, could do without a leadership, most members of which usually came from classes other than the proletariat. Even the leadership of the Paris Commune of 1871, as far as I have learnt, did not come exclusively from the working class.

I believe, without a good leadership, any attempt to overthrow a hated regime or an exploitative-oppressive system can only end in defeat or a fruitless, chaotic rebellion – even if the crisis situation that triggered it had been favorable to such an attempt. I am of course saying these things without great knowledge of history. But I believe evidence to the contrary must be rare if it at all exists. Also for building a “socialist” society after a successful takeover of power, as, for example, in Russia after 1917 and in Yugoslavia after 1945, a strong leadership proved to be indispensable.

Revolutionary Proletariat?

Marx and Engels had “discovered” the revolutionary proletariat very early in their life, much before the proletariat even became a sizeable class in Germany, and they did it purely deductively. They explained it in 1845 as follows:

“It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will be historically compelled to do. Its aim and historical action is visibly and irrevocably foreshadowed in its own life situation as well as in the whole organization of bourgeois society today.”⁵

   Three years later, in their Communist Manifesto, they apodictically proclaimed, “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.” Also apodictic was their assertion that “the working men have no country,” which was logically followed by the call “Working men of all countries, unite!”

On this question, Lenin convinced me (and millions of other activists) more when he asserted that the laboring people cannot emancipate themselves through an autonomous movement of their own, because they lacked the will and the revolutionary consciousness required for this goal, which must be brought to them by a group of professional revolutionaries. A few years before Lenin, Bernstein had maintained that proletarians of the industrially advanced countries of Europe did not even have any reason for willing to overthrow capitalism. He asserted that educated/trained workers/employees actually wanted to be integrated into the given system and rise within it.

For Lenin, Tito, Mao, and Ho-Chi-Min, and later also for Fidel and Che, the primary,immediate, and urgent task had been to overthrow the hated oppressive regimes of their respective countries – in the case of China, Yugoslavia, and Viet Nam, these were even foreign imperialist invaders occupying the country. There was no question of trying this overthrow later, when the proletariat would have become the immense majority of the population. After fulfilling this immediate task, Lenin, Tito, Mao, and Ho, being communists, could not but try to build a socialist society on the ground and in the situation they found given. They could not have postponed this work in order to do it in the pure way as prescribed by Marx, i.e. waited until their country had achieved the industrial development level of Germany or Britain in the 1870s–1880s, their proletariat had become the immense majority of the population, and had also developed the right revolutionary consciousness.

 Already when I was a young student and had read the Communist Manifesto, I had some doubts on this point. It was wrong, I thought, to say “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.” In any revolution, every revolutionary can lose her life or limbs. After a failed one, she can be incarcerated and lose her livelihood; her dependents can descend into a state of penury. To say that the proletariat (as a class) “have a world to win” is for the average proletarian too abstract a promise of compensation for the said concrete risks and sufferings. Only the inspired are willing to take them. It is alright for a manifesto to contain such high-flown words, but it is better to know that they do not correspond to the reality.

   Also the sentence “The working men have no country” was nothing more than an assertion in high-flown words. How far-fetched, how unrealistic and hollow all these words were, was demonstrated just 31 years after Marx’s death, when, in the 1st World War, the working men of the advanced industrialized countries of Europe not only did not prevent the war, but also, obeying their heads of state, readily went to the front to fulfill their patriotic duty, namely to kill the working men of their respective enemy countries.

Even after socialists/communists had made a revolution – alternatively, won a revolutionary antiimperialist war – and took over power in Russia, China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, their armies, made up of their working men of all kinds (few proletarians in the Marxian sense), fought against one another, because of petty disputes (partly border disputes). So far as I know, generations of Marxist theoreticians have failed to devote enough attention to this aspect of human nature, which also socialist/communist idealists regularly fall victim to. Only Lenin may have been aware of this serious problem when he advocated the right of peoples to self-determination. In spite of this history, even today as always, in all countries, on the 1^st May demonstrations and rallies, one can observe socialists, communists, leftists mindlessly shouting vacuous slogans like “workers of all countries unite”, “long live international solidarity”.

 I think some people make a revolution – let us modestly say they just revolt – when life under the prevailing conditions has in some sense or another become unbearable – objectively and materially for the broad masses, subjectively for highly sensitive (mostly) young people. Some of them – like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky etc. – are cool, intellectual and analytical types, others, such as Mao, Fidel and Che, are more like daredevils. They revolt irrespective of whether the time is ripe or not, irrespective of whether the proletariat has understood its world-historic mission or not, irrespective of whether the proletariat joins the revolt or remains aloof. Mao led a communist revolution in an agrarian society, Che even tried to bring revolution to Congo and Bolivia, where there was no working class. Such people cannot just see exploitation and oppression happening and sit idly by.

Revisionism

Till now, in highly developed industrial countries like Germany, England etc., the working class has rejected the revolutionary role assigned to them by Marx and Engels. In Germany, their party, the Social-Democratic Party (SPD, founded in 1863–1875) pursued the reformist strategy advocated by Bernstein. In 1959, it even accepted capitalist market economy in its new program called the Godesberg Program. In Britain, the Labor Party, formed between 1893 and 1900, never explicitly accepted Marxism as its political philosophy, but was for a long time regarded as a constitutional socialist party in some sense. In the 1990s, however, it became an arch protagonist of neoliberal capitalism.

  It would be interesting to go deeper into the question why, in Russia, in 1917ff, the relatively small proletariat made the revolution together with soldiers of a demoralized army, while in Germany, in the Autumn of 1918, the very large proletariat and soldiers of a defeated army refused to heed the call for revolution (except in Munich, Bavaria). This is not the right place for that enquiry. But a few words from Kolakowski’s exposition on Bernstein’s revisionism can be quoted as a short answer:

“When Bernstein started intervening, the real wages of the German working class had risen for a long time, and it had won numerous social security benefits and a shorter working day. … Of course, … there was still no universal suffrage in Prussia, … but the elections and the political mobilization as well as the relative power connected with them offered the prospect of a successful struggle for the republic and even assumption of power. … The real experience of the working class in no way supported the [Marxist] theory according to which their situation within the limits of capitalism was basically hopeless and not susceptible of improvements. … The history of revisionism does not support the [Marxist] claim that there is a natural revolutionary attitude in the working class … that results from its very situation as a seller of labor power and incurable victim in this system of alienation. … The traditional [Marxist] belief in the revolutionary mission of the proletariat was put into question. … Revisionism robbed the socialist doctrine of the noble pathos of the ‘final battle’ and total liberation.”⁷

Part II

How much Marxism has gone into my Eco-Socialism?

As regards Marxian/Marxist theory, it is a bit difficult for me to answer the question put above, because I have read only some, not all, of the works of Marx and Engels. Much of my knowledge of their theory is based on reading secondary literature written by well-known Marxists of earlier decades (Sweezy, Mandel. Leontiev, Kolakowski, Vranicki etc.). I, moreover, never believed that intelligent people and scholars of the twentieth century could not study and understand the problems of their century without always asking what Marx had exactly written about an issue. After all, the authors of Limits to growth,⁸ such an important book for our century, were not known for their Marx scholarship.

Agents of Change?

The leaders of the previous revolutionary changes may or may not have come from the ranks of revolutionary proletarians, but without a good leadership overthrow of any capitalist, feudal, colonial or any other sort of oppressive-exploitative regime would not have been possible. However, whether the societies they built up thereafter could be called “socialist” has been a disputed question, which I cannot take up here.

 People who have some knowledge of history know what political role the “working class parties” (sometimes called social-democratic, sometimes socialist) and their proletarian members have played in the highly developed industrial countries as well as in the less developed ones, such as India. Above, in part I, I have given a short pointer to that role. What we read there applies all the more to the trade unions. Sometimes, of course, they defied the wishes of the leadership of their respective parties, but fighting against capitalism has never been at the top of their agenda. In the developed world, they had already explicitly accepted capitalism, calling the system a “social market economy” and their relationship with capitalists “social partnership”. What they fought for has always been higher wages, better conditions of work, and defending their existing jobs, in short, for their own private and class interests. Occasionally, in the past, in the recent past, and at the present, even their national interest got top priority.

For me, all that means that today and in the near future, we cannot really think of the proletariat as the chief agent of any radical transformation of capitalist society into some kind of a socialist one. For capitalism in the highly industrialized countries of Europe and America is still capable of maintaining a superficially democratic form of governance with many freedoms and a standard of living of averagely skilled workers that is many times higher than that of averagely skilled workers of underdeveloped countries. It is no wonder then that at least in the USA, such workers understand themselves, and are also understood by others, as members of the middle class. They have a strong interest in defending this system.

 Now, if we tell them that in a future eco-socialist society, all, including skilled workers, will have to forgo many of the comforts and privileges that they today take for granted, they will curse us and wish to send us to hell. This has been my experience in Germany. Here, workers and their trade unions have always been the strongest opponents of the ecology movement.

   The proletariat’s political behavior in such countries may change if capitalism there loses the said capability, e.g. in a crisis more severe than anything seen till today, a crisis of whatever origin and kind. But in which direction they will then push society is anyone’s guess. It may be in the revolutionary socialist direction, but it may also be in the direction of fascism.

Crises and Collapse of Capitalism?

Once, between 1929 and 1933, modern capitalist economy faced a severe crisis and stood on the verge of collapse. No society was then transformed into a socialist one. But in one, fascists took over power. Now how probable is such a crisis in our days, or in the foreseeable future?

After Marx’s death, four Marxian or Marxist crisis theories were in circulation. About two of them there has been some doubt as to whether Marx himself propounded them or his followers derived/developed them from his writings. The other two were creations of Marx himself.

The Breakdown theory

In vol. 3 of Capital, in a passage on the process of centralization of capital, Marx wrote: “This process would soon bring about the collapse of capitalist production … .”⁹ But this passage, according to Sweezy, is nothing more than a description of a tendency, since Marx speaks in the same breath about “counteracting tendencies which continually have a decentralizing effect by the side of the centripetal ones” Nowhere else did Sweezy find in Marx’s works “a doctrine of the specifically economic breakdown of capitalist production.” (ibid:192). However, there is another longish passage in Capital, Vol. 3, which is worth noting in this context. Marx writes:

“The true barrier to capitalist production is capital itself. It is that capital and its self-valorization [i.e. getting returns and capital accumulation] appear as the starting and finishing point, as the motive and purpose of production; production is production only for capital, and not the reverse, i.e. the means of production are not simply means for a steadily expanding pattern of life for the society of the producers. The barriers within which the maintenance and valorization of the capital-value has necessarily to move – and this in turn depends on thedispossession and impoverishment of the great mass of the producers – therefore come constantly into contradiction with the methods of production that capital must apply to its purpose and which set its course towards an unlimited expansion of production, to production as an end in itself, to an unrestricted development of the social productive powers of labor. The means … comes into persistent conflict with the restricted end, … . If the capitalist mode of production is therefore a historical means for developing the material powers of production … , it is at the same time the constant contradiction between this historical task and the social relations of production [i.e. capitalist relations among members of society] corresponding to it^9a

    Some Marx scholars think that this key passage in Marx’s writings, which is his quintessential characterization of capitalism, can be interpreted as a theory of ultimate breakdown of the system. It has to be noted that Marx wrote it while presenting and elaborating on his famous Law of the Tendential Fall in the Rate of Profit. It is logically correct, I think, to conclude that if this law is a secular tendency, which Marx insisted it was, then sooner or later the rate of profit will fall to such a low level, that, for most capitalists, it won’t any more be interesting to invest their money in industry – in spite of all the “counteracting forces” that Marx also described.

Another point to be noted here is that Marx enumerated among his counteracting forces “more intense exploitation of labor”, “reduction of wages below their value” (possible because of competition among workers) and generation of “the relative surplus population” (i.e. unemployment). It is logical to conclude from this that Marx had aPauperization Theory, that he thought universal pauperization of the working people would also contribute to the eventual breakdown of capitalism. In the passage quoted above, Marx himself speaks of “dispossession and impoverishment of the great mass of the producers.” And pauperization theory logically leads to an under-consumption theory, which can also be called the (relative) over-production theory 

 I cannot here again discuss these Marxian and/or Marxist theories nor the criticisms thereof.¹⁰ Suffice it to say that the fact that 135 years after Marx’s death, capitalism has not broken down yet, and the fact that, on the contrary, it has now conquered the whole world, and even reconquered the lost territories – the USSR, Eastern Europe, China and Vietnam,^10a – should actually give rise to the conjecture that the famous Law of the Tendential Fall in the Rate of Profit, the basis of all these theories mentioned above, was itself fundamentally flawed. I had this suspicion when I, as a young man, first read about this law. I did not then dare express it. I thought I had not read enough. So I just put a question mark on the margin of the book, and continued to live and work as a socialist with this suspicion in the back of my head.

 But several years later, when I read the late Paul Sweezy’s book on Marxian economics, I found my suspicion confirmed. Sweezy, himself a famous Marxist, had pointed out the flaw as early as in 1942. For lack of space, I cannot here present his (and my) argumentation in detail. Just this:

“Marx was hardly justified, even in terms of his own theoretical system, in assuming a constant rate of surplus value simultaneously with a rising organic composition of capital.”¹¹

    In short, the enormous gains in labor productivity that capitalist production achieved and is today still achieving thanks to automation and the microelectronic revolution have made it possible that, in the industrial countries, large-scale impoverishment is today a thing of the past. At the most, one can today only speak cautiously of relative impoverishment. These huge gains in labor productivity have allowed capital to accept the higher wage demands of workers and enabled the state to be generous to the unemployed and the unemployable. That these gains went hand in hand with losses in the sphere ofecological balance was known, also to Marx and Engels. But that is another matter.

 If and when Marx’s prediction comes true, i.e. capitalism breaks down because of its inner contradictions, and if we, for the sake of argument, ignore the ecological and resource-related crises, then Schumpeter takes over with his theory of creative destruction.¹² That is what happened in the 1930s, and again in 2008ff.

Is the Situation Today Ripe for Socialism? Limits to Growth.

When the great financial crash of 2008 led to the Great Recession and another Great Depression, many Marxist leftists thought this could be the final crisis of capitalism. Others thought Marx was right after all. A renewed interest in reading Capital was observed. Ten years after 2008, I feel like quoting Schumpeter. In 1943, he wrote:

“The capitalist or any other order of things may evidently break down – or economic and social evolution may outgrow it – and yet the socialist phoenix may fail to rise from the ashes.¹³

    The Great Depression of 2008ff did not prove Marx right, but, once more, Bernstein. As during the Great Depression of the 1930s, this time too, the proletariat of the highly industrialized countries failed to deliver. Even those of the worst-hit countries like the USA, Greece, Spain and Italy¹⁴ did not make any move whatsoever to overthrow capitalism. Today, in such countries, capitalism is of course not thriving, but it is also not dead. Marx, it seems, was totally wrong in writing that “the true barrier to capitalist production is capital itself.” Is then capitalism an immortal system?

It may not be so, because in the meantime, a new barrier has been discovered, namelylimits to growth, which, if translated into Marxist jargon, would read limits to accumulation, limits to capitalist production. And these limits are – unlike Marx’s idea that capital itself is the true barrier – not a mere theoretical construct. They are concreteand tangible limits to the carrying capacity of the earth: (1) limits to the availability of cheap renewable and nonrenewable resources needed for industrial production, (2) limits to the capacity of our natural environment to absorb or, alternatively, neutralize pollutants produced by us humans such as CO₂ (the Earth’s sink function), and (3) limits to the number of modern humans that can live on the earth without ruining the ecological balance of its biosphere.

However, they are not only a barrier to capitalist production, but to any kind ofindustrial production, also of the socialist kind. And all environmentally conscious humans, I presume, know of reports by serious scientists that say we have already overshot many of these limits.^14a And journalistic reports show that many of today’s human societies have already collapsed, that many others are fast approaching collapse: Somalia, Central African Republic, Greece, Bolivia, Mexico Venezuela etc.

Prospects for Eco-Socialism

After reading the book Limits to growth (1972) I realized that this discovery was of an import to economics, politics and socio-economic policy comparable to that of the Copernican discovery of the heliocentric movement of the planets. Like the latter, it demanded of us a wholesale paradigm shift, namely from the until then prevailing growth paradigm to what I call the limits-to-growth paradigm.¹⁵ The thought occurred to me that limits to growth may be the real and ultimate barrier that will cause the breakdown of capitalism. It later enabled me to come to a different and better understanding of the causes of the breakdown of the Soviet model of socialism.¹⁶ It meant for me that we must now bid farewell to development of productive forces as well as to economic growth and concentrate our efforts on economic and ecological sustainability, which would requireeconomic contraction in (at least) the highly industrialized countries.

Here I also saw a new kind of necessity and justification for socialism: A socialist society, because it would be egalitarian, would be an ethically better one and hence more desirable. And only such a society, because it would be planned, could guarantee that no person of working age would go without a gainful employment, even in a contracting economy. And only such a socialist society can guarantee that the job an employed person would be doing would also be a socially useful work. Only in such a society would it be possible that working people would accept policies designed for deliberately reducing production and consumption, for saving the earth. This new conception of socialism should be called, I thought, eco-socialism.

Marx and Engels had known a lot about the ecological problems and damages that arise from capitalism (actually from industrialism of any kind). But because they did not see any limits to development of productive forces, they did not take them seriously for their own vision of socialism. Engels expressly wrote:

“… after the mighty advances made by the natural sciences in the present century, we are more than ever in a position to realize and hence to control even the more remote natural consequences of at least our day today production activities.”¹⁷ (emphasis added)

   This defect in their theory was also noted by Ted Benton,¹⁸ a famous Marx scholar, who, in connection with the hostile attitude of Marx and Engels toward Malthus and his law of population, writes of a

“… defect in Marx’s economic thought” … which “derives, rather, from an insufficiently radical critique of the leading exponents of Classical Political Economy. … It is plausible to see this failure as in part due to a mystificatory feature of capitalist economic life itself, but it is also connected with a general, politically understandable, reluctance on the part of Marx and Engels to recognize nature-imposed limits to human potential in general, and to the creation of wealth in particular. …”

“For political reasons, … Marx and Engels were strongly, and understandably,predisposed against ‘natural-limits’ arguments, ….”.(emphases added)

    However much understanding one might have had up to 1972 for this politically motivated attitude of Marx and Engels, today, the Marxist conception of socialism based on stubborn refusal to recognize unpleasant realities must be regarded as obsolete.

 While working on my book on eco-socialism, I was very surprised to find, that Mahatma Gandhi, who was neither known for scholarship nor for scientific thinking, needed only common sense to come, in 1928, to the conclusion for which scholars and scientists needed to wait until 1972. He wrote:

“The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom [Britain] is today keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts.”¹⁹

    Yet, it was Marx from whom I got the clue to the theoretical thought that eco-socialismmight succeed where earlier socialisms based more or less on his and Engels’s theory failed. Marx wrote in his preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:

“No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since … it will always be found that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.”²⁰

    I interpreted the quote as follows: The capitalist social order has not perished yet because until now, there has been enough room in it for all the productive forces to develop. Today, however, this issue is irrelevant. For against the background of the global ecological crisis and rapidly dwindling resources, the global economy, especially the advanced industrial economies, must contract to a sustainable level. That is the task today. Technologically, its solution is easy. There is no need to develop new technologies. But there is a political need to conceive (which is difficult) new relations of productionthat would allow, indeed facilitate, the fulfilment of this task. One such conception is there. It is called eco-socialism. It has already matured as a conception in the womb of existing society.

 At this point comes up the question whether this interpretation of mine is at all in consonance with the original quotation, which expresses one of the main points of the theory of history of Marx and Engels. It is, obviously, not. Marxists have always maintained that private capitalism has become a fetter to the development of productive forces and that the fetter must be shattered. Take, for instance. the following two quotes from Principles of Communism, an early work of Engels:

“It is clear that, up to now, the forces of production have never been developed to the point where enough could be developed [produced?] for all, and that private property [i.e. capitalism] has become a fetter and a barrier in relation to the further development of the forces of production.”

And

“… though big industry [large-scale industry] in its earliest stage created free competition, it has now outgrown free competition; … for big industry, competition and generally the individualistic organization of production have become a fetter which it must and will shatter;”²¹ (emphases added)

But now we are saying the forces of production have developed so much that they have become destructive for the environment as well as for humans; so, today, they must be fettered and thus prevented from developing further.

 I would like to express this inconsonance with Marx and Engels through a beautiful quote from Walter Benjamin, a famous Marxist literary critique of the 1930s, who, in a different critical political situation, wrote:

“Marx says revolutions are the locomotives of world history. But perhaps it is entirely different. Revolutions are perhaps the attempt of humanity travelling in a train to pull the emergency brake.”²²

    Today, only eco-socialism can actively pull the emergency brakes to stop the destructive course of the locomotive of industrialism. For this task, however, the proletariat is not the right agent. Proletarians are trained to and want to drive locomotives, and drive them as fast as possible. Their vision, if it is at all a kind of socialism, iscornucopian socialism. Erich Fromm, the famous social psychologist, who also admired Marx very much, thought that today there are “only two camps: those who care and those who don’t care.”²³ I agree.

Today, humanity has come to a point where Marxist theory of history has reached the end of its tether, and another theory of history takes over, that of Arnold Toynbee.²⁴ Whencollapse of the current civilization stares us in the face, the issue is not whether or how we can farther develop the forces of production, but whether we can meet the variouschallenges we are facing and transform, through contraction, our civilization into asustainable one. I think with eco-socialism that is possible, but not with Marxian/Marxist socialism with its Promethean productivism.

Saral Sarkar was born in 1936 in West Bengal, India. After graduating from the University of Calcutta, he studied German language and literature for five years at the Goethe Institute, in India and Germany. From 1966 to 1981 he taught German as a lecturer at the Goethe Institute, Hyderabad, India. Since 1982 he has been living in Cologne, Germany, where he has been active in the ecology and peace movement, – for a time as a member and local secretary of the Green Party. Between 1997 and 2005, Sarkar was active in the anti-globalization movement. Over the years, he has taken part in many debates and discussions on green, left, and alternative politics, both through speaking and writing in English and German. He gave lectures at many conferences in several European countries, India, China and the USA. He has also published widely in journals of these countries. In the 1980s, the United Nations University commissioned Sarkar to write an authoritative historical study of the Green-alternative Movement in West Germany. The result of this study was published by the United Nations University Press (Tokyo) as a two-volume work – Green-Alternative Politics in West Germany – in 1993 and 1994. Sarkar’s most important work “Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? – A Critical Analysis of Humanity’s Fundamental Choices” has appeared in English, German, Chinese, and (in internet) French. He blogs at
http://eco-socialist.blogspot.com/

Notes and References

1. Marx:Theses on Feuerbach. In Marx-Engels:Selected Works. Vol.1.Moscow 1977. P.15.
2. These were the show trials, in which several top leaders of the CPSU (B), such as
   Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, Bukharin etc. were found guilty of treason, sentenced to death, and subsequently executed.
3. Chattopadhyay, Paresh: “A Brief Note on Subrata Bagchi’s write up “Che Guevara …..”.
   in  Frontier, 14.07.2014. Kolkata. (emphases added)
4. (not used)
5. Marx and Engels:The Holy Family,in Collected Works, Vol. 4. 1975, Moscow. P.37.
6. 6. (not used)
7. Kolakowski, Leszek (1978/81)Die Hauptströmungen des Marxismus.Vol.2. Munich.
   P. 133f. (Tr. SS).
8. Meadows, Donella and Dennis et al.:Limits to Growth – Report to the Club of Rome.
   London.1972.
9. Quoted in Sweezy, Paul M (1942)The Theory of Capitalist Development. New York: P.191.

9a. Marx: Capital Vol.3; translated by Fernbach. Penguin. P. 358f.

10. I have done that in my bookThe Crises of Capitalism. Berkeley, 2012.

10a. See my article on Vietnam’s return to capitalism:
https://eco-socialist.blogspot.com/search?q=Vietnam

11. Sweezy (see note 9), P. 102.
12. See Schumpeter; Joseph Alois (1912/1934)The Theory of Economic Development.
    Cambridge, MA. USA.
13. Schumpeter, Joseph Alois (1943)Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.London. P. 56f.

14. See my essay Understanding the Present-day World Economic Crisis – An 

Eco-Socialist Approach
https://eco-socialist.blogspot.com/search?q=understanding

14a. William Rees has recently published a good summary of the ecological state of the world:
https://countercurrents.org/2018/08/17/what-me-worry-humans-are-blind-to-imminent-environmental-collapse/

15. See Kuhn, Thomas (1962)The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago.
    I used and explained the terms in my book
    Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? – A Critical Analysis of Humanities Fundamental 
    Choices.London (Zed Books). 1999.
16. See Chapter 2 and 3 of my above mentioned book (note 15).
17. Marx & Engels (1976) Selected Works (in 3 Volumes) Vol. 3. Moscow.
18. Benton, Ted: “Marxism and Natural Limits: An Ecological Critique and Reconstruction”, in
    New Left Review, I_178, Nov–Dec. 1989.
19. Gandhi, Mahatma, quoted in
    Bandyopadhyay, Jayanta and Vandana Shiva (1989) “Political Economy of Ecology
    Movements”, inIfda dossier 71, May/June.
20. Marx: Preface toA Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. In
    Marx-Engels:Selected Works, Vol. 1. Moscow. 1977.
21. Engels:Principles of Communism: Quoted from the internet:
    https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm
22. Benjamin, Walter, quoted in
    Fetcher, Iring (1980) Überlebensbedingungen der Menschheit. Munich.P. 8).
23. Fromm, Erich (1979)To Have or to Be. London.P.196.
24. Toynbee, Arnold is the author of the monumental workA Study of History. (I have
    not read the 12 volumes, but some articles on his theory of history.)

There has been a spate of articles recently on the ten year anniversary of the financial collapse. We wrote about this anniversary two weeks ago, describing the cause of the collapse and the reasons why we are still at risk for another one. Now, we look at how the aftermath of the collapse is shaping current politics, people’s views on the economic system and the conflict that lies ahead to create an economy for the 21st Century.

Economic Violence Is Being Waged Worldwide.

The Aftershocks Of The Collapse Are Still Being Felt

Jerome Roos of ROAR Magazine writes that the response to the 2008 crash – bailing out the banks but not the people – led to unrest across the globe, beginning with the Arab Spring, and a growing anti-capitalist sentiment. He goes on to say, “It has recently begun to consolidate itself in the form of vibrant grassroots movements, progressive political formations and explicitly socialist candidacies that collectively seek to challenge the untrammeled power and privileges of the ‘1 percent’ from below.”

The stagnant economy, austerity measures and resulting increased debt have opened a space for people to search for and try out alternative economic structures that are more democratic. They have also created conditions for a rise of nationalism on the right. Roos concludes that the “real confrontation is yet to come.”

In the United States, the economic conditions have revived populist movements on both the right and the left. Gareth Porter explains the Democratic and Republican parties are aware of the great dissatisfaction with their failed policies and know they need to try to appease the public by trying new policies, but they don’t know how.

He points to recent joint papers put out by the Center for American Progress, a Democratic Party think tank, and the American Enterprise Institute, a Republican Party think tank. One from May is called, “Drivers of Authoritarian Populism in the United States,” and the other from July is called, “Partnership in Peril: The Populist Assault on the TransAtlantic Community.” In the papers, rather than present alternative solutions, they attack Jill Stein of the Green Party and Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist.

There is a battle inside the Democratic Party between progressives, some who call themselves socialists, and the dominant business-friendly corporatists. As Miles Kampf-Lessin writes, “An August poll shows that, for the first time since Gallup started asking the question 10 years ago, Democrats now view socialism more favorably than capitalism.”

But the Democratic Party has been deaf to the interests of its constituents for decades. At meetings organized by centrist Democratic Party groups this summer, lacking populist solutions, the best they could come up with was “the center is sexier than you think.” And while a few “progressives” in the Democratic Party won their primaries, they are not receiving support from the party. Instead, the party leaders are throwing their weight behind security state Democrats, who could make up half of newly-elected Democrats this November.

In the Republican Party, Donald Trump’s faux populism has shown itself to be a sham. The Republican Party is unable to handle Trump, who defeated a series of elitist candidates starting with the next heir of the royal Bush family, Jeb. A record number of Republicans have given up and decided not to run for re-election. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan saw the writing on the wall and said he wanted to spend time with his family.

The 2018 election will bring change as Republican control of both Chambers of Congress are at risk, especially the House, but this is unlikely to resolve the crises the country is facing. Democrats are more focused on going after Trump. We can expect a flood of subpoenas investigating all aspects of his administration and business, rather than solutions to the economic and social crises.

From Catholic News USA.

What The People Are Demanding

There is a growing anti-capitalist revolt, especially against the form it has taken in the United States, i.e. neoliberalism that privatizes everything for the profit of a few while cutting essential services for the many.  Anti-capitalism is so widespread that even corporate media outlets like Politico are taking notice, as they did in an article describing what socialism would look like in the United States. And President Obama this week discovered “a great new idea,” Medicare for all.

Of course, there has been a movement for National Improved Medicare for All for decades, and it is now gaining momentum. A new poll found even a majority of Republicans support Medicare for all, as do 85% of Democrats. Out of all of the ‘wealthy’ nations, the United States is ranked at the bottom, only above Greece, when it comes to the percentage of the population that has healthcare coverage. The third poorest country in our hemisphere, Bolivia, announced this week it will provide healthcare for all.

While polls indicate increased support for socialism, in the United States there is a lack of clarity on what that means exactly. Rather than a state socialism, most people are advocating for policy changes that socialize the basic necessities of the people. National Improved Medicare for All is one example.  There is also increased pressure for community-controlled or municipal Internet, taking this critical public service out of the hands of the much-hated for-profit providers.

Other demands include a living wage, free college education and affordable housing. There is also increased advocacy for a universal basic income and for public banks. All of these socialized programs can and do exist in capitalist countries.

From Prout.org

Creating Economic Democracy For The 21st Century

The new economy is still taking shape and will likely result from a process of trying new practices out and gradually replacing current economic institutions with the new ones that gain support. The new institutions will need to be radically different than the current ones, meaning they are rooted in different values, if they are to change the current system.

In Policy Options, Tracy Smith Carrier urges using a human rights framework for the new economy. The human rights principles are universality, equity, transparency, accountability and participation. Rather than charity, which doesn’t solve the problems that brought people into a situation of need, her research team advocates for putting in place a poverty-reduction strategy that targets “the building blocks of society that reproduce poverty.”

This past week, we interviewed economist Emily Kawano of the US Solidarity Economy Network for our podcast, Clearing the FOG. The episode is called “So You Want To End Capitalism, Here’s How.” Like the human rights framework, the solidarity economy is built on a set of principles: democracy, cooperation, equity, anti-oppression, sustainability and pluralism. Kawano describes the formation of the solidarity economy using the analogy of a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly – the various pieces of the economy are forming and finding each other and may eventually coalesce into a new system composed of old and new elements.

This week on Clearing the FOG, we will publish an interview with Nathan Schneider, author of “Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that is Shaping the New Economy.” Schneider acknowledges that his generation is the first one that will fare worse than its predecessors. Out of necessity, people are creating more democratic economic structures. The Internet is a helpful tool in the process, particularly in creating ‘platform cooperatives.’

The economy needs to move from concentrated wealth to shared economic prosperity. In addition to requiring specific changes in policy that lead to greater socialization of the economy, systemic changes will be needed to establish a cooperative and egalitarian economy. Without far-reaching changes to the structure of the state, they are highly unlikely to succeed.

There will be another economic crisis in the near future which will present opportunities for rapid transformational change, if the movement is organized to demand it. JP Morgan issued a report on the tenth anniversary of the collapse warning of another collapse and mass social unrest like the US has not seen in 50 years. It is up to us now to prepare for that moment by developing our vision for the future and working out the types of institutions that will bring it about. The other option, if we are not prepared, could bring fascism and greater repression.

As Jerome Roos concludes, “…the political fallout of the global financial crisis is only just getting started. The real confrontation, it seems, is yet to come.”

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers are directors of Popular Resistance

 I’m sitting at the splendid building of the Singapore National Library, in a semi-dark room, microfilm inserted into a high-tech machine. I’m watching and then filming and photographing several old Malaysian newspapers dating back from October 1965.

These reports were published right after the horrible 1965 military coup in Indonesia, which basically overthrew the progressive President Sukarno and liquidated then the third largest Communist party on Earth, PKI (PartaiKomunis Indonesia). Between one and three million Indonesian people lost their lives in some of the most horrifying massacres of the 20^th century. From a socialist (and soon to be Communist) country, Indonesia descended into the present pits of turbo-capitalist, as well as religious and extreme right-wing gaga.

The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Holland and several other Western nations, directly sponsored the coup, while directing both the pro-Western treasonous factions in the military, as well as the religious leaders who stood, from the start, at the forefront of the genocide.

All this information is, of course, widely available in the de-classified archives of both the CIA and U.S. State Department. It can be accessed, analyzed and reproduced. I personally made a film about the events, and so have several other directors.

But it isn’t part of the memory of humanity. In Southeast Asia, it is known only to a handful of intellectuals.

In Malaysia, Singapore or Thailand, the Indonesian post-1965 fascism is a taboo topic. It is simply not discussed. “Progressive” intellectuals here are, like in all other ‘client’ states of the West, paid to be preoccupied with their sex orientation, with gender issues and personal ‘freedoms’, but definitely not with the essential matters (Western imperialism, neo-colonialism, the savage and grotesque forms of capitalism, the plunder of local natural resources and environment, as well as disinformation, plus the forcefully injected ignorance that is accompanied by mass amnesia) that have been shaping so extremely and so negatively this part of the world.

In Indonesia itself, the Communist Party is banned and the general public sees it as a culprit, not as a victim.

The West is laughing behind the back of its brainwashed victims. It is laughing all the way to the bank.

Lies are obviously paying off.

No other part of the world has suffered from Western imperialism as much after WWII, as Southeast Asiadid, perhaps with two exceptions, those of Africa and the Middle East.

In so-called Indochina, the West murdered close to ten million people, during the indiscriminate bombing campaigns and other forms of terror – in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The above mentioned Indonesian coup took at least 1 million human lives. 30% of the population of East Timor was exterminated by the Indonesian occupation, which was fully supported by the West. The Thai regime, fully subservient to the West, killed indiscriminately its leftists in the north and in the capital.The entire region has been suffering from extreme religious implants, sponsored by the West itself, and by its allies from the Gulf.

But the West is admired here, with an almost religious zeal.

The U.S., British and French press agencies and ‘cultural centers’ are spreading disinformation through local media outlets owned by subservient ‘elites’. Local ‘education’ has been devotedly shaped by Western didactic concepts. In places like Malaysia, Indonesia, but also Thailand, the greatest achievement is to graduate from university in one of the countries that used to colonize this part of the world.

Victim countries, instead of seeking compensation in courts, are actually admiring and plagiarizing the West, while pursuing, even begging for funding from their past and present tormentors.

Southeast Asia, now obedient, submissive, phlegmatic and stripped off the former revolutionary left-wing ideologies, is where the Western indoctrination and propaganda scored unquestionable victory.

*

The same day, I turned on the television set in my hotel room, and watched the Western coverage of the situation in Idlib, the last stronghold of the Western-sponsored terrorists on Syrian territory.

Russia has called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting warning that the terrorists might stage a chemical attack, and then blame it, together with the West, on the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.

NATO battleships have been deployed to the region. There can be no doubt – it has been a ‘good old’ European/North American scenario at work, once again: ‘We hit you, kill your people, and then bomb you as a punishment’.

Imperialist gangsters then point accusative fingers at the victims (in this case Syria) and at those who are trying to protect them (Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, China). Just like in a kindergarten, or a primary school; remember? A boy hits someone from behind and then screams, pointing at someone else: “It was him, it was him!” Miraculously, until now, the West has always gotten away with this ‘strategy’, of course, at the cost of billions of victims, on all continents.

That is how it used to be for centuries, and that is how it still works. That is how it will continue to be, until such terror and gangsterism is stopped.

*

For years and decades, we were told that the world is now increasingly inter-connected, that nothing of great importance could happen, without it being immediately spotted and reported by vigilant media lenses, and ‘civil society’.

Yet, thousands of things are happening and no one is noticing.

Just in the last two decades, entire countries have been singled-out by North America and Europe, then half-starved to death through embargos and sanctions, before being finally attacked and broken to pieces: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya to mention just a few. Governments of several left-wing nations have been overthrown either from outside, or through their own, local, servile elites and media; among them Brazil, Honduras and Paraguay. Countless Western companies and their local cohorts are committing the unbridled plunder of natural resources in such places as Borneo/Kalimantan or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), totally ruining tropical forests while murdering hundreds of species.

Are we, as a planet, really inter-connected? How much do people know about each other, or about what is done to their brothers and sisters on different continents?

I have worked in some 160 countries, and I can testify without the slightest hesitation: ‘Almost nothing’. And: ‘Less and much less!’

The Western empire and its lies,has managed to fragment the world to previously unknown extremes. It is all done ‘in the open’, in full view of the world, which is somehow unable to see and identify the most urgent threats to its survival. Mass media propaganda outlets are serving as vehicles of indoctrination, so do cultural and ‘educational’ institutions of the West or those local ones shaped by the Western concepts. That includes such diverse ‘tools’ as universities, Internet traffic manipulators, censors and self-censored individuals, social media, advertisement agencies and pop culture ‘artists’.

*

There is a clear pattern to Western colonialist and neo-colonialist barbarity and lies:

‘Indonesian President Sukarno and his closest ally the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) were trying to build a progressive and self-sufficient country. Therefore, they had to be stopped, government overthrown, party members massacred, PKI itself banned and the entire country privatized; sold to foreign interests. The overwhelming majority of Indonesians are so brainwashed by the local and Western propaganda that they still blame the Communists for the 1965 coup, no matter what the CIA archives say.’

Mossadegh of Iran was on the same, progressive course. And he ended up the same way as Sukarno. And the whole world was then charmed by the butcher, who was put to power by the West – the Shah and his lavish wife.

Chile in 1973, and thereafter, the same deadly pattern occurred, more evidence of how freedom-loving and democratic the West is.

Patrice Lumumba of Congo nationalized natural resources and tried to feed and educate his great nation. Result? Overthrown, killed. The price: some 8 million people massacred in the last two decades, or maybe many more than that (see my film: Rwanda Gambit). Nobody knows, or everyone pretends that they don’t know.

Syria! The biggest ‘crime’ of this country, at least in the eyes of the West, consisted of trying to provide its citizens with high quality of life, while promoting Pan-Arabism. The results we all know (or do we, really?): hundreds of thousands killed by West-sponsored murderous extremists, millions exiled and millions internally displaced. And the West, naturally, is blaming Syrian President, and is ready to ‘punish him’ if he wins the war.

Irrational? But can global-scale fascism ever be rational?

The lies that are being spread by the West are piling up. They overlap, often contradict one another. But the world public is not trained to search for the truth, anymore. Subconsciously it senses that it is being lied to, but the truth is so horrifying, that the great majority of people prefer to simply take selfies, analyze and parade its sexual orientation, stick earphones into its ears and listen to empty pop music, instead of fighting for the survival of humanity.

I wrote entire books on this topic, including the near 1,000-page: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”.

This essay is just a series of thoughts that came to my mind, while I was sitting at a projector in a dark room of the Singapore National Library.

A rhetorical question kept materializing: “Can all this be happening?” “Can the West get away with all these crimes it has been committing for centuries, all over the world?”

The answer was clear: ‘But of course,as long as it is not stopped!”

And so, A luta continua!

Co-Written by James Hansen and Makiko Sato

Maps below show the temperature anomaly for the past three months and the seasonal mean (Northern Hemisphere Summer). We draw attention to the cool region southeast of Greenland and warmth in the middle of the North Atlantic.

Wally Broecker suggested decades ago that freshwater injection onto the North Atlantic could cause shutdown of the overturning ocean circulation (AMOC, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation). Rahmstorf et al. (2015)[1] present evidence that a 20th century trend toward the cooling southeast of Greenland was due to a slowdown of AMOC, linking the trend to observed freshening of the North Atlantic surface water that may have been due to some combination of anomalous sea ice export from the Arctic, Greenland melt, and increased precipitation and river runoff.

In our paper on ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms[2] we conclude from multiple lines of evidence that a 21st century slowdown of AMOC is underway. Ocean surface temperature response to AMOC slowdown, in addition to cooling southeast of Greenland, includes warming off the U.S. East Coast, a temperature pattern emerging from high ocean resolution simulations (Saba et al., 2015)[3].

So, does global warming have a hand in the magnitude of the Hurricane Florence disaster on the U.S. East Coast? Yes, we can say with confidence, it contributes in several ways.

First, there is the fact that sea level rise due to global warming is already well over a foot along the U.S. East Coast. Ice melt due to global warming accounts for about 20 cm (8 inches) global average sea level rise (Fig. 29 in our Ice Melt paper[2]). Slowdown of the Gulf Stream, which is a part of the AMOC slowdown, adds to East Coast sea level. The slowdown reduces the west-to-east upward slope of the ocean surface across the Gulf Stream[4], causing piling up of water on the East Coast. The combined sea level rise from these effects, which is also responsible for “sunny day flooding” on the Eastern Seaboard, makes hurricane storm surges greater.

Figure 1. Surface temperature anomalies for the past three months.

Second, the warmer ocean surface and atmosphere result in greater rainfall amounts. Of course the primary reason for extraordinary rainfall amounts from Florence was the storm’s slow movement.

Third, warmer ocean surface provides more fuel for tropical storms and expands the ocean area able to generate and maintain these storms. Part of a given hurricane’s strength can be attributed to such extra warming of the ocean surface. That effect was pronounced in the case of Hurricane Sandy, which maintained hurricane wind speeds all the way to New York City because of the unusually warm sea surface off the United States East Coast.

What about the track of Florence and the fact that it stalled, resulting in huge local rainfall totals? The track and speed of a given hurricane depend on large scale mid-latitude weather patterns that are largely a matter of chance. As the area in which “tropical” storms can form expands poleward, the opportunity for a mid-latitude high pressure system to push a storm westward may increase, but we are unaware of specific studies. What we can say is that historical hurricane tracks may not be an accurate picture of future tracks.

The number of hurricanes striking the continental U.S. does not show a notable trend (Fig. 2). Indeed, the current decade has only the rest of this year and next year to add to its total to avoid being the decade with the smallest number of hurricanes hitting the continental United States. This small reduction in landfalls seems to be a matter of chance[5]. Damage per hurricane is more important. Global warming already has a large impact on damage for reasons given above. Those impacts, especially those arising from increasing sea level, may accelerate exponentially, if high fossil fuel emissions continue[2].

Fig. 2. The three category 5 hurricanes to strike the U.S. were: Labor Day (Sept. 1935, SW FL, 892 hPa, 184 mph), Camille (Aug 1969, LA & MS, 909 hPa), Andrew (Aug 1992, SE FL, 922 hPa, 167 mph); source: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html

[1] Rahmstorf, S., J. E. Box, G. Feulner, M.E. Mann, A. Robinson, S. Rutherford, and E.J. Schaffernicht: Exceptional twentieth-century slowdown in Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation, Nature Clim. Change, 23 March 2015, 10.1038/nclimate2554.

[2] Hansen, J., M. Sato, P. Hearty, R. Ruedy, M. Kelley, V. Masson-Delmotte, G. Russell, G. Tselioudis, J. Cao, E. Rignot, I. Velicogna, B. Tormey, B. Donovan, E. Kandiano, K. von Schuckemann, P. Kharecha, A.N. Legrande, M. Bauer, and K.-W. Lo: Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms:/ evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations
that 2 C global warming could be dangerous Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 3761-3812. doi:10.5194/acp-16-3761-2016.

[3] Saba, V.S., Griffies, S.M., Anderson, W.G., Winton, M., Alexander, M.A., Delworth, T.L., Hare, J.A., Harrison, M.J., Rosati, A., Vecchi, G.A., and Zhang, R.: Enhanced warming of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean under climate change, J. Geophys. Res., 120, doi:10.1002/2015JC011346, 2015.

[4] Ezeer, T. and L. P. Atkinson: Accelerated flooding along the U.S. East Coast: On the impact of sea-level rise, tides, storms, the Gulf Stream, and the North Atlantic Oscillations, Earth’s Future, 2, 362-382, 2014.

[5] Hall, T. and E. Yonekura: North American tropical cyclone landfall and SST: a statistical model study, J. Climate, 26, 8422-8439, 2013.

James Hansen and Makiko Sato are climate scientists

This Communication is also our Monthly Temperature Update for August 2018. Monthly temperature updates are available from either web page (Hansen or Sato) or directly at http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/Emails/.

Professor Petras is of course right, the United States is currently engaged in seven bloody wars around the globe (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya) and has not been winning one, including WWII. The question is: Why is that?

To these wars, you may want to add the totally destructive and human rights adverse war that literally slaughters unarmed civilians, including thousands of children, in an open-air prison, Gaza, the US proxy war on Palestine, carried out by Israel; plus, warmongering on Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. Let alone the new style wars – the trade wars with China, Europe, and to some extent, Mexico and Canada, as well as the war of sanctions, starting with Russia and reaching around the world – the fiefdom of economic wars also illegal by any book of international economics.

Other wars and conflicts, that were never intended to be won, include the dismantlement of Yugoslavia by the Clinton / NATO wars of the 1990s, the so-called Balkanization of Yugoslavia, ‘Balkanization’, a term now used for other empire-led partitions in the world, à la “divide to conquer”. Many of the former Yugoslav Republics are still not at peace internally and among each other. President Tito, a Maoist socialist leader was able to keep the country peacefully together and make out of Yugoslavia one of the most prosperous countries in Europe in the seventies and 1980s. How could this be allowed, socioeconomic wellbeing in a socialist country? – Never. It had to be destroyed. At the same time NATO forces advanced their bases closer to Moscow. But no war was won. Conflicts are still ongoing, “justifying” the presence of NATO, for European and US “national security”.

Then, let’s not forget the various Central American conflicts, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, the 8-year Iraq – Iran war – and many more, have created havoc and disorder, and foremost killed millions of people and weakened the countries affected. They put the population into misery and constant fear – and they keep requiring weapons to maintain internal hostilities, warfare and terror to this day.

All of these wars are totally unlawful and prohibited by any international standards of law. But the special and exceptional nation doesn’t observe them. President Trump’s bully National security Advisor, John Bolton, recently threatened the ICC and its judges with ‘sanctions’ in case the dare prosecution of Israeli and American war criminals. And the world doesn’t seem to care, and, instead, accepts the bully’s rule, afraid of the constant saber-rattling and threats being thrown out at the resisters of this world. Even the United Nations, including the 15-member Security Council, is afraid to stand up to the bully – 191 countries against 2 (US and Israel) is a no go?

None of these wars, hot wars or cold wars, has ever been won. Nor were they intended to be won. And there are no signs that future US-led wars will ever be won; irrespective of the trillions of dollars spent on them, and irrespective of the trillions to come in the future to maintain these wars and to start new ones. If we, the 191 UN member nations allow these wars to continue, that is. – Again, why is that?

The answer is simple. It is not in the interest of the United States to win any wars. The reasons are several. A won war theoretically brings peace, meaning no more weapons, no more fighting, no more destruction, no more terror and fear, no more insane profits for the war industry – but foremost, a country at peace is more difficult to manipulate and starve into submission than a country maintained at a level of constant conflict – conflict that not even a regime change will end, as we are seeing in so many cases around the world. Case in point, one of the latest ones being the Ukraine, after the US-NATO-EU instigated February 2014 Maidan coup, prepared with a long hand, in Victoria Nuland’s word, then Assistant Secretary of State, we spent more than 5 years and 5 billion dollars to bring about a regime change and democracy to the Ukraine.

Today, there is a “civil war” waging in eastern Ukraine, the Russian leaning Donbass area (about 90% Russian speaking and 75% Russian nationals), fueled by the ‘new’ Washington installed Poroshenko Nazi government. Thousands were killed, literally in cold blood by the US military-advised and assisted Kiev army, and an estimated more than 2 million fled to Russia. The total Ukraine population is about 44 million (2018 est.), with a landmass of about 604,000 km2, of which the Donbass area (Donetsk Province) is the most densely populated, counting for about 10% of population and about 27,000 km2.

Could this Kiev war of aggression end? – Yes, if the West would let go of the Donbass area which in any case will never submit to the Kiev regime and which has already requested to be incorporated into Russia. It would instantly stop the killing, the misery and destruction by western powers driven Nazi Kiev. But that’s not in the interest of the west, NATO, EU and especially not Washington – chaos and despair make for easy manipulation of people, for exploitation of this immensely rich country, both in agricultural potential – Ukraine used to be called the bread basket of Russia – and in natural resources in the ground; and for steadily advancing closer to the doorsteps of Moscow. That’s the intention.

In fact, Washington and its western EU vassal allies are relentlessly accusing Russia for meddling in the Ukraine, in not adhering to the Minsk accords. They are ‘sanctioning’ Russia for not respecting the Minsk Protocol (Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany agreed on 11 February 2015 to a package of measures to alleviate the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine), when in fact, the complete opposite is true. The west disregards the key points of the accord – no interference. But western propaganda and deceit-media brainwash western populations into believing in the Russian evil. The only ones meddling and supplying Kiev’s Nazi Regime with weapons and “military advisors” is the west.

The going strategy is lie-propaganda, so the western public, totally embalmed with western falsehoods, believes it is always Russia. Russians, led by President Putin, are the bad guys. The media war is part of the west’s war on Russia. The idea is, never let go of an ongoing conflict – no matter the cost in lives and in money. It’s so easy. Why isn’t that addressed in many analyses that still pretend the US is losing wars instead of winning them? – Its 101 of western geopolitics.

For those who don’t know, the US State Department has clearly exposed it’s plans to guarantee world primacy to the Senate’s Foreign Relations Commission. Assistant Secretary of State, Wess Mitchell, has declared that the United States is punishing Russia, because Moscow is impeding Washington from establishing supremacy over the world. It gets as blunt as that. The US openly recognizes the reason for their fight against Russia, and that Washington would not accept anything less than a full capitulation.

The full supremacy over the world is not possible without controlling the entire landmass of Eurasia – which for now they, the US, does not dominate. Mitchell added, contrary to optimistic hypothesis of earlier administrations, Russia and China are the most serious contenders to impede materially and ideologically the supremacy of the United States in the 21^st Century, in a reference to the PNAC, Plan for a New American Century.

Then Mitchell launched a bomb, “It is always of primordial interest for the United States’ national security to impede the domination of the Eurasian landmass by hostile powers.” – This clearly means that the United States will shy away from nothing in the pursuit of this goal – meaning an outright war – nuclear or other – massive killing and total destruction – to reach that goal. This explains the myriad false accusations, ranging from outright insults at the UN by a lunatic Nikki Haley, the never-ending saga of the Skripal poisoning, to Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections – and whatever else suits the political circumstances to bash Russia. And these fabricated lies come mostly from Washington and London – and the rest of the western vassals just follows.

“War is hugely profitable. It creates so much money because it’s so easy to spend money very fast. There are huge fortunes to be made. So, there is always an encouragement to promote war and keep it going, to make sure that we identify people who are ‘others’ whom we can legitimately make war upon.” Roger Waters, Co-founder of the rock band Pink Floyd

Russia today is attacked by economic and trade “sanctions”, by travel bans, by confiscated assets they have in the west. The Cold War which propagated the Soviet Union as an invasive threat to the world, was a flagrant and absolute lie from A to Z. It forced the Soviet Union, thrown into abject poverty by saving the west from Hitler during WWII – yes, it was the Soviet Union, not the US of A and her western ‘allies’ that defeated Hitler’s army – losing between 25 and 30 million people! – Imagine! – by saving Europe, the Soviet Union became unimaginably devastated and poor.

The US propaganda created the concept of the Iron Curtain which basically forbade the west to see behind this imaginary shield to find out what the USSR really was after WWII – made destitute to the bones by the second World War. Yet this Cold War and Iron Curtain propaganda managed to make the western world believe that it is under a vital threat of a USSR invasion day-in-day-out, and that Europe with NATO must be ready to fend off any imaginary attack from the Soviet Union. It forced the Soviet Union to using all her workers’ accumulated capital to arm themselves, to be able to defend themselves from any possible western aggression, instead of using these economic resources to rebuild their country, their economy, their social systems. That’s the west – the lying, utterly and constantly deceiving west. Wake up, people!!!

Here you have it, confirmed by Wess Mitchell. The US would rather pull the rest of the world with it into a bottomless and an apocalyptic abyss with its sheer military power, than to lose and not reaching her goal. That’s the unforgiving ruling of the deep state, those that have been pulling the strings behind every US president for the last 200 years. – Unless the new alliances of the East – i.e. the SCO, BRICS, Eurasian Economic Union – half the world’s population and a third of the globes economic output – are able to subdue the United States economically, we may as well we doomed.

As the seven present ongoing wars speak for themselves, chaos – no end in sight and intended – allow me to go back to a few other wars that were not won, on purpose, of course. Let’s look again at WWII and its sister wars, economic wars and conflicts. Planning of WWII started soon after the Great Depression of 1928 to 1933 – and beyond. Hitler was a ‘convenient’ stooge. War is not only hugely profitable, but it boosts and sustains the economy of just about every sector. And the major objective for the US then was eliminating the Bolshevik communist threat, the Soviet Union. Today its demonizing President Putin and, if possible, bring about regime change in Russia. That’s on top of Washington’s wish list.

In the midst of the Great Depression, in 1931, the US created the Bank for International Settlement in Basel, Switzerland, conveniently located at the border to Germany. The BIS, totally privately owned and controlled by the Rothchild clan, was officially intended for settling war compensation payments by Germany. Though, unknown to most people, Germany has paid almost no compensation for either WWI and WWII. Most of the debt was simply forgiven. Germany was an important player in Washington’s attempt to eliminating the “communist curse” of the USSR. The BIS was used by the FED via Wall Street banks to finance Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union.

As usual, the US was dancing on two weddings: Pretending to fight Hitler’s Germany, but really supporting Hitler against Moscow. Sounds familiar? – Pretending to fight ISIS and other terrorists in the Middle East and around the world, but in reality, having been instrumental in creating, training, funding and arming the terror jihadists. When WWII was won by the Soviet army at a huge human sacrifice, the US, her allies and NATO marched in – shouting victory. And to this day these are the lessons taught in western schools, by western history books, largely ignoring the tremendous credit attributable to the Soviet Union, to the Russian people.

And since the USSR was not defeated, the Cold War had to be invented – and eventually with the help of Washington stooges, Michael Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, the west brought down the Soviet Union – preparing the way for a unipolar world. This grandiose goal of the exceptional nation was however – and very fortunately – stopped in its slippery tracks by the ascent of Russian President Putin.

But that’s not all. For dominating Russia, Europe had to be ‘colonized’ – made into a “European Union” (EU) that was never meant to be a real union, as in the United States of America. The idea of a European Union was first planted shortly after WWII by the CIA, then taken over by the Club of Rome – and promoted through numerous conventions all the way to the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. The next logical step was to give the EU a Constitution, to make the EU into a consolidated Federation of European States, with common economic, defense and foreign relations strategies. But this was never to be.

The former French President, Giscard d’Estaing (1974 – 1981), was given the task to lead the drafting of an EU Constitution. He had strict instructions, though unknown to most, to prepare a document that would not be ratified by member states, as it would have bluntly transferred most of the EU nations sovereignty to Brussels. And so, the constitution was rejected, starting by France. Most countries didn’t even vote on the Constitution. And so, a federation of a United Europe didn’t happen. That would have been an unbeatable competition to the US, economically and militarily. NATO was eventually to take the role of unifying Europe – under the control of Washington. Today, the EU is ever more integrated into NATO.

What happened in parallel to the construct of a (non) European Union, was the European financial and economic colonization or enslavement, through the Bretton Woods Agreements in 1944. They created the World Bank, to manage the Marshall Plan, the US-sponsored European reconstruction fund, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to monitor and regulate the gold standard (US$ 35 / Troy Ounce), vis-à-vis the so-called convertible mostly European currencies. In fact, the Marshall Plan, denominated in US-dollars, was the first step towards a common European currency, prompted by the Nixon Administration’s exiting the gold standard in 1971, eventually leading to the Euro, a fiat currency created according to the image of the US dollar. The Euro, the little brother of the US fiat dollar, thus, became a currency, with which the European economic, financial and monetary policies are being manipulated by outside forces, i.e. the FED and Wall Street. The current President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, is a former Goldman Sachs executive.

These are wars, albeit the latter ones, economic wars, being constantly waged, but not won. They create chaos, illusions, believes in lies, manipulating and mobilizing people into the direction the masters of and behind Washington want them to move. These are the same masters that have been in control of the west for the last 200 years; and unknown to the vast majority of the western population, these masters are a small group of banking and financial clans that control the western monetary system, as we know it today. It was brought into existence in 1913, by the Federal Reserve Act. These masters control the FED, Wall Street and the BIS – also called the central banks of central banks, as it – the BIS – controls all but a handful of the world’s central banks.

This fiat financial system is debt-funding wars, conflicts and proxy hostilities around the world. Debt that is largely carried in the form of US treasury bills as other countries’ reserves. The continuation of wars is crucial for the system’s survival. It’s hugely profitable. If a war was won, peace would break out – no war industry profit there, no debt-rent for banks from peace. Wars must go on – and the exceptional nation may prevail, with the world’s largest military-security budget, the deadliest weapons and a national debt, called ‘unmet obligations’ by the US General Accounting Office (GAO) – of about 150 trillion dollars – about seven and a half times the US GDP. We are living in the west in a pyramid monetary fraud – that only wars can sustain, until – yes, until, a different, honest system, based on real economic and peaceful output, will gradually replace the dollar’s hegemony and its role as a world reserve currency. It’s happening as these lines go to print. Eastern economies, like the Chinese, with China’s gold-convertible Yuan, and a national debt of only about 40% of GDP, is gradually taking over the international reserve role of the US dollar.

The US of A, therefore, will do whatever she can to continue, demonizing Russia and China, provoke them into a hot war, because dominating, and outright ‘owning’ the Eurasian landmass is the ultimate objective of the killer Empire.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

We need new societal patterns. Likewise, people with limited financial means can’t take care of all tragedies. We have our own ongoing in MA right now with recent gas explosions and fires as this picture of a house shows..

Kerala, India has a giant torment with almost two million people displaced and hundreds dead due to a monsoon. Who knows if and when the region can rebuild?

Philippines is currently under assault from having had a typhoon and many of the people there are more poor than the financially poorest in our US southern states. One can assume that many will starve or die from dysentery from a bad water supply after the storm.

How about the US VI and Puerto Rico being still inundated and inadequately helped? What a mess!

Kerala Floods, Development And Fossil Fuels

‘Bigger, Stronger, and More Dangerous’ Than Florence, Super Typhoon Mangkhut Strikes the Philippines – Jessica Corbett

You want to see about what it is like to clean up a shell of a home? I do know. I do know. It is seared into my memory. So nobody needs to pull my heartstrings with tragedies that other face:

The Times Ahead: Catastrophes, Resource Conflicts And Cooperation

Of course, it is great to help people inundated by troubles. No one in his right mind can dispute that.

It is better still to teach them new ways to go forward, although not to dismiss aid as needed. Definitely, this former action is needed in dire times to come as is the latter counterpart of providing help. … Transition Town models are needed. So we all need to move onward past our current economic and banking models that cause these problems, okay? … We need to stop only cleaning up the messes that our human ways create. We desperately need new ways for going forward presented rather than just hand wringing after the fact of some new tragedy grabbing attention..

A population bottleneck or genetic bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events (such as earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, or droughts) or human activities (such as genocide). Such events can reduce the variation in the gene pool of a population; thereafter, a smaller population … – From Population bottleneck – Wikipedia

We here in MA should ignore our own people and favor ones way south of us in the USA or in other regions of the world when our resources — financial and other kinds — are stretched thin? What is a viable answer? Help other regions or help ourselves since we can’t handle it all?

Right now, we people in  MA still have our horrible gas problems, along with people displaced from homes and businesses in several communities. We also have flooding from Hurricane Florence and another (the sixth in recent months) of tornado warnings while knowing that even one a year is rare in this region … or use to be so until now.

All considered …

Let’s take Charlie’s foot off the gas and stop accelerating climate change
in Climate Change — by Rob Moir

I once taught elementary science in Andover, Massachusetts, and raised my family there. So my heart goes out to all the people suffering from at least 39 house fires and explosions in South Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover. An eighteen-year-old was killed sitting in his van when natural gas exploded a house and the brick chimney toppled on to it. At least eighteen people were injured, likely many more. Given the massive destruction of epic proportions, it is miraculous more people were not killed.

Yes, we need to get off of the fossil fuel merry-go-round. Are people going to take this task on in more than a tepid fashion or just give bandages when each new disaster strikes in the USA and other lands?

I  am truly sorry for our southern-east states in the USA suffering from Florence. I am equally so for other regions of the world, but we have to each concentrate our efforts on our own region’s suffering from climate change related problems and other types originating from our high energy usage. It’s just the way that it is.

I am well versed in the ways to do fix-up from devastation. You borrow a beat-up small truck from neighbors, Trudy and Mel. You straddle the giant holes in the floor while driving it. You use their king sized bed-sheet to scrape and shovel glass, nails, shards of wood and contaminated cloth debris onto it to dump in the back of the truck. You stay in another friend’s home and move their furniture out of the way since parts of the roof leak like a sieve and you want to minimize damage. You use a ladle to dip into one of your cisterns at your former home site when thirsty. They are still left intact, although plumbing is not.

You work and work day after day while crying on and off at the devastation. No electricity of course. No money coming for your aid. So you just make do, There is no alternative.

Certainly I am glad for the dilapidated truck, sheet and ladle for water. I am happy for the dried foods that neighbors gave to keep me strong as I worked

Here is that which is left of the home. It was a piece of a pillar. It had three of three inch heavy steel  rebars running through it down to a yard beneath the pillar serving as a house foundation — one of many of which all toppled over on their sides… This reminant is around two and a half inches by almost an inch, I took it home state-side since my father painted it and designed it.

Especially the elderly people and those infirm in mind need help in facing horrors.  With resolve and hard work, the rest of us can muddle through tragedy or, in my case since I am not emotionally over the ordeal, Perhaps one never fully recovers, but sometimes with the help of neighbors like Trudy and Mel, one does get on by.

An email that I received this message from Molly Diggins Director, North Carolina Chapter of the environmental group. the Sierra Club

Hurricane Florence is devastating communities. Please Help.

Where is the world economy heading? In my opinion, a large portion of the story that we usually hear about how the world economy operates and the role energy plays is not really correct. In this post (to be continued in Part 2 in the near future), I explain how some of the major elements of the world economy seem to function. I also point out some relationships that tend to make the world’s economic condition more fragile.

Trying to explain the situation a bit further, the economy is a networked system. It doesn’t behave the way nearly everyone expects it to behave. Many people believe that any energy problem will be signaled by high prices. A look at history shows that this is not really the case: fighting and conflict are also likely outcomes. In fact, rising tariffs are a sign of energy problems.

The underlying energy problem represents a conflict between supply and demand, but not in the way most people expect. The world needs rising demand to support the rising cost of energy products, but this rising demand is, in fact, very difficult to produce. The way that this rising demand is normally produced is by adding increasing amounts of debt, at ever-lower interest rates. At some point, the debt bubble created to provide the necessary  demand becomes overstretched. Now, we seem to be reaching a situation where the debt bubble may pop, at least in some parts of the world. This is a very concerning situation.

Context. The presentation discussed in this post was given to the Casualty Actuaries of the Southeast. (I am a casualty actuary myself, living in the Southeast.) The attendees tended to be quite young, and they tended not to be very aware of energy issues. I was trying to “bring them up to speed.” This is a link to the presentation:  The World’s Fragile Economic Condition.

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This post covers only Items 1, 2, and 3 from the Outline in Slide 2. I will save Items 3 through 6 for a post called “The World’s Fragile Economic Condition-Part 2.”

The audience was able to guess that the situation for humans and the economy are parallel. Energy in some sense powers the economy, in a way similar to how food powers humans.

On Slide 5, I am pointing out that changes in the red line, denoting energy consumption growth, tend to come before the corresponding changes in the blue line. This is one way of confirming that energy consumption causes GDP growth, rather than vice versa.

In recent years, countries have found ways of creating GDP growth, without adding true value. This may explain why GDP growth is higher than Energy growth since 2013 on Slide 5. As an example of GDP growth with overstated value, a large share of young people are now being encourage to purchase advanced education, at considerable cost. This would make sense, if there were suitable high-paying jobs for all of those graduating. It is questionable whether this is the case.

Of course, the issue is not only energy consumption, just as our health is influenced by more than simply what food we eat.

At one time, the emphasis in physics was on systems that are “closed” from an energy point of view. Such systems never grow; they simply decline toward “heat death.”

The real world is made up of many structures that grow and change over time. This growth and ability to change is possible because the energy system we live in is thermodynamically “open,” thanks to flows of energy from the sun, and thanks to fossil fuel energy, which represents stored solar energy from long ago.

The answers to the questions on Slide 8 are easy to guess.

The economy adds new businesses, as citizens see new needs and set up companies to meet those needs. Customers make choices regarding which goods and services to buy, based on their income (primarily wages) and the prices of available goods and services. Governments gradually add new laws, including changes to the way taxes are assessed. The system gradually grows and changes, as the population grows, and as the quantity of goods and services created to meet the needs of that population increases.

One thing to note is that the goods and services produced by the system will eventually be divided among the various players in the system. If one group gets more (say, those receiving interest income), then other groups will necessarily receive less.

Another important point to note is that as new products are added, old ones disappear. For example, once cars came into use, we lost the ability to go back to horses and buggies. There are no longer enough horses; there are no longer facilities to “park” the horses in downtown areas, while at work or shopping; and there are no longer services to clean up after the mess that the horses make.

Without being able to go backward, the system is quite brittle. It would appear that under sufficiently adverse conditions, the entire system could collapse. In fact, we know that many ancient civilizations did collapse, when conditions weren’t right.

The strange interconnections of a networked system make the world economy behave in a different way than we might initially expect. Later in this presentation (in Part 2 of the write-up), I will show some examples of inadequate energy supplies leading to very different results than high prices.

The Limits to Growth model looked at how long resources might last, before the growth of the world economy came to a halt from a variety of problems, including a lack of easy-to-extract resources. In some ways, the model was quite simple. For example, the model did not include a financial system or debt. In the single most likely scenario, the base run, the world economy hit limits about now, in the 2015 to 2025 time period. The authors have said that, once limits are hit, the forecast on the right-hand side of the chart cannot be relied upon; the model is too simple to forecast how the down slope might actually occur.

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The pattern of world energy consumption seems to be one of rapid growth, especially in the period since World War II.

Energy consumption growth is particularly high in the period covered by the red box. In other words, energy consumption growth is particularly high from the 1940s through the 1970s. If the economy relies on energy, we would expect this to be a particularly booming period for the economy.

We can break energy consumption growth down into two components: (1) the portion to cover higher population, and (2) the portion to cover improved standards of living. Looking this chart, it is clear that “higher population” takes the majority of the increase, except when increases are very large.

I have labelled the three big bumps with my view of what seems to have led to them. The first is early electrification, when street cars were added and when the early mechanization of farming was implemented. The second is the postwar boom and the third is the recent period of globalization, led by China’s major ramp up in coal production.

China’s energy consumption grew rapidly after it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. The thing that most people don’t realize is that China is reaching limits on its coal extraction. Its coal production seems to have peaked about 2013. Its comparatively tiny amount of wind and solar (shown in orange on the chart) is not making up the shortfall. Instead, China is being forced to rely more on imported energy. Imported energy tends to be higher in cost, and may be limited in supply. For all these reasons, we cannot rely on China to continue to power future world economic growth.

It is not just China that gets only a small share of its energy production from wind and solar. This is also true of the world as a whole.

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Boxes 1 through 4 show a different model of how the world economy works than that shown earlier (in Slide 9). In Slide 20, the Economy (in Box 3) acts like a giant factory. It uses Resources of various kinds (a few of which are listed in Box 2) to make Goods and Services (a few of which are listed in Box 4). If the Economy is getting to be more and more efficient, Box 4 will expand much more rapidly than Box 2, producing a great abundance of goods and services. If this happens, all of the Resource Providers in Box 1 (plus some I have failed to list) can be rewarded more than adequately for their services, with Goods and Services produced by the economy. The transfer of these Goods and Services occurs through the use of money.

Everyone can get rich at once!

The top line is GDP growth including inflation; the bottom line is GDP growth excluding inflation. Before the dotted line, both GDP growth rates and inflation rates are high; after the dotted line, (when energy growth was lower), they tend to be lower.

Interest rates were raised to try to damp down oil and other energy prices. We will see in a later section that reducing interest rates helped hide the fact that energy growth was slower after 1980.

The wages shown on Slide 24 have already been inflation adjusted. Thus, in the period before 1968, wages for both the lower 90% of workers and for the top 10% of workers were rising rapidly, even considering the impact of inflation. Many families were able to afford a car for the first time. After 1980, the wages of the top 10% rose much more quickly than the wages of the bottom 90%.

In 1930, wage disparity seems to have been at about today’s level. Early mechanization had replaced many jobs, both on the farm and elsewhere. Farmers who could not afford the new technology found that they could not produce food cheaply enough to compete with the low prices made possible by the new technology. The growing wage disparity meant that a large share of the population could not afford more than the basic necessities of life. The many people with low wages kept demand for most goods and services low. Oil prices were low, and there was a glut of oil, not unlike what recent markets have experienced. New tariffs were added, and immigration was restricted.

The period before the mid-1970s is when a great deal of the United States’ infrastructure was built. The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System dates from this time period. Many of the oil and gas pipelines and electricity transmission systems in use today were also built in this period.

Once the price of oil and other energy products started rising, it became much more expensive to add or replace this type of infrastructure. Once oil prices rose, more debt at lower interest rates seemed to be needed to keep the economy growing, as I will explain in Part 2 of this write-up.

The least expensive to extract oil supply–US oil supply in the contiguous 48 states that could be extracted by conventional means–was developed first. Alaska production was added when it was clear that the early supply was starting to deplete. It was more expensive, as was North Sea oil, which was also added after early US oil began to deplete.

Once oil prices rose in the 2005-2008 period, companies became interested in developing oil from shale formations (sometimes called tight oil). This oil seems to be much more expensive. It is doubtful that this oil is profitable at today’s prices.

Many people believe that oil prices will rise, indefinitely, with the cost of production. The thing that they don’t realize is that high oil prices tend to lead to recession. When this happens, employment drops, and the average buying power of the population no longer rises–it tends to remain flat or falls. As a result, high oil prices do not “stick.”

We are today in a situation where oil prices have been too low for years. For a while, this situation can be hidden, but eventually low investment can be expected to lead to lower production of energy products. It is even possible that some governments of oil exporters may collapse from lack of adequate tax revenue. Governments of oil exporters often obtain over half of their total tax revenue from taxes on oil production. Adequate tax revenue for these governments requires a high selling price for oil.

The situation with food prices tends to parallel oil prices. This occurs partly because oil is used in growing and transporting food, and partly because of substitution issues. For example, corn can be used to make either ethanol for vehicles or food for people.

M. King Hubbert was one of the early scientists who talked about what appeared to be a problem of running out of oil and other fossil fuels. While I call him a geologist, he really was a geophysicist. The catch was that the physics thinking of the day was mostly about “thermodynamically closed systems.” If closed systems were the problem, then running out of fossil fuels that could be extracted using current techniques was the major issue.

Hubbert and others did not realize that energy supply is part of a larger economic system, which also functions under the laws of physics. The economic system is part of a thermodynamically open system, not a closed system. It gets energy both directly from the sun and from fossil fuels, which provide solar energy stored as fossil fuels.

The issue is how this larger economic system behaves: does it allow the oil prices to rise to a high enough level to extract all of the oil and other fossil fuels that seem to be available? I don’t think it does. But under the “right” conditions (lots of debt growth), the economic system does allow energy prices to rise somewhat. This is what we have seen since the 1970s.

It is extremely difficult to figure out what true costs and true benefits are in a networked system. The standard approach for evaluating the benefit of wind and solar considers only a small part of the system. If the proposed devices do not directly burn fossil fuels and if not too much fossil fuel is used in their production, the usual practice is to assume that the devices must be helpful to the overall system, because they seem to be “low carbon.” This approach leaves out many important costs.

The problem is that wind and solar are not now, and never can be, standalone devices. When all costs are considered, they are simply very inefficient add-ons to the fossil fuel system. These costs include buffering services (using batteries or other storage), the cost of capital, the cost of leases, and wages and taxes. A very high-cost electricity generating system is not likely to be helpful to the economy because such a system is very inefficient. It can be expected to affect the economy as adversely as high-priced oil does.

An economy operates best when energy costs are very low because goods and services made with this low-cost energy tend to be low-cost as well. Oil is used in producing and transporting food. Thus, low-cost oil tends to produce inexpensive food.

If energy costs begin to rise in a country, it tends to make that country less competitive in the world marketplace. It also tends to push the country toward recession, because the higher costs are difficult to recover from customers whose wages don’t rise to cover the higher costs.

Many people believe that the amount of fossil fuel that will ultimately be extracted depends on a combination of (a) the amount of resources in the ground, and (b) the technology developed for extraction. While these are indeed eventual limits, I think that a maximum affordable price limit comes much sooner. This depends on how high a debt bubble the economy can sustain. The role of debt will be discussed in Part 2.

One thing that is confusing is the familiar supply and demand curve for energy. Many people believe that “of course” prices must rise if energy is scarce. The catch is that energy consumption affects all parts of the economy. It takes energy to create jobs, just as it takes energy to produce goods and services. Because both supply and demand are affected by a shortage of energy, our intuition regarding how prices should move can be totally wrong.

The word “Demand” is confusing, also, because most energy use is difficult to see. Most energy use is not found in the gasoline we buy at the pump or the electricity we purchase. Instead, energy is used in creating the streets that we drive on, and in building the schools that our children attend. Building new homes and manufacturing cars also takes huge amounts of energy. If energy costs rise very much, the problem is that many people can no longer afford homes or cars. Instead, young people live in their parents’ basements indefinitely. Governments may decide to stop paving some roads, because repaving is too expensive to afford. Reduced demand for oil might be better described as reduced purchases of goods and services of all kinds, because certain groups of would-be buyers find prices too high to afford.

[To be continued in “The World’s Fragile Economic Condition – Part 2”]

Gail E. Tverberg graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota in 1968 with a B.S. in Mathematics. She received a M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois, Chicago in 1970. Ms. Tverberg is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. Ms. Tverberg began writing articles on finite world issues in early 2006. Since March 1, 2007, Ms. Tverberg has been working for Tverberg Actuarial Services on finite world issues. Her blog is http://ourfiniteworld.com

Current temperature trajectories are on par with or exceed the IPCC’s dangerous projections (Figure 1). Acting as the lungs of the biosphere, over tens of millions of years the atmosphere developed an oxygen-rich carbon-low composition, allowing the flourishing of mammals. The anthropogenic release to the atmosphere to date of more than 600 Gigaton of carbon (GtC) is reversing this trend, threatening to return the Earth to conditions which preceded the emergence of modern life forms, including humans. Climate projections for the mid to late 21^st century by the IPCC (models A1B and A2)  indicate mean global temperatures rising to near 3 to 4 degrees Celsius above mean 1880-1920 temperatures. Concomitantly a transient cooling occurs in high latitude oceans due to flow of cold water from melting Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. These developments would lead to un-inhabitability of large parts of the Earth and to a further rise in extreme weather events, not least from hurricanes around the Pacific Rim and Caribbean island chains. Tracking toward 500 ppm CO₂ a shift is taking place in the state of the atmosphere away from the conditions which allowed farming some ~11,000 years ago and from conditions which allowed the emergence of Homo erectus 1.8 million years ago. In denial of the basic laws of physics, specifically of black body radiation(Stefan-Boltzmann, Kirchhoff and Planck laws), and theirmanifestationin the atmosphere-ocean-land system, world “leaders” and a complicit media are presiding over a rise of carbon emissions at a rate of 2-3 ppm CO₂ per year, shifting the chemistry of the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate since at least 56 million years ago, when a hyperthermal catastrophe and mass extinction of species took place.

Figure 1.Current global warming at the IPCC fastest trajectories (IPCC models A2 and A1B):[A] Land surface temperatures(red) and ocean temperatures (blue) for 1880-2020 (NASA); [B] Modeled temperature change for 2000-2100 (IPCC); [C] Modelled land and sea temperatures for2055-2060 with 10 years doubling time for freshwater flux from the ice sheets (Hansen and Sato 2015;
http://www.columbia.edu/~
jeh1/mailings/2015/20151012_IceMeltPredictions.pdf).

About 1980 when the dangerous rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases to 340 ppm CO₂was realized, it may have still been possible to attempt effective mitigation by means of (A) sharp reduction of carbon emissions, and (B) attempts at down-draw of CO₂through reforestation, soil improvement (biochar), CO₂ capture using sea weed farming, CO₂ reaction with basalt and other methods. This has not happened—instead, a plethora of economic and political panels formed, mostly to the exclusion of climate scientists,counting the costs of mitigation and adaptation, namely the price of the Earth.

With estimated carbon reserves in excess of 20,000 GtC (well over 20 times the CO₂ content of the atmosphere), further emissions can take the atmosphere to >1000 ppm CO₂, namely to Early Eocene (about 50 million years ago) or Mesozoic-like greenhouse Earth conditions,when large parts of the continents were inundated by the oceans. As stated by the renowned oceanographer Wallace Broecker in 1986, “The inhabitants of planet Earth are quietly conducting a gigantic experiment. We play Russian roulette with climate and no one knows what lies in the active chamber of the gun“.  Where WWII sacrificed millions in gas chambers, global warming threatens to destroy billions, on the strength of an “economic” Faustian Bargain.

Extreme greenhouse levels and high mean temperatures existed on Earth at several stages, but mostly the transitions between these states and cold or ice ages were gradual, allowing many species to adapt. By contrast, when climate changes were abrupt, such as due to asteroid impacts or global volcanic eruptions, many species could not adjust, with consequent mass extinctions.The extreme rate at which anthropogenic global warming is taking place means that only the hardiest species may survive, including grasses and insects and possibly species of birds, descendants of the fated dinosaurs. Human survivors may endure, as they have during the extreme climate upheavals of the glacial-interglacial cycles, which in some instances allowed them to outlast the most adverse conditions.

In perspective, once the Holocene inter-glacial climate stabilized about 11,000 years ago and excess food became available, humans were free to construct monuments for immorality and undertake atavistic orgies of death called war—ritual sacrifice of the young. Possessed by a conscious fear of death, craving omniscient and immortality, simultaneously creating and destroying, as women raise children and cultivate gardens and men go to war, the root factors which underlie the transformation of tribal warriors into button-pushing automatons remain manifest.

The battle between life-enhancing and death-inducingagents in nature, symbolized by the Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva trinity, has always existed. At present, some, in a world buzzing with witless twits and faceless books, some 73 years following the carnage of WWII, the rise of fascism can only lead to yet another world war, this time nuclear.

Further experiments with the Earth are underway. Once the Hadron Collider has been deemed to be ‘safe’, further science fiction-like experiments yet to be dreamt by ethics-free scientists may or may not result in a black hole. Little doubt exists however regarding the consequences of the continuing use of the atmosphere, the lungs of the biosphere, as an open sewer for carbon gases.

From the Romans to the third Reich, the barbarism of empires surpasses that of small marauding tribes. In the name of their gods, or freedom,or progress, or human rights, empires never cease to bomb peasants in their small fields. It is among the wretched of the Earth that true charity is common, where empathy is learnt through suffering.

Humans live in a perennial realm of perceptions, dreams, myths and legends, in denial of critical facts. Existentialist philosophy offers a perspective into, and a way of coping with,what otherwise defies rational contemplation. Going through their black night of the soul, members of the species may be rewarded by the emergence of a conscious dignity devoid of illusion, grateful for the glimpse into nature for a fleeting moment: “Having pushed a boulder up the mountain all day, turning toward the setting sun, we must consider Sisyphus happy.” (Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942).

Andrew Glikson is an Earth and paleoclimate scientist

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – an international body that develops non-policy prescriptive climate science assessments for decisionmakers – is currently compiling a Special Report that will provide information on what it would take to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The report will also assess the climate impacts that could be avoided by keeping warming to this level, and the ways we can limit the worst impacts of climate change and adapt to the ones that are unavoidable. Report authors and government representatives will meet in Incheon, Republic of Korea from October 1-5 to review the report, with the report’s Summary for Policymakers due to be released on October 7 at 9 p.m. Eastern US time (October 8 at 10:00 local time (KST)). The report is slated to come out just as nations look towards revising the commitments they made to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The Paris Agreement is a worldwide commitment adopted in 2015 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to reduce global warming emissions and limit the increase in global temperature to well below 2°C. More specifically, the Paris Agreement includes a goal of “Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.” Small Island Developing States that are disproportionately vulnerable to global warming were pivotal in the inclusion of the 1.5°C goal.

It has been recognized that efforts beyond those spelled out in the commitments made to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement (the Nationally Determined Contributions) will be necessary to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. As a result, policymakers are interested in what it would take to achieve this goal, as well as the benefits and tradeoffs to consider as countries look to ramp-up their commitments. (This report will fulfill an invitation made by UNFCCC member countries including the U.S. during the adoption of the Paris Agreement for, “the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to provide a special report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways.”) The report is thus intended to inform such deliberations and respective domestic and international climate policy.

Just preceding the invitation to the IPCC to produce the Special Report, UNFCCC member countries also decided, “to convene a facilitative dialogue among Parties in 2018 to take stock of the collective efforts of Parties in relation to progress towards the long-term goal referred to in Article 4, paragraph 1, of the Agreement and to inform the preparation of nationally determined contributions pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 8, of the Agreement.” The Special Report will be an important input into this global stock-take, which will be a prominent feature of the forthcoming UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP24) in Poland in December of this year.

In addition to its Summary for Policymakers, the report will have five underlying chapters, as well as an introductory section, several break-out boxes, and frequently asked questions. The title of the chapters will be as follows:

• Chapter 1: Framing and context
• Chapter 2: Mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5°C in the context of sustainable development
• Chapter 3: Impacts of 1.5°C global warming on natural and human systems
• Chapter 4: Strengthening and implementing the global response to the threat of climate change
• Chapter 5: Sustainable development, poverty eradication and reducing inequalities

Among other topics, the report will provide information on the global warming emissions reductions required to keep global warming to 1.5°C relative to the emissions reductions necessary to limit warming to 2°C. And it will compare the different paths nations can take to achieve these emissions reductions, including the opportunities and challenges that meeting the 1.5°C goal will present from socio-economic, technological, institutional, and environmental perspectives. The report will also assess the impacts that could be avoided if warming is kept to 1.5°C instead of 2°C, as well as the emissions reduction options relevant to keeping warming to 1.5°C and the options available to prepare for projected impacts. Furthermore, authors have been tasked with considering how to limit warming to 1.5°C together with sustainable development and poverty eradication efforts, and the implications of pursuing this goal for ethics and equity.

The report is being prepared by experts from a diverse array of countries and institutions, including from the United States. The IPCC does not conduct new science. Instead, authors reviewed the best available, peer-reviewed literature relevant for each chapter, and employed set criteria to characterize the evidence relevant to key topics, including the level of confidence, agreement, and uncertainty in the evidence base (as an example, here is a link to the criteria employed in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report).

The IPCC’s Special Report on 1.5°C Warming has undergone a lengthy review process, including an internal review, and multiple expert and government reviews. For example, 2000 experts registered to review the First Order Draft, along with 489 government reviewers from 61 countries. The review process provides a mechanism for engaging and incorporating input from a diverse and inclusive set of experts. Authors are required to consider and respond to each comment received – responses that are then made publicly available.

The Union of Concerned Scientists will be reviewing the released documents on October 8th and posting a series of blogs that will cover key aspects of the report. Although the report is not public yet, the latest scientific literature (e.g. that assessed in the recent U.S. Climate Science Special Report) has only underscored the urgent need for action to limit the heat-trapping emissions that are fueling climate change. This new IPCC Special Report will almost certainly make this point even clearer, as it will show the world what can be avoided if we ramp down emissions now. There is too much at stake for humanity to indulge in further delay or inaction.

Rachel Licker is a senior climate scientist with the Climate & Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Originally published by The Equation Blog / Union of Concerned Scientists

Exciting news for capitalism is the recent achievement of trillion-dollar value for both Amazon and Apple, making them the first corporations to obtain such a lofty status. Amazon’s skyrocketing growth makes its CEO, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person with an $160 billion net worth.

Driving the engine of global wealth concentration are giant transnational investment management firms. In 2017, seventeen trillion-dollar investment companies collectively controlled $41.1 trillion of capital. These firms are all directly invested in each other, making them a huge cluster of centralized capital managed by just 199 people, who decide how and where that wealth will be invested.

In the case of Amazon,the top investment management corporations are: Vanguard $56.7 billion, BlackRock $49.5 billion, FMR $33 billion, Capital $33 billion, State Street $29 billion, and most of the other trillion-dollar Giants and many others who hold 58.6% of Amazon shares.

So, while Bezos is a large tree in the forest, the forest itself is groomed by a few hundred global power elites making investment decisions that drive the concentration of wealth into coffers of the 1%. These elites interact through non-governmental policy-making organizations—privately funded by large corporations—that include the Council of Thirty, Trilateral Commission, and the Atlantic Council. Their role is to facilitate, manage, and protect the free flow of global capital. They do this by providing policy recommendations and instructions to governments, intelligence services, security forces, NATO, the Pentagon, and transnational governmental groups including the G-7 G-20, World Bank, IMF, and International Bank of Settlements.

The biggest problem global power elite investors face is that they have more capital than there are safe investment opportunities, which leads to risky speculative investments, permanent war spending, and the privatization of the public commons.

The world’s total wealth is estimated to be close to $255 trillion, with the United States and Europe holding approximately two-thirds of that total; meanwhile, 80 percent of the world’s people live on less than $10 per day, the poorest half of the global population lives on less than $2.50 per day, and more than 1.3 billion people live on only $1.25 per day. 795 million people on the planet are suffering from chronic hunger, according to the United Nations World Food Program.  Each year, poor nutrition kills 3.1 million children under the age of five. Each day 25,000-30,000 people die from starvation or malnutrition, a staggering total of more than ten million such fatalities each year. Chronic hunger is mostly a problem of distribution, as one third of all food produced in the world is wasted and lost. So, while the global power elite can manifest a Bezos, they cannot or will not address the crisis of inequality and mass death in the world today. In 2017, 2.3 million new millionaires were created, bringing the total number of millionaires around the globe to more than 36 million. These millionaires represent 0.7 percent of the world’s population and they control more than 47% of global wealth. At the same time, the world’s bottom 70 percent only control 2.7% of the total wealth.

There can be no doubt that continued concentration of wealth is economically unsustainable. Extreme inequality and massive repression will only bring resistance and rebellion by the world’s masses.

The danger is that global power elites will fail to recognize the inevitability of economic and/or environmental collapse before making the necessary adjustments to prevent millions of deaths and massive civil unrest. Without significant corrective adjustments by the global power elites, mass social movements and rebellions, coupled with environmental collapse, will inevitably lead to global chaos and widespread war. We must institute a simple guiding principle of thinking of the future of our grandchildren and their grandchildren when making decisions about the use of global capital resources.

Seventy years ago, after World War II ended, people throughout the world were motivated to find ways to permanently prevent such terrible bloodshed from ever again taking place. As the United Nations was forming, a Commission on the moral principles necessary for sustainable peace, made up of eighteen nations, met at Hunter College in New York City in 1946. They began what two years later would become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved unanimously by the United Nations in December 1948. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a document that social movements can easily adopt as a statement of moral principles for actions of resistance to wealth concentration and global inequality. It is equally important as a document of principles for the global power elite to use as a guide for corrective actions needed in the world today.

It is no longer acceptable to believe that global power elites can manage capitalism to grow its way out of the gross inequalities we all now face. The environment cannot accept more pollution and waste, and civil unrest is inevitable. We need to pressure global capital elites to step up and insure that trickle-down becomes a river of resources that reaches every child, every family, and all human beings. These changes are required for nothing less than humanity’s long-term survival.

Peter Phillips is a professor of political sociology at Sonoma State University, where he has taught since 1994. He teaches courses in Political Sociology, Sociology of Power, Sociology of Media, Sociology of Conspiracies and Investigative Sociology. He served as director of Project Censored from 1996 to 2010 and as president of Media Freedom Foundation from 2003 to 2017. Giants: The Global Power Elite is his 18^th book from Seven Stories Press—it was released in August 2018.

Plastics are found in the products we use every day: the toys we give our children, the clothing we wear, the disposable cups we drink from, the automobiles we make, the straws we use, the list goes on.  Cheap and easy to make, plastic goods and plastic production have exploded in recent years.  Yet the junked cars, the used straws and cups, they all end up somewhere, perhaps in a landfill, or perhaps drifting in the wind.  91% of plastic goods are not recycled.  Most have found their way to rivers, lakes, and oceans, and over time break down into tiny microscopic particles of plastic.  Microplastics are everywhere, even in the deepest sea floor sediments and in the Arctic.  They can originate in small form from toothpaste or makeup, or can be derived from larger pieces of plastic, which over time break down into small particles.

Not very long ago (Sept. 8, 2018), a giant 2,000 foot long tube was launched from San Francisco to be towed to a suitable site.  The brainchild of a young 24-year-old Dutchman named Boyan Slat, it is intended to trap some of the ever-increasing tons of plastic polluting our oceans.  To be sure California lends a more sympathetic ear to pollution problems than does Washington or the Federal Government these days.

Researchers have sought to determine the extent of plastic pollution and tested water samples from cities and towns on five continents.  The results: microscopic plastic particles were present in 83%.  Ironically samples that tested positive included the US Capitol building and the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC, as well as the Trump Grill in New York.  Researchers say these plastic particles are also likely in foods prepared with water, such as pasta and bread.

Every day, more plastics are added to the world’s waters.  From coastal regions alone, between 5.3 million and 14 million tons of plastic find their way to the oceans each year.  By 2050, the amount of plastic in the ocean is expected to ‘outweigh the fish’, says Jim Leape, co-director of the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions.  Currently estimated to be 150 million tons, they take a very long time to biodegrade – an estimated 450 years to never.

Almost 700 species that we are aware of have been affected by plastic pollution, ranging from tiny creatures to the largest, and some are already endangered.  Whales have already fallen victim to plastic contamination. This past June, a whale in Thailand died from ingesting more than 80 plastic bags.  And a sperm whale was found dead on a beach in Spain with 29 kilos of plastic in its stomach.

Australian researchers studying a large sample of sea turtles recently reported in Nature that half of the baby sea turtles had stomachs filled with plastic.  They calculated that turtles have a 50% probability of death after ingesting 14 pieces of plastic, and that younger turtles are more likely to be harmed.

Can plastics affect human health too?  The answer is ‘yes,’ and in various ways, depending on the kind of plastic.  Diethylhexyl, found in some plastics, is a carcinogen.  Bisphenol-A (BPA), present in some plastic bottles and food packaging materials, can interfere with human hormonal functioning and can be ingested through water or from eating contaminated fish.  Some toxins in plastics are known to cause birth defects, cancers, and immune system problems.  Cadmium, mercury, bromine and lead are highly toxic, although now restricted or banned in plastic manufacture in many countries, some for several decades.  Yet a recent 2018 study examining the water of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, found levels of these chemicals sometimes beyond the accepted limits under EU law.  The findings were a testament to how long plastic pollution remains in the environment, the metals being released as the plastics break down over time.

It is very difficult to study the exact impact of plastic pollution on humans because plastic pollution is so widespread that ‘there are almost no unexposed subjects’, notes a researcher.

Norway has managed to recycle a remarkable 97% of its plastic bottles.  It achieved this by installing plastic bottle machines that return money in exchange.  The UK is considering adopting a similar strategy.

Denmark recycles far more plastic bags than the United States: an average Dane uses four single-use bags per year, an American almost one per day.  How do they do it?  Denmark adopted a tax on plastic bags in 1993 and the bag is not free – it costs about 50 cents, part of the money going to the tax and part to the store.  The effect has been a reduction in the sale of bags by over 40% over the last 25 years.  One can only hope that more countries will follow.

The United States currently recycles only about 9% of plastics.  According to an EPA study this past August, the U.S. recycling rate actually decreased in 2015.  Could the Scandinavian techniques help?  Only a handful of states in the U.S. have passed laws regarding deposit machines; adding laws requiring a charge for plastic bags or a tax, as the City of Chicago did, is not impossible.

For years China has been importing much of the world’s scraps, including 40% of U.S. recyclables.  But in 2018, China placed a ban on imports of plastics, mixed paper, and other materials.  Recycled plastics from the U.S. to China dropped 92% in the first five months of the year.  California may be especially hard hit, as it had been exporting about a third of its recyclables, amounting to 15 million tons in 2016.  62% of those exports went to China.  It is unclear whether the U.S. will be able to cope with the increased influx of recyclables on home territory.

Sadly, even if the U.S. and all developed countries had sufficient machines and facilities to reach Norway’s 97% level of plastic bottle recycling, it would not be enough to save the oceans.  This is because the bulk of ocean plastic pollution comes from developing countries who often lack recycling and waste pickup infrastructure.  In 2010, one researcher estimated that half of the world’s plastic pollution was generated by just five Asian countries:  China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka.

The top polluters were again listed for Earth Day 2018, by quantity of annual mismanaged plastic waste.  The top six:

1 China:  1.32 – 3.52 Million Metric Tons (MMT) / year

2 Indonesia: 0.48 – 1.29 MMT/year

3 Philippines: 0.28 – 0.75 MMT/year

4 Vietnam: 0.28 – 0.73 MMT/year

5 Sri Lanka: 0.24 – 0.64 MMT/year

6 Thailand: 0.15 – 0.41 MMT/year

The statistics also showed a percentage of mismanaged plastic waste. Eight countries had over 80% mismanaged plastic waste: Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Burma, and North Korea.  These are developing nations and they often do not have a proper waste and recycling infrastructure.  In the Philippines, recycling is sometimes done slowly and laboriously by hand picking from dump yards.  Not surprisingly, much is washed away to sea.  The Pasig River that flows through Manila carries an estimated 72,000 tons of plastic downstream each year, and the river has been declared “biologically dead” since 1990.  Of course, developed nations could provide aid to help create a recycling infrastructure where it is lacking.  But such foreign aid without educating the public of its necessity is unlikely.

Then there is the intriguing possibility of actually scavenging ocean plastic.  Boyan Slat’s giant flexible tube, appended on its underside with a curtain barrier, will be shaped into a U to trap the plastic, which a sister ship will retrieve for recycling and safe disposal.  Due to ocean currents, the plastic collects in the relatively stagnant ocean pools between them easing the job of Mr. Slat’s device.  The Ocean Cleanup, Slat’s foundation, displays five such sites in the world’s oceans: one each in the North and South Atlantic and Pacific, and one in the south Indian Ocean.  They claim the device can clean up 90% of the floating waste.  Everyone is rooting for him.

In the mean time, there are a few things we can do each day, which, collectively could have a positive impact:

• Ordering fewer products online could help, as packaging is a huge source of pollution and often includes bubble wrap, made of low-density polyethylene.  It is not the easiest form of plastic to recycle and it comprises 20% of global plastic waste.  Bringing ones own bags to a local store would be far less taxing on the environment.
• Minimizing foam cups and takeout containers would be highly beneficial – they are made from polystyrene, which is difficult to recycle.
• Avoiding the use of straws, when possible, would aid sea creatures.  Straws, made of polypropylene usually end up in the ocean.  Polypropylene comprises 19% of global plastic waste.
• Reusing and recycling as much as possible is a mantra that cannot be repeated too often.

Collectively, we could make a difference.  And if we can also pool our resources to help developing countries recycle, then perhaps we can save our oceans, the turtles, the whales, and even, us.

Meena Miriam Yust is an attorney based in Chicago, IL with a special interest in the environment. 

This article first appeared in CounterPunch.org.

“We are moving in the direction of a multipolar world,” UN Secretary-General. China is again the world’s greatest economic power as it was through most of human history. As USA loses its economic hegemony it  will eventually lose the power to shut people up by threat of imposing crippling economic sanctions. A wave of voices across the world will tell USA to stand down from its threatening nuclear war and nuclear winter.

How strange that no one has been demanding Americans explain why they are preparing & planing for war, nuclear war, with Russia and China, when the detonating of nuclear weapons would endanger everyone in the world, even possibly end all life on Earth.

Associated Press, July 27, 2017, “The US Pacific Fleet commander said on Thursday he would launch a nuclear strike against China next week if President Donald Trump ordered it, and warned against the military ever shifting its allegiance from its commander in chief.“ (Interestingly, China has never threatened the USA, but the Chinese never forget an American army sacked Beijing in 1900, killing a lot of Chinese and before 1949, US Military and financial aid to the Nationalists fighting against the Chinese Revolution caused a greater loss of life that would have happened otherwise.)

In the threatening parlance of arrogant USA exceptionalism, American military officials frequently warn on prime time telecasting by satellite with world wide reach, ‘All options are on the table!’ read ‘The lives of all of us are on the table.’ Life on Earth is at the discretion of pompous soulless American government officials acting as directed by a powerfully wealthy elite of speculative investors intent on maximum capital acquisition outside the boundaries of law, mercy and sanity.

Washington’s threats against Russia and China came into the open in

January when it published a new National Security Strategy, dropping the pretense that it was waging a “war on terror” and naming Russia and

China as targets. Presenting the document, US Defense Secretary James

Mattis branded Russia and China as “revisionist powers” threatening a

US-led world order and said “great power competition, not terrorism, is

now the primary focus of US national security.” Amid NATO threats, Russia launches largest war games since World War II in World, by Alex Lantier, CounterCurrents, Kerala, India

https://countercurrents.org/2018/09/01/amid-nato-threats-russia-launches-largest-war-games-since-world-war-ii/

Russia launches biggest war games since Cold War with more than 300,000 troops. Thousands of Chinese and Mongolian service personnel will also be involved in the Vostok 2018 drills, set to include “massive” mock airstrikes and the testing of cruise missile defense systems.

 September 11, 2018, The Independent, UK

“This new exercise goes beyond what may be useful for prestige purposes. It involves 30 percent of Russian active duty military & must be costly at a time when Russia’s defence budget is under strain. This only makes sense if large-scale war is viewed as a high probability contingency.” François Heisbourg, London International Institute for Strategic Studies

Given what we know about the expected deadly effect of nuclear war on the planet and all life on Earth, it would seem that a good amount of people everywhere would have come to realize the horrific danger to themselves, their loved ones, all fellow human beings, even animals and plants. There should be millions demanding that Americans respect the rest of us and our planetary home, and end all plans and preparations for nuclear war, and explain why a war with Russia and China is even contemplated.

“Public ignorance and apathy is a concern for survival of the specie”

‘Public ignorance and apathy is a concern for survival of the specie,’ warns former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, in his forward to nuclear physicist Micho Kaku’s To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon’s Secret War Plans.[Can be read on Internet at https://books.google.com/books/about/To_Win_a_Nuclear_
War.html?id=yOP2v_vy2GIC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_
read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false The authors of this book, both university physicists, document how the nuclear policy of the U.S.A. has not been one of deterrence as publicly stated, but rather has been one of threatening the use of nuclear weapons. This policy has been widely documented elsewhere.

Attorney Clark, who has spent half a century defending nations and individuals attacked by the Western powers wrote that public ignorance and apathy is “as much a concern for survival of the specie as the unthinkable power to destroy the world wielded by a few men in a mindless manner”.

“A single Trident II submarine can inflict more death than all prior wars in history. Twenty-four missiles, launched while submerged, each with seventeen independently targeted, maneuverable nuclear warheads five times more powerful than the atom bomb that destroyed Nagasaki, can travel 5,000 or more nautical miles to strike within 300 feet of 408 predetermined targets. Nuclear winter might follow even if no other weapons are used.”

“No nation or individual can be allowed to have the power to destroy the world!” wrote Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Sounds logical, but Americans insist that they, being exceptional, are above all laws and courts (and logic), much the same as the Nazis claimed the Germanic peoples were a ‘master race,’ destined to rule ruthlessly over most other peoples, as do Americans today. The Nazis for a while had the strongest military force in the world (thanks to US corporate investment and joint venturing). Americans have had the greatest military in the history of the world since the Soviets, with American help, destroyed the Nazi military which invaded Russia (as Wall Street had desired, facilitated and expected).

By 1991, the Soviet Union had more or less self-destructed trying to match the much wealthier USA in an arms race. It didn’t take more than a few years before superpower USA began to cite the new Russian Federation as its adversary, a nuclear weapons armed adversary. (Like the Chinese, Russians have never threatened the USA and never forgot that in 1918, the US had invaded Russia with two armies, killing its citizens trying to overthrow the newly proclaimed Soviet Russian government.

What does the world hear from the current US President and commander-in-chief of the heavily nuclear armed USA?

Trump Plans for Nuclear Arsenal Require $1.2 Trillion, Congressional Review States, New York Times, 10/31/2017

President Donald Trump has said he will expand and update the US nuclear arsenal in “far, far in excess of anybody else,”“We’re going to have the strongest military we’ve ever had by far,” Mr Trump told reporters. He added that he would increase the country’s arsenals of “virtually every weapon,” including a “brand new nuclear force”. The Independent, UK, 2/12/2018

Your author, dumbfounded that no persistent widely notable voice has arisen from anywhere on the planet in demand that Americans back down from indirectly threatening the whole world with possible partial or complete annihilation, is pained to put forth the following supposition:

It would appear that basically no voices demanding sanity arise for the overwhelmingly deceptive propaganda power of CIA controlled Western satellite-reach-powered mainstream media inculcating quiet acceptance of the status quo ‘protection’ of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), a doctrine of US military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. The acceptance of, and trust in, a frightening hair trigger status quo seems to be holding, recent wildly super insane talk of the possibility of a first strike victory, notwithstanding.

This is our present planetary predicament, but no situation, especially absurd situations, last forever. People asleep eventually wake up, of course not always in time, as in the cases of the First and Second World Wars, whose preparations went on in front of everyone’s noses and mesmerized silent acquiescence.

As the insanity of preparing for nuclear war against Russia and China, just as before the USA threatened nuclear war against the Soviet Union and China, takes place before our eyes, the Americans and Europeans are losing their hegemonic control of world finances. While the great  majority of minds within the USA led colonial-neocolonial powered capitalist-imperialist hegemonic First World of nations of Caucasian population plus Japan, seem locked down in what social psychiatry terms ‘poverty of thought,’ minds within the economically and militarily plundered Third World and the Second World of nations practicing socialism like China, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Eritrea and maybe soon El Salvador and Uruguay (Socialist Libya was destroyed) will tend to be opened outward. “We are moving in the direction of a multipolar world,” announced Secretary-General António Guterres in his trilingual address to the UN General Assembly just a few days ago on 25 September 2018.

The economic rise of China and indeed the whole of what is condescending referred to as developing economies, which are growing at a faster rate than the economies of the developed nations of the First World, has been written about for more than a decade, e.g. The Economist Magazine in 2007[1];

e.g. When China Rules the World -The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order by Martin Jacques, 2009;

e.g. Nobel Prize in Economics, Joseph Stiglitz referring to our present century as “The Chinese Century; “2014 was the last year in which the United States could claim to be the world’s largest economic power. China enters 2015 in the top position, where it will likely remain for a very long time, if not forever. In doing so, it returns to the position it held through most of human history.” Vanity Fair Magazine, January 2015

e.g. China Rising – Capitalist Roads Socialist Destinations, by Jeff Brown, 2015.

Unless America’s insane investors in nuclear weapons manage to loose a planet destroying nuclear war first, American loss of economic hegemony will be followed by loss of its military hegemony. Bigger money buys bigger guns so to speak. When the Wall Street owned US government is no longer able to shut everyone up by threat of crippling economic sanctions, this author believes a wave of voices across the world will tell the USA to stand down from its threatening nuclear war and nuclear winter. 

And eventually, when the long stifled cry for justice becomes a topic of conversation throughout the economically plundered world, ultra massive lawsuits will be generated and adjudicated in the courts of a reconstituted United Nations for compensation for tens of millions of unlawful deaths and injuries, indemnities of trillions of dollars for mega massive destruction of property and reparations for colossal theft of natural resources.

Just wait and see.

(Or maybe begin talking about these things with family and friends in advance of the inevitable, just to hurry things along.)

And to remind everyone of the danger of Americans again using nuclear weapons, let us remember that the motive for the first and second US use of atomic bombs is now generally accepted to have been to intimate the Soviet Union, even though most of Russia’s cities lay in ruins with 28 million of it citizens dead as a result of the Second World War that had just ended. What insidious minded cabal of powerfully wealthy Americans pressured President Truman to order these two genocidal war crimes without consulting top generals and other key Americans?

General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East, who was not consulted before the atom bombing and destroying of two Japanese cities, saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. “The war might have ended weeks earlier,” he said, “if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.” Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.

“Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary,” wrote Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380 “..the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” Newsweek, 11/11/63

“The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.” previous US President Herbert Hoover. Army and Navy Journal after the Hiroshima bombing and before the Nagasaki bombing.

Enough said.

End Notes

1.

Emerging vs developed economies Power shift Aug 4th 2011, by The Economist online (charts, graphs) REAL GDP in most rich economies is still below its level at the end of 2007. In contrast, emerging economies’ output has jumped by almost 20% over the same period. The rich world’s woes have clearly hastened the shift in global economic power towards the emerging markets. But exactly how big are emerging economies compared with the old developed world? This chart looks at a wide range of indicators: ” The combined output of the emerging world accounted for 38% of world GDP (at market exchange rates) in 2010, twice its share in 1990. If GDP is instead measured at purchasing-power parity, emerging economies overtook the developed world in 2008 and are likely to reach 54% of world GDP this year. They now account for over half of the global consumption of most commodities, world exports, and inflows of foreign direct investment. Emerging economies also account for 46% of world retail sales, 52% of all purchases of motor vehicles and 82% of mobile phone subscriptions. They still punch well below their weight in commerce and finance, but they are catching up fast. Almost a quarter of the Fortune Global 500 firms come from emerging markets; in 1995 it was only 4%. The chart below shows more detail of how the economic clout of emerging economies has risen over time: NOTE: Our definition of developed economies based on 1990 data: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States. http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/emerging-vs-developed-economies

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; has appeared on RT Moscow Weekend News: articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and in the US by Dissident Voice, Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Minority Perspective, UK and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign, and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign, which Dissident Voice supports with link at the end of each issue of its newsletter.

What are effective ways of engaging people in conversation about the gathering climate crisis and the need for an emergency response? Let’s start with some key content:

1. Urgency and courage    

The Earth is already too hot: we are in danger now, not just in the future. Warming will accelerate, and 1.5°C is only a decade away, yet annual emissions are still growing and the current, post-Paris emissions trajectory will result in catastrophic warming. The Great Barrier Reef and other coral systems are dying. We are greatly exceeding Earth’s limits, and food and water shortages are contributing to conflicts and forced migration.

On current trends, following the Paris Agreement, we may face catastrophic warming within our children’s lifetimes, with large parts of the world uninhabitable and major food growing regions ruined by drought (such as Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, south-western USA) or rising seas (such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, Egypt). In past periods when greenhouse levels were similar to the current level, temperatures were 3–6°C higher and sea levels around 25–40 metres higher than in 1900.

Climate warming is an existential risk to human civilisation, and on the current warming path we are heading towards outright chaos.

The failure of community and political leaders to talk about such concerns leaves unspoken fears lurking just below the surface of public life, sapping our strength. Fear and alarm should be welcomed as healthy reactions that show we’ve noticed something dangerous is going on.

Our response to the climate crisis is the courage to match actions to the size of the problem.

2.    Emergency response 

Many people realise we are heading for a social and planetary crisis. Three-quarters of Australians consider climate change a “global catastrophic risk”.

Many people have experienced emergencies such as fires, floods or cyclones. In these times, we move into emergency mode. In emergency mode we stop “business-as-usual” because nothing else matters as much as the crisis. We don’t rush thoughtlessly in, but focus on a plan of action, which we implement with thought, and all possible care and speed, to protect others and get to safety. Everyone chips in, with all hands on deck. Climate warming is now a planetary crisis or emergency, requiring courageous leadership and a coordinated society-wide response of a scale and speed never before seen in peacetime.

It is now too late for gradual, incremental steps to protect what we care about. The Titanic didn’t just need to slow its pace, but needed to turn at emergency speed. It’s the same for climate warming. When you are about to go off a cliff, you need to reverse out of the danger zone fast, not just slow your speed.

3. Peoples’ mobilisation 

A failure to properly recognise and communicate the full extent of the climate crisis has produced a dangerous complacency.

The danger we face didn’t just happen. It’s the result of decisions taken by people with vested interests who run the world’s biggest corporations and too much of the media, and their political colleagues.

People made this problem, not nature, and people can fix it. We have the capacity to solve this problem, and live in a safe climate.

Successful social movements are energised by the strength of purpose that comes with working together for a just cause. Popular movements have stopped tyrannical governments, won civil rights and better working conditions and better health services. They have closed down dirty coal and gas mining.

Change is already happening: new wind and solar are cheaper than new coal power. A transition  disrupting the old energy industries is well under way. We have the economic and technological capacity to succeed, but a failed politics is preventing the fast change that is now essential.

4. Fast solutions 

The planet is already too hot, so we must stopping emitting climate-warming gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, as fast as humanly possible. At emergency speed.

We are already in the climate danger zone, so we need to reduce or “draw down” some of the climate-warming gases in the air. Restoring degraded forests is a great starting point.

Achieving these goals fast is essential if we are to stop further ”tipping points” in the climate system that would lead to many metres of sea-level rise, drowning cities and rich coastal lands.

We have the knowhow to make change fast, and plans to support communities most directly affected by change.

And change can happen fast when we really apply our effort: from fighting natural emergencies and rebuilding cities, to going to the moon or building a digital economy.   The steps to a safe climate will also build a better and more livable world: clean energy, better-designed cities, comfortable homes, healthier food, less waste, regenerative farming and the recovery of the natural world.

Telling the story 

The story may be told in the following manner:

Framing.  Research on public health promotion campaigns shows that the messages that work best combine a personally relevant description of the threat (fear), a clear exposition of the solution with a clear path of achievable actions to address it (hope). Counterposing “fear” and “hope” narratives is a false dichotomy, because both are needed. Just reading a climate message that forthrightly describes the seriousness of our situation can increase commitment to taking action. Strong fear messages have been found to be more effective than weak fear messages.

In their hearts, most people value the same things: good relationships with friends and family, providing for and supporting their families, and making a positive social contribution. The “health, wellbeing and livelihood” frame presents climate change in ways that connect to core values and issues familiar to people and decision makers.

It can activate and reinforce values of empathy, responsibility, protection, community, fairness and opportunity, These world views are commonly held by both conservatives and progressives . The “health, wellbeing and livelihood” frame is an opportunity to spell out not just the centrality of the climate change threat, but how it impacts and threatens each and every part of our lives, including where we live, jobs, transport, energy infrastructure, the economy and even where we holiday.

Sample story. Here is an example:

Our climate is already too hot, with more dangerous heatwaves and bushfires, droughts and crop failures, and coastal flooding. Accelerating climate warming could bring on social breakdown and global economic crisis. But Australia’s government, held back by vested interests, is failing to protect us and the things we care about. Like other emergencies, together we need to throw everything we’ve got at this to restore a safe, healthy climate. We have the resources and knowledge to succeed. Success means governments making climate the primary target of policy, and a whole-hearted community effort, to make big changes within a decade.

 Climate Code Red was prompted by the publications in 2008 of Climate Code Red: The case for emergency action by Philip Sutton and David Spratt. The aim of the site is to:

• talk about the new science research which reinforced the need the climate action beyond the failure of politics and business as usual
• analyse the growing gap between science and politics.
• Analyse the climate policy-making paradigm.

It has also incorporated material from the Carbon Equity and Climate Action Centre sites.

Disaggregating reported GDP growth to reveal the differences in growth by income class, as per the Schumer-Heinrich Bill, is a good idea. After all, telling us, say, that average income grew by 4% is not nearly as informative as telling us that the richest ten percent received the entire growth increment while the bottom ten percent suffered a decline in income. Average income and growth rates are like the famous recipe for “50% rabbit stew”—one rabbit, one horse. We already know the extreme inequality in the distribution of wealth, of income, and of the growth increment, even without the Schumer-Heinrich Bill. However, if that information is incorporated every time new GDP figures are reported it will be much harder to ignore. Of course, that is exactly why the bill will be opposed by those who want us to believe that we are all getting 4% better off every year or that “a rising tide lifts all boats”, when in fact a rising tide in one place means an ebbing tide somewhere else.

Once we correct GDP for ignoring distribution, then perhaps we can go on to correct other defects, such as the fact that it adds defensive expenditures made to protect ourselves from the unwanted costs of growth (pollution, depletion, congestion, crime, etc.) while failing to subtract as a cost the damages that made the defensive expenditures necessary in the first place. For example, damages caused by an oil spill are not deducted, but expenditures to clean up the spill are added; depletion of soil fertility is not deducted, but expenditure on fertilizer is added, etc.

In addition, the very concept of income in economics is defined as the maximum amount that a community can consume this year and still produce and consume the same amount again next year, and the years after. The income from a fishery is its sustainable catch; the income from a forest is its sustainable cut. Consuming more than that is capital consumption, not income. Yet, as far as GDP is concerned, we can cut the entire forest and catch every fish this year and count it all as income—there is no rule against counting consumption of natural capital as income in GDP accounting.

If our main goal is to increase GDP rapidly, then we will not want to slow it down for concern about equity of distribution, or by correcting the asymmetric accounting of defensive expenditures, or by correcting the fundamental economic error of counting capital drawdown as income.  Maximizing GDP growth will lead to less concern for distributional equity, more depletion and pollution, and more consumption of natural capital.

I am reminded of a story told by G. K. Chesterton. A pub was serving poison beer and customers were dying. Alert citizens petitioned the local magistrate to close down the offending establishment. The cautious magistrate said, “You have made a convincing case against the pub. But before we  can do something so drastic as closing it down, you must consider the question of what you propose to put in its place…”.  Contrary to the magistrate you don’t need to put anything in the pub’s place. Nor is it really necessary to put anything in the place of the poison beer of GDP. As it happens, however, there are in fact better things to put in its place, such as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, National Welfare Index, and Genuine Progress Indicator.

Herman Daly is an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs and a member of the CASSE executive board. He is co-founder and associate editor of the journal Ecological Economics, and he was a senior economist with the World Bank from 1988 to 1994. His interests in economic development, population, resources and environment have resulted in more than 100 articles in professional journals and anthologies, as well as numerous books.

It was May 2017. The Saudis were growing increasingly nervous. For more than two years they had been relying heavily on U.S. military support and bombs to defeat Houthi rebels in Yemen. Now, the Senate was considering a bipartisan resolution to cut off military aid and halt a big sale of American-made bombs to Saudi Arabia. Fortunately for them, despite mounting evidence that the U.S.-backed, supplied, and fueled air campaign in Yemen was targeting civilians, the Saudi government turned out to have just the weapon needed to keep those bombs and other kinds of aid coming their way: an army of lobbyists.

That year, their forces in Washington included members of more than two dozen lobbying and public relations firms. Key among them was Marc Lampkin, managing partner of the Washington office of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck (BHFS), a company that would be paid nearly half a million dollars by the Saudi government in 2017. Records from the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) show that Lampkin contacted Senate offices more than 20 times about that resolution, speaking, for instance, with the legislative director for Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) on May 16, 2017. Perhaps coincidentally, Lampkin reported making a $2,000 contribution to the senator’s political action committee that very day. On June 13th, along with a majority of his fellow senators, Scott voted to allow the Saudis to get their bombs. A year later, the type of bomb authorized in that sale has reportedlybeen used in air strikes that have killed civilians in Yemen.

Little wonder that, for this and his other lobbying work, Lampkin earned a spot on the “Top Lobbyists 2017: Hired Guns” list compiled by the Washington publication the Hill.

Lampkin’s story was anything but exceptional when it comes to lobbyists working on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It was, in fact, very much the norm. The Saudi government has hired lobbyists in profusion and they, in turn, have effectively helped convince members of Congress and the president to ignore blatant human rights violations and civilian casualties in Yemen. According to a forthcoming report by the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative program, which I direct, at the Center for International Policy, registered foreign agents working on behalf of interests in Saudi Arabia contacted Congressional representatives, the White House, the media, and figures at influential think tanks more than 2,500 times in 2017 alone. In the process, they also managed to contribute nearly $400,000 to the political coffers of senators and House members as they urged them to support the Saudis. Some of those contributions, like Lampkin’s, were given on the same day the requests were made to support those arms sales.

The role of Marc Lampkin is just a tiny sub-plot in the expansive and ongoing story of Saudi money in Washington. Think of it as a striking tale of pay-to-play politics that will undoubtedly be revving up again in the coming weeks as the Saudi lobby works to block new Congressional efforts to end U.S. involvement in the disastrous war in Yemen.

A Lobby to Contend With

The roots of that lobby’s rise to prominence in Washington lie in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As you may remember, with 15 of those 19 suicidal hijackers being citizens of Saudi Arabia, it was hardly surprising that American public opinion had soured on the Kingdom. In response, the worried Saudi royals spent around $100 million over the next decade to improve such public perceptions and retain their influence in the U.S. capital. That lobbying facelift proved a success until, in 2015, relations soured with the Obama administration over the Iran nuclear deal. Once Donald Trump won the presidency, however, the Saudis saw an unparalleled opportunity and launched the equivalent of a full-court press, an aggressive campaign to woo the newly elected president and the Republican-led Congress, which, of course, cost real money.

As a result, the growth of Saudi lobbying operations would prove extraordinary. In 2016, according to FARA records, they reported spending just under $10 million on lobbying firms; in 2017, that number had nearly tripled to $27.3 million. And that’s just a baseline figure for a far larger operation to buy influence in Washington, since it doesn’t include considerable sums given to elite universities or think tanks like the Arab Gulf States Institute, the Middle East Institute, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (to mention just a few of them).

This meteoric rise in spending allowed the Saudis to dramatically increase the number of lobbyists representing their interests on both sides of the aisle. Before President Trump even took office, the Saudi government signed a deal with the McKeon Group, a lobbying firm headed by Howard “Buck” McKeon, the recently retired Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. His firm also represents Lockheed Martin, one of the top providers of military equipment to the Kingdom. On the Democratic side, the Saudis inked a $140,000-per-month deal with the Podesta Group, headed by Tony Podesta, whose brother John, a long-time Democratic Party operative, was the former chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Tony Podesta later dissolved his firm and has allegedly been investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for serving as an unregistered foreign agent.

And keep in mind that all this new firepower was added to an already formidable arsenal of lobbying outfits and influential power brokers, including former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who, according to Lee Fang of the Intercept, was “deeply involved in the [Trump] White House hiring process,” and former Senator Norm Coleman, chairmanof the pro-Republican Super PAC American Action Network. All told, during 2017, Saudi Arabia inked 45 different contracts with FARA-registered firms and more than 100 individuals registered as Saudi foreign agents in the U.S. They proved to be extremely busy. Such activity reveals a clear pattern: Saudi foreign agents are working tirelessly to shape perceptions of that country, its royals, its policies, and especially its grim war in Yemen, while simultaneously working to keep U.S. weapons and military support flowing into the Kingdom.

While the term “foreign agent” is often used as a synonym for lobbyist, part of the work performed by the Kingdom’s paid representatives here resembles public relations activity far more than straightforward lobbying. For example, in 2017, Saudi foreign agents reported contacting media outlets more than 500 times, including significant outreach to national ones like the New York Times, theWashington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and PBS, which has aired multiple documentariesabout the Kingdom. Also included, however, were smaller papers like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and more specialized outlets, even ESPN, in hopes of encouraging positive stories.

The Kingdom’s image in the U.S. clearly concerned those agents. Still, the lion’s share of their activity was focused on security issues of importance to that country’s royals. For example, Saudi agents contacted officials at the State Department, which oversees most commercial arms transfers and sales, nearly 100 times in 2017, according to FARA filings. Above all, however, their focus was on Congress, especially members with seniority on key committees. As a result, at some point between late 2016 and the end of 2017, Saudi lobbyists contacted more than 200 of them, including every single Senator.

The ones most often dealt with were, not surprisingly, those with the greatest leverage over U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia. For example, the office of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who sits on both the appropriations and armed services committees, was the most contacted, while that of Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) was the top Democratic one. (He sits on the appropriations and foreign relations committees.)

Following the Money from Saudi Arabia to Campaign Coffers

Just as there’s a clear pattern when it comes to contacting congressional representatives who might help their Saudi clients, so there’s a clear pattern to the lobbying money flowing to those same members of Congress.

The FARA documents that record all foreign-agent political activity also list campaign contributions reported by those agents. Just as we did for political activities, the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative program conducted an analysis of all campaign contributions reported in those 2017 filings by firms that represented Saudi interests. And here’s what we found: more than a third of the members of Congress contacted by such a firm also received a campaign contribution from a foreign agent at that firm. In total, according to their 2017 FARA filings, foreign agents at firms representing Saudi clients made $390,496 in campaign contributions to congressional figures they, or another agent at their firm, contacted on behalf of their Saudi clients.

This flow of money is best exemplified by the 11 separate occasions we uncovered in which a firm reported contacting a congressional representative on behalf of Saudi clients on the same day someone at the same firm made a campaign contribution to the same senator or House member. In other words, there are 10 other cases just like Marc Lampkin’s, involving foreign agents at Squire Patton Boggs, DLA Piper, and Hogan Lovells. For instance, Hogan Lovells reported meeting with Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) on behalf of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia on April 26, 2017, and that day an agent at the firm made a $2,700 contribution to “Bob Corker for Senate 2018.” (Corker would later decide not to seek reelection.)

While some might argue that contributions like these look a lot like bribery, they turn out to be perfectly legal. No law bars such an act, and while it’s true that foreign nationals and foreign governments are prohibited from making contributions to political campaigns, there’s a simple work-around for that, one the Saudis obviously made use of big time. Any foreign power hoping to line the pockets of American politicians just has to hire a local lobbyist to do it for them.

As Jimmy Williams, a former lobbyist, wrote: “Today, most lobbyists are engaged in a system of bribery, but it’s the legal kind.”

The Saudi Lobby Today

Fast forward to late 2018 and that very same lobby is now fighting vigorously to defeat a House measure that would end U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen. They’re flooding congressional offices with their requests, in effect asking Congress to ignore the more than 10,000 civilians who have died in Yemen, the U.S. bombs that have been the cause of many of those deaths, and a civil war that has led to a resurgence of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. They’ll probably mention Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent “certification” that the Saudis are now supposedly taking the necessary steps to prevent more civilian casualties there.

What they’re not likely to mention is that his decision was reportedly driven by the head of the legislative affairs team at the State Department who just happens to be a former foreign agent with BGR Government Affairs, one of 35 FARA registrants working for Saudi Arabia at this moment. Such lobbyists and publicists are using the deep pockets of the Saudi royals to spread their propaganda, highlighting the charitable work that government is doing in Yemen. What they fail to emphasize, of course, are the Saudi blockade of the country and the American-backed, armed, and fueled air strikes that are killing civilians at weddings, funerals, school bus trips, and other civilian events. All of this is, in addition, helping to create a grotesque famine, a potential disaster of the most extreme sort and the very reason such humanitarian assistance is needed.

In the end, even if the facts aren’t on their side, the dollars are. Since September 2001, that reality has proven remarkably convincing in Washington, as copious dollars flowed from Saudi Arabia to U.S. military contractors (who are making billions selling weapons to that country), to lobbying firms, and via those firms directly into Congressional coffers.

Is this really how U.S. foreign policy should be determined?

Ben Freeman is the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiativeat the Center for International Policy (CIP). This is his second TomDispatchpiece.

In 2015, India’s internal intelligence agency wrote a report that depicted various campaigners and groups as working against the national interest. The report singled out environmental activists and NGOs that had been protesting against state-corporate policies. Those largely undemocratic and unconstitutional policies were endangering rivers, forests and local ecologies, destroying and oppressing marginalised communities, entrenching the corporatisation of agriculture and usurping land rights.

These issues are not unique to India. Resistance against similar practices and injustices is happening across the world. And for their efforts, campaigners are being abused, incarcerated and murdered. Whether people are campaigning for the land rights of tribal communities in India or for the rights of peasant farmers in Latin America or are campaigning against the fracking industry in the UK or against pipelines in the US, there is a common thread: non-violent protest to help bring about a more just and environmentally sustainable world.

What is ultimately fuelling the push towards the relentless plunder of land, peoples and the environment is a strident globalised capitalism, euphemistically termed ‘globalisation’, which is underpinned by increasing state surveillance, paramilitary-type law enforcement and a US-backed push towards militarism.

The deregulation of international capital movement (financial liberalisation) effectively turned the world into a free-for-all for global capital. The ramping up of this militarism comes at the back end of a deregulating/pro-privatising neoliberal agenda that has sacked public budgets, depressed wages, expanded credit to consumers and to governments (to sustain spending and consumption) and unbridled financial speculation. In effect, spending on war is in part a desperate attempt to boost a stagnant US economy.

We may read the writings of the likes of John Perkins (economic hitmen), Michel Chossudovsky (the globalisation of poverty), Michael Hudson (treasury bond super-imperialism) or Paul Craig Roberts (the US’s descent into militarism and mass surveillance) to understand the machinations of billionaire capitalists and the economic system and massive levels of exploitation and suffering they preside over.

Food activists are very much part of the global pushback and the struggle for peace, equality and justice and in one form or another are campaigning against violence, corruption and cronyism. There is a determination to question and to hold to account those with wealth and power, namely transnational agribusiness corporations and their cronies who hold political office.

There is sufficient evidence for us to know that these companies lie and cover up truth. And we also know that their bought politicians, academics, journalists and right-wing neoliberal backers and front groups smear critics and attempt to marginalise alternative visions of food and agriculture.

They are first to man the barricades when their interests are threatened. Those interests are tied to corporate power, neoliberal capitalism and the roll out of food for profit. These companies and their cheerleaders would be the last to speak up about the human rights abuses faced by environmentalists in various places across the world. They have little to say about the injustices of a global food regime that creates and perpetuates food surpluses in rich countries and food deficits elsewhere, resulting in a billion people with insufficient food for their daily needs. Instead all they have to offer are clichés about the need for more corporate freedom and deregulation if we are to ‘feed the world’.

And they attempt to gloss over or just plain ignore the land grabs and the marginalisation of peasant farmers across the world, the agrarian crisis in India or the harm done by agrochemicals because it is all tied to the neoliberal globalisation agenda which fuels corporate profit, lavish salaries or research grants.

It is the type of globalisation that has in the UK led to deindustrialisation, massive inequalities, the erosion of the welfare state and an increasing reliance on food banks. In South America, there has been the colonisation of lands and farmers to feed richer countries’ unsustainable, environment-destroying appetite for meat. In effect what Helena Paul once described in The Ecologist as genocide and ecocide.  From India to Argentina, we have witnessed (are witnessing) the destruction of indigenous practices and cultures under the guise of ‘development’.

And from various bilateral trade agreements and WTO policies to IMF and World Bank directives, we have seen the influence of transnational agricapital shaping and benefitting from ‘ease of doing business’ and ‘structural adjustment’ type strategies.

We also see the globalisation of bad food and illness and the deleterious impacts of chemical-intensive industrial agriculture on health, rivers, soils and oceans. The global food regime thrives on the degradation of health, environment, labour and communities and the narrowing of the range of crops grown resulting in increasingly monolithic, nutrient-deficient diets.

Whether it includes any or all of the above or the hollowing out of regulatory agencies and the range of human rights abuses we saw documented during The Monsanto Tribunal, what we see is the tacit acceptance of neoliberal policies and the perpetuation of structural (economic, social and political) violence by mainstream politicians and agricapital and its cheerleaders.

At the same time, however, what we are also witnessing is a loosely defined food movement becoming increasingly aware of the connection between these issues.

Of course, to insinuate that those campaigning for the labelling of GM food, the right to healthy food or access to farmers markets in the West and peasant movements involved with wider issues pertaining to food sovereignty, corporate imperialism and development in the Global South form part of a unified ‘movement’ in terms of material conditions or ideological outlook would be stretching a point.

After all, if you campaign for, say, healthy organic food in your supermarket, while overlooking the fact that the food in question derives from a cash crop which displaced traditional cropping systems and its introduction effectively destroyed largely food self-sufficient communities and turned them into food importing basket cases three thousand miles away, where is the unity?

However, despite the provisos, among an increasing number of food activists the struggle for healthy food in the West, wider issues related to the impact of geopolitical IMF-World Bank lending strategies and WTO policies and the securing of local community ownership of ‘the commons’ (land, water, seeds, research, technology, etc) are understood as being interconnected.

There is an emerging unity of purpose within the food movement and the embracing of a vision for a better, more just food system that can only deliver genuine solutions by challenging and replacing capitalism and its international relations of production and consumption.

Colin Todhunter is an independent writer

Responding to climate change is far more like a marathon than a sprint.

The IPCC 1.5ºC Special report (#SR15) has been released:

• The press release
• Frequently Asked Questions
• The Summary For Policy Makers (SPM)
• The full report

Thoughts

It’s well worth reading the SPM and FAQs before confidently pronouncing on the utility or impact of this report. The FAQs include the following questions:

1. FAQ 1.1: Why are we talking about 1.5°C?
2. FAQ 1.2: How close are we to 1.5°C?
3. FAQ 2.1: What kind of pathways limit warming to 1.5°C and are we on track?
4. FAQ 2.2: What do energy supply and demand have to do with limiting warming to 1.5°C?
5. FAQ 3.1: What are the impacts of 1.5°C and 2°C of warming?
6. FAQ 4.1: What transitions could enable limiting global warming to 1.5°C?
7. FAQ 4.2: What are Carbon Dioxide Removal and negative emissions?
8. FAQ 4.3: Why is adaptation important in a 1.5°C warmer world?
9. FAQ 5.1: What are the connections between sustainable development and limiting global warming to 1.5°C?
10. FAQ 5.2: What are the pathways to achieving poverty reduction and reducing inequalities while reaching the 1.5°C world?

First thing to remember is that this special report was commissioned from the UNFCCC on the back of the Paris Accord (which is not the process for main IPCC reports). Secondly, the IPCC is constrained to only assess published literature or otherwise publically available data. This means that if no groups have studied a question, there isn’t much to assess. Sometimes the gaps are apparent even in the scoping of the reports which can encourage people to focus on them at an early stage and have publications ready in time for the final report, but one of the main impacts of any of these reports is to influence research directions going forward.

What does 1.5ºC mean?

The SR15 has defined 1.5ºC as the warming from the period 1850-1900. This is 2.7ºF and about 1/3rd of an ice age unit (the amount of warming from the depths of the last ice age 20,000 years ago to the mid-19th Century).

This baseline is not really “pre-industrial”, and there have been some interesting discussions on what that phrase might be usefully defined as (Hawkins et al ,2017; Mann et al, 2017), but this baseline is the easiest to adopt since estimates of climate impacts are being based on climate models from CMIP5 which effectively use that same baseline. The timing of projected impacts is a little sensitive to definitional issues with the “global mean” temperature, and whether the instrumental record is biased with respect to changes in the mean – particularly in the earlier part of the record when the data is relatively sparse.

At current rates, we’ll hit 1.5ºC on a decadal-average basis by ~2040. The first year above 1.5ºC will occur substantially earlier, likely associated with a big El Niño event in the late 2020s/early 2030s.

Can we avoid going through 1.5ºC?

IPCC has to use a few circumlocutions to avoid giving a direct answer to this question (for reasonable and understandable reasons). I’m not quite so constrained…

There are many issues related to the feasibility question of which physical climate-related issues are only one. The basic issue is that the effort to reduce emissions sufficiently to never get past 1.5ºC would require a global effort to decarbonize starting immediately that would dwarf current efforts or pledges. This seems unlikely (IMO).

There are a few ‘get-out-of-jail’ cards that are considered. First, we can overshoot 1.5ºC, and then come back down after heroic efforts to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere though so-called ‘negative emissions’. This makes the immediate task less daunting, but at the expense of relying on global scale efforts with carbon sequestration, or BECCS, or direct air capture, which are extremely speculative. Second, we could start direct geo-engineering efforts to reduce temperatures and (most optimistically) buy time for carbon emissions to come down a little more slowly. Both of these scenarios come with dramatic and underexplored geo-political consequences (are there any stable governance regimes for geo-engineering? is there sufficient land for large scale BECCS?), as well as substantial moral hazard.

So my answer is… no.

I get that there is reluctance to say this publically – it sounds as if one is complicit in the impacts that will occur above 1.5ºC, but it seems to me that tractable challenges are more motivating than impossible (or extremely unfeasible) ones – I would be happy to be proven wrong on this though.

The utility of the SR15 report?

Even if you think that working on responses to impacts that are almost certainly going to be smaller than we are actually going to see, there are some useful aspects of this report. The basic fact is that moving beyond the small efforts that have been made so far implies transitions that are effectively the same whether we hope to stabilise at 1.5ºC, 2ºC or even 3ºC – only the rate at which they are implemented differs.

This is because near-term reductions in carbon emissions by ~70% are required to even stabilize CO2, and to stabilize temperature, even further (net) reductions are required. And worse still to stabilize sea level, eventual temperature drops would be required.

Efforts on these scales are not easy, and will need to be sustained over many decades and much of the work discussed in this report will be central to that. Nonetheless, this will be a marathon effort. It is thus perhaps worth paraphrasing Eliud Kipchoge, the recent winner of the Berlin marathon:

The best time to start [reducing emissions] was 25 years ago. The second best time is today.

References

1. E. Hawkins, P. Ortega, E. Suckling, A. Schurer, G. Hegerl, P. Jones, M. Joshi, T.J. Osborn, V. Masson-Delmotte, J. Mignot, P. Thorne, and G.J. van Oldenborgh, “Estimating Changes in Global Temperature since the Preindustrial Period”, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol. 98, pp. 1841-1856, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0007.1
2. A.P. Schurer, M.E. Mann, E. Hawkins, S.F.B. Tett, and G.C. Hegerl, “Importance of the pre-industrial baseline for likelihood of exceeding Paris goals”, Nature Climate Change, vol. 7, pp. 563-567, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3345

Gavin Schmidt is a climate modeller at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York and is interested in modeling past, present and future climate. He works on developing and improving coupled climate models and, in particular, is interested in how their results can be compared to paleoclimatic proxy data. He has worked on assessing the climate response to multiple forcings, including solar irradiance, atmospheric chemistry, aerosols, and greenhouse gases. He received a BA (Hons) in Mathematics from Oxford University, a PhD in Applied Mathematics from University College London and was a NOAA Postdoctoral Fellow in Climate and Global Change Research. He was cited by Scientific American as one of the 50 Research Leaders of 2004, and has worked on Education and Outreach with the American Museum of Natural History, the College de France and the New York Academy of Sciences. He has over 100 peer-reviewed publications and is the co-author with Josh Wolfe of “Climate Change: Picturing the Science” (W. W. Norton, 2009), a collaboration between climate scientists and photographers. He was awarded the inaugural AGU Climate Communications Prize and was the EarthSky Science communicator of the year in 2011. He tweets at @ClimateOfGavin.

Monday, 8 October 2018: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading international body for the assessment of climate change, has released its Special Report on the impacts that global warming of 1.5°C will have.

In responding to the report and the accompanying summary for policy makers, Gebru Jember Endalew, the Chair of the Least Developed Countries Group said:

“The report provides concrete scientific evidence that confirms the importance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C as opposed to 2°C. Communities across the world are already experiencing the devastating impacts of 1°C global warming. Each fraction of a degree that global temperatures rise is extremely dangerous.”

“Limiting global temperature increases to 1.5°C means significantly decreased levels of food insecurity, water shortages, destruction of infrastructure, and displacement from sea level rise and other impacts. To the lives and livelihoods of billions, that half a degree is everything.”

“The science makes clear that there is an urgent need to accelerate the global response to climate change to avoid exceeding the 1.5°C limit. Governments must increase climate action now and submit more ambitious plans for the future. This includes increasing the level of support to developing countries to enable them to develop and lift their people out of poverty without going down a traditional, unsustainable development pathway.”

On the issue of loss and damage, Mr. Endalew said: “This IPCC report confirms that loss and damage resulting from climate change will only worsen with further warming with much greater losses at 2°C than at 1.5°C. It is particularly vulnerable countries like the least developed countries that are worst affected by the devastating impacts of climate change and bear the greatest cost from the damage it causes, despite contributing the least to the problem. This injustice must be addressed by the international community through the provision of support for dealing with loss and damage.”

“The most important message of this IPCC report is that achieving the 1.5°C is necessary, achievable, and urgent. A safer more prosperous future is possible with immediate action to implement transformative change across societies. There is a need to take advantage of the increasing availability of affordable, renewable and efficient energy solutions, rapidly reduce the use of fossil fuels, with coal phased out by mid-century, preserve and restore forests and soils, promote sustainable agriculture and implement other real climate solutions that together can bring about a zero-carbon economy.”

On the implementation guidelines for the Paris Agreement that are due at COP24 in December 2018, he said: “The IPCC report has made even clearer the need for the Paris Rulebook to properly reflect the breadth of action required by all countries to achieve the Agreement’s 1.5°C goal. Countries must deliver a robust Rulebook that will ensure adequate action is taken to cut emissions, adapt to climate change and address loss and damage, and that support is provided to enable poorer countries to do the same.”

Chair, Least Developed Countries Group, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Monday, 8 October 2018: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading international body for the assessment of climate change, has released its Special Report on the impacts that global warming of 1.5°C will have.

In responding to the report and the accompanying summary for policy makers, Gebru Jember Endalew, the Chair of the Least Developed Countries Group said:

“The report provides concrete scientific evidence that confirms the importance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C as opposed to 2°C. Communities across the world are already experiencing the devastating impacts of 1°C global warming. Each fraction of a degree that global temperatures rise is extremely dangerous.”

“Limiting global temperature increases to 1.5°C means significantly decreased levels of food insecurity, water shortages, destruction of infrastructure, and displacement from sea level rise and other impacts. To the lives and livelihoods of billions, that half a degree is everything.”

“The science makes clear that there is an urgent need to accelerate the global response to climate change to avoid exceeding the 1.5°C limit. Governments must increase climate action now and submit more ambitious plans for the future. This includes increasing the level of support to developing countries to enable them to develop and lift their people out of poverty without going down a traditional, unsustainable development pathway.”

On the issue of loss and damage, Mr. Endalew said: “This IPCC report confirms that loss and damage resulting from climate change will only worsen with further warming with much greater losses at 2°C than at 1.5°C. It is particularly vulnerable countries like the least developed countries that are worst affected by the devastating impacts of climate change and bear the greatest cost from the damage it causes, despite contributing the least to the problem. This injustice must be addressed by the international community through the provision of support for dealing with loss and damage.”

“The most important message of this IPCC report is that achieving the 1.5°C is necessary, achievable, and urgent. A safer more prosperous future is possible with immediate action to implement transformative change across societies. There is a need to take advantage of the increasing availability of affordable, renewable and efficient energy solutions, rapidly reduce the use of fossil fuels, with coal phased out by mid-century, preserve and restore forests and soils, promote sustainable agriculture and implement other real climate solutions that together can bring about a zero-carbon economy.”

On the implementation guidelines for the Paris Agreement that are due at COP24 in December 2018, he said: “The IPCC report has made even clearer the need for the Paris Rulebook to properly reflect the breadth of action required by all countries to achieve the Agreement’s 1.5°C goal. Countries must deliver a robust Rulebook that will ensure adequate action is taken to cut emissions, adapt to climate change and address loss and damage, and that support is provided to enable poorer countries to do the same.”

Chair, Least Developed Countries Group, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

INCHEON, Republic of Korea, 8 Oct – Limiting global warming to 1.5ºC would require rapid, farreaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, the IPCC said in a new assessment. With clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems, limiting global warming to 1.5ºC compared to 2ºC could go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said on Monday.

The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC was approved by the IPCC on Saturday in Incheon, Republic of Korea. It will be a key scientific input into the Katowice Climate Change Conference in Poland in December, when governments review the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change. “With more than 6,000 scientific references cited and the dedicated contribution of thousands of expert and government reviewers worldwide, this important report testifies to the breadth and policy relevance of the IPCC,” said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC.

Ninety-one authors and review editors from 40 countries prepared the IPCC report in response to an invitation from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) when it adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015.

The report’s full name is Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.

“One of the key messages that comes out very strongly from this report is that we are already seeing the consequences of 1°C of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes,” said Panmao Zhai, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I.

The report highlights a number of climate change impacts that could be avoided by limiting global warming to 1.5ºC compared to 2ºC, or more. For instance, by 2100, global sea level rise would be 10 cm lower with global warming of 1.5°C compared with 2°C. The likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in summer would be once per century with global warming of 1.5°C, compared with at least once per decade with 2°C. Coral reefs would decline by 70-90 percent with global warming of 1.5°C, whereas virtually all (> 99 percent) would be lost with 2ºC. “Every extra bit of warming matters, especially since warming of 1.5ºC or higher increases the risk associated with long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the loss of some ecosystems,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II.

Limiting global warming would also give people and ecosystems more room to adapt and remain below relevant risk thresholds, added Pörtner. The report also examines pathways available to limit warming to 1.5ºC, what it would take to achieve them and what the consequences could be.

“The good news is that some of the kinds of actions that would be needed to limit global warming to 1.5ºC are already underway around the world, but they would need to accelerate,” said Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Co-Chair of Working Group I.

The report finds that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities. Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050. This means that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from the air.

“Limiting warming to 1.5ºC is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes,” said Jim Skea, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III. Allowing the global temperature to temporarily exceed or ‘overshoot’ 1.5ºC would mean a greater reliance on techniques that remove CO2 from the air to return global temperature to below 1.5ºC by 2100. The effectiveness of such techniques are unproven at large scale and some may carry
significant risks for sustainable development, the report notes.

“Limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared with 2°C would reduce challenging impacts on ecosystems, human health and well-being, making it easier to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,” said Priyardarshi Shukla, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III. The decisions we make today are critical in ensuring a safe and sustainable world for everyone, both now and in the future, said Debra Roberts, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II.

“This report gives policymakers and practitioners the information they need to make decisions that tackle climate change while considering local context and people’s needs. The next few years are probably the most important in our history,” she said.

The IPCC is the leading world body for assessing the science related to climate change, its impacts and potential future risks, and possible response options.

The report was prepared under the scientific leadership of all three IPCC working groups. Working Group I assesses the physical science basis of climate change; Working Group II addresses impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and Working Group III deals with the mitigation of climate change.

The Paris Agreement adopted by 195 nations at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in December 2015 included the aim of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change by “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

As part of the decision to adopt the Paris Agreement, the IPCC was invited to produce, in 2018, a Special Report on global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways. The IPCC accepted the invitation, adding that the Special Report would look at these issues in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. Global Warming of 1.5ºC is the first in a series of Special Reports to be produced in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Cycle. Next year the IPCC will release the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, and Climate Change and Land, which looks at how climate change affects land use.

The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) presents the key findings of the Special Report, based on the assessment of the available scientific, technical and socio-economic literature relevant to global warming of 1.5°C.

The Summary for Policymakers of the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC (SR15) is available at http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/ or www.ipcc.ch.

Key statistics of the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC 91 authors from 44 citizenships and 40 countries of residence

• 14 Coordinating Lead Authors (CLAs)
• 60 Lead authors (LAs)
• 17 Review Editors (REs)
  133 Contributing authors (CAs) Over 6,000 cited references
  A total of 42,001 expert and government review comments
  (First Order Draft 12,895; Second Order Draft 25,476; Final Government Draft: 3,630)
  For more information, contact:
  IPCC Press Office, Email: ipcc-media@wmo.int
  Werani Zabula +41 79 108 3157 or Nina Peeva +41 79 516 7068
  Follow IPCC on Facebook, Twitter , LinkedIn and Instagram

Notes for editors

The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 ºC , known as SR15, is being prepared in response to an invitation from the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 2015, when they reached the Paris Agreement, and will inform the Talanoa Dialogue at the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24). The Talanoa Dialogue will take stock of the collective efforts of Parties in relation to progress towards the longterm goal of the Paris Agreement, and to inform the preparation of nationally determined contributions. Details of the report, including the approved outline, can be found on the report page. The report was prepared under the joint scientific leadership of all three IPCC Working Groups, with support from the Working Group I Technical Support Unit. What is the IPCC?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies. It has 195 member states. IPCC assessments provide governments, at all levels, with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. IPCC assessments are a key input into the international negotiations to tackle climate change. IPCC reports are drafted and reviewed in several stages, thus guaranteeing
objectivity and transparency.

The IPCC assesses the thousands of scientific papers published each year to tell policymakers what we know and don’t know about the risks related to climate change. The IPCC identifies where there is agreement in the scientific community, where there are differences of opinion, and where further research is needed. It does not conduct its own research.

To produce its reports, the IPCC mobilizes hundreds of scientists. These scientists and officials are drawn from diverse backgrounds. Only a dozen permanent staff work in the IPCC’s Secretariat. The IPCC has three working groups: Working Group I, dealing with the physical science basis of climate change; Working Group II, dealing with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and Working Group III, dealing with the mitigation of climate change. It also has a Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories that develops methodologies for measuring emissions and removals. IPCC Assessment Reports consist of contributions from each of the three working groups and a Synthesis Report. Special Reports undertake an assessment of cross-disciplinary issues that span more than one working group and are shorter and more focused than the main assessments. Sixth Assessment Cycle

At its 41st Session in February 2015, the IPCC decided to produce a Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). At its 42nd Session in October 2015 it elected a new Bureau that would oversee the work on this report and Special Reports to be produced in the assessment cycle. At its 43rd Session in April 2016, it decided to produce three Special Reports, a Methodology Report and AR6. The Methodology Report to refine the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas
Inventories will be delivered in 2019. Besides Global Warming of 1.5ºC, the IPCC will finalize two further special reports in 2019: the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate and Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. The AR6 Synthesis Report will be finalized in the first half of 2022, following the three working group contributions to AR6 in 2021.

For more information, including links to the IPCC reports, go to: www.ipcc.ch

There will be no future on a dead planet, socialist or otherwise. If the left is to seize power and bring our planet into the rational egalitarian age we envision, we will need to simultaneously tackle a host of environmental crises. Failure to do so will mean that our project is doomed from the onset. Even the most firmly grounded socialist society will not survive ecological collapse, throwing the planet and its people back into the barbarism we are working so hard to overcome. Or worse.

At this point many readers, whom I assume are at least moderately progressive and aware of the threat posed by anthropogenic climate change, will be vigorously nodding their heads. Yes, of course, we need to decarbonize. Of course, we need to have an environmentally sustainable society. My fear is that decades of being exposed to capitalist conceptions of Earth and her gifts, and an almost myopic focus on global warming, have left many to underestimate the scale and number of the problems that face us.

I have written elsewhere about a handful of the non-climate-change ecological crises facing modern society. I’ve also touched on the fact that we find ourselves in the midst of the sixth great mass extinction. Colonial capitalist society is the progenitor of the extinction crisis and is certainly fundamentally incapable of addressing it. We have moved from Rosa’s prediction of “socialism or barbarism” to a new prediction: “socialism or apocalypse” for the living world. But it is not a foregone conclusion that socialism will halt the extinction event, is is necessary but by no means sufficient. We must have an understanding of its proximate causes and how to address them.

Dividing up the Earth

While the effects of colonial capitalist civilization on Earth’s biodiversity are cumulative and likely impossible to totally unravel, far-and-away the biggest cause of the contemporary extinction crisis is habitat fragmentation and destruction. Each species has specific needs for types and extent of habitat and these needs simply can’t be ignored if that species is to persist. Perhaps most importantly, the largest mammals, such as grizzly bears and bison, require huge tracts of land to fulfil their needs for feeding, mating, daily travel and annual migration. It is a sad fact that without enough good habitat set aside for these species they simply will not survive. There is no substitute, there is no alternative course of action, we must learn to share Earth with her other species or we will lose them.

Extent of habitat fragmentation in the so-called United States (1620–1990).

The current areas set aside as preserves, such as the National Parks of the so-called United States, are insufficient in isolation. Current levels of faunal abundance in those areas are deceptive. The animals in these parks are the walking dead. Studies have shown that the parks have been hemorrhaging species since their establishment. They are simply too small and disconnected to maintain the minimum viable populationsof many of these species, while the populations may seem stable in a snapshot view, they are on the slow descent to extirpation.

Cores, Corridors & Carnivores

Conservation biologists know what it will take, generally, to prevent or at least mitigate the results of the extinction crisis. If we want to continue to be able to experience nature, to derive spiritual, aesthetic and yes, even economic, benefits from the beings with which we share Earth, and especially if we want to extend our circle of compassion to encompass those beings and realize they have every inherent right to survive and thrive, we must set aside a continent-wide series of nature preserves. Conservation Biologists talk about the “3 C’s” of such a preserve system: cores, corridors and carnivores.

Cores

Cores are the anchors of a continental conservation system. Like parts of our current National Parks, they are off-limits to extractive activities and destructive recreation. These will be areas where we can allow natural processes to self-organize the biotic system.

Cores, ideally, should be large enough to encompass all of the life history needs of the farthest roaming species, such as wolves or grizzly bears. Size is also important when it comes to natural processes like fire, which many tree and grass species rely on for reproduction. At the landscape scale, ecosystems are healthiest and most productive when they have a patchwork of different timescales since the last disturbance. This allows for habitat for various species which are adapted to the particular plant assemblages occuring at each “successional stage” post fire. If the protected area is too small, we risk a single fire burning down the entire thing, and species who need old-growth conditions will not be able to survive.

It is imperative that cores be roadless. Studies have shown that more than .6 km of road in 1 square km of habitat is enough to effectively fragment the habitat, leading to the slow extirpation of many species there. Roads are vectors for destructive invasive species and can lead to increased poaching and other destructive activities in the conservation core. For this reason, roadlessness has been an important feature in the federal designation of wilderness. However, we must not be purists in this sense — if an area can be restored to a roadless condition we should do so — rather than give up on it because it had a road at one point.

Core areas, and corridors which I will discuss momentarily, must be surrounded by buffer zones, which can serve as marginal habitat for the species in the cores, but within which certain necessary extractive activities and agriculture can be carried out in a sustainable, ecological manner. There are many people doing work on sustainable forestry and agriculture practices which would allow us to utilize natural resources while protecting crucial habitat. Socialists should fight for these areas to have community control, so that people have a say in how they are managed, through land trusts and other cooperative mechanisms.

Corridors

One of the unique contributions of conservation biology to the study of protected areas is the necessity of corridors, smaller protected areas which can serve as core habitat for some small animals and plants, but which function primarily as safe pathways between cores, for larger animals. Corridors are necessary for a functioning reserve system. It is the lack of connection between core areas which can account for much of the decline in large carnivores in North America. Animals need to be able to disperse, to mate within groups other than those they grew up with, in order to stave off inbreeding and eventual extirpation, through genetic interchange. Animals will try to do this whether the protected corridors exist or not, but without protection they are liable to get shot or runover, or to wander onto ranches or into neighborhoods. The same is true of annual migrations of some animals. Without safe corridors to pass through on their migrations, we will likely be unable to restore the iconic bison in any practical sense, for instance, and these animals would be key to maintaining the any semblance of the once-magnificent Great Plains that spanned parts of our country.

Another important function of corridors is that they will allow for the northward movement of plants and animals in response to global climate change. Species requiring cooler climates will necessarily have to move or else face extinction. There is simply no chance of their being able to do so over the matrix of strip malls, highways, agricultural fields and clearcuts currently making up a large part of this country’s land base. Without protected habitat and safe passage, many species will simply go extinct.

Carnivores

There has been a general recognition of top carnivores’ necessary mediating role in natural communities since the 1990s or so. Keystone species such as carnivores, are essential links in the food web of communities and, as the name “keystone” implies, the delicate webs collapse in their absence. The most famous example is that of the Yellowstone wolves. There are many great resources on this topic out there (I recommend George Monbiot’s Ted Talk) so I will describe it only briefly.

When wolves were extirpated from Yellowstone Park in 1926, the populations of elk and deer skyrocketed. Not only were they no longer being kept in check by predation, but they no longer had to fear for their lives out in the open and so they took to lazily browsing the best forage along riverbanks. Soon, the willows and poplars which once lined the rivers of Yellowstone were eaten bare. Without the necessary shade, many species disappeared from the rivers. Beavers disappeared when they no longer had sufficient woody material to construct their dams. Without beaver dams a whole host of species adapted to beaver-made wetlands disappeared. Small mammals and birds began to suffer from predation from middling size “mesocarnivores” like coyote, populations of whom had been previously kept in check by the wolves. In 1995 wolves were reintroduced and within a few years the herbivores had returned to their natural behavior, feeding in riparian areas only sparingly for fear of predation. The riparian trees have largely recovered and with their return the return of beavers, fish, birds etc. We have learned that for many ecosystems, top carnivores are a necessary component.

Unfortunately years of propaganda and myths around carnivores have led to what I have heard referred to as the “red-riding-hood syndrome”. This is the belief that, against all scientific reason, large carnivores like wolves are stalking the forest, licking their lips, just waiting for their chance to devour a helpless human.

The facts are quite the reverse.

Large carnivores rarely attack humans. The number of documented wolf attacks on humans in the so-called United States is infinitesimal and the same can be said for cougars and bears. When carnivore attacks on humans do occur, they tend to be because the animal is starving (a result of habitat fragmentation, they cannot secure enough safe prey), or rabid, or sometimes because humans disturb the animal’s young. The fact of the matter is that humans are big and dangerous as far as animals go, predators would much rather avoid us and go for easier prey whenever they have the chance.

Red-riding-hood syndrome is real though, and there are legitimate (though overblown) fears of depredation of livestock. For this reason, buffer zones are critical to reduce human-wildlife interactions alongside propaganda campaigns on the behalf of predators and wilderness. Unnecessary hunting and killing of carnivores must be stopped. Killing adult carnivores disrupts critical social structures, often leads to the death of their young, and, more and more evidence is suggesting, leads to greater depredation of livestock.

Top carnivores are wondrous examples of the strength and beauty of nature. Wolves, cougars and grizzly bears are icons of North America and sacred relatives to many of the Indigenous people of this continent. They are also crucial aspects of a functioning ecology. We should be protecting the few that remain and attempting to help them recover in any way possible.

Eco-socialism vs. eco-chauvinism

Protecting wild areas will help offset the worst damages of climate change, as trees will store carbon and wetlands will buffer human settlements. Protecting water sources in these areas, as in New York’s Adirondack Park, will greatly improve water quality for pennies compared to what we spend cleaning it. Leaving intact habitable ecosystems and functioning assemblages of plants and animals will ensure that ecosystem services we rely on for our civilization, such as pollination and nutrient cycling, continue in perpetuity.

However, these are not the only reasons we should make sure we protect as much of Earth’s biodiversity as we can.

Capitalism cannot save nature because it sees nature only as another collection of commodities, the long-term persistence of which comes second to immediate profit concerns. Continuing this commodification of the land and our fellow species is continuing the colonial capitalist conquest that began over 500 years ago. Undoing our mistakes means undoing the commodification of Earth.

We must learn to live in an ecological society as opposed to a colonial one. An ecological society simply means that we must practice what Indigenous activist Daniel Wildcat calls “indigenuity”, learning to live as one part of the life system. Adapting how we live to where we live. Living with and within ecosystems instead of copying and pasting the same industrial, colonial, capitalist system on top of any landscape, regardless of who lives there or what networks and processes sustain that particular environment. We must develop what the father of wildlife conservation, Aldo Leopold, called a “land ethic”. That is, we must widen our definition of community, and our circle of compassion, to include the non-human biotic and abiotic natural world. Thus, we avoid merely protecting what is obviously useful to us because it is useful to us, but rather protect all of Earth’s networks and processes because of their innate value and right to survive and thrive.

This is the secret to living with a land for 10,000 or more years, as the original people of this continent did. Juxtapose this with the current system, which has brought this land to the brink of apocalypse in the short span of a couple hundred years.

It is tempting to say that this system has brought about the current sad state of affairs by putting human needs over the needs of Earth. Socialists must reject out-of-hand any such argument. We know that capitalism is not a system designed for meeting the needs of human beings. Capitalism is a system that serves capital, and nothing else. It is for capitaland not humanitythat this system has put Earth on the sacrificial altar. This is an important distinction because there is another argument, one that comes from the right, for trying to save the Earth. This argument poses the contradiction as between humanity and Earth, and as a result its solutions are anti-human: racist calls for population control, the denying of resources to certain segments of the population and other such measures that we must resist at the same time we fight for Earth and its species out of compassion and a sense of justice.

Among the many wondrous species of the Earth, a fact seemingly forgotten by the eco-chauvinists, is Homo sapiens, human beings. When we talk about expanding our circle of compassion, which for socialists already encompasses all of the wretched of humanity, to include Earth herself, we do not exclude human beings from that circle. We cannot conscience an “ecological” world which provides for all but denies human beings what they need to thrive. We undertake our ecological work to provide the highest possible standard of living for all species, and for humanity that means being able to be creatively productive, in freedom from physical need. This is what is meant by a socialistland ethic.

It is possible to meet all the self-actualization needs of humanity and still set enough aside to meet those needs for other species as well. Capitalism cannot do it because it must continuously create new needs for people, in order to extract capital from them. We can protect the Earth while maintaining our electricity, medicine, learning and recreational opportunities, but we may not be able to do so if everyone must own a car or while we produce useless commodities purchased on a whim or as a gag gift and quickly discarded to the landfill.

Calls to abandon civilization entirely are ahistoric and doomed to failure. While humans may have been able to live lightly upon Earth 20,000 years ago as hunter gatherer members of their ecosystems, we cannot simply ignore the historical stage of human production and organization we find ourselves in. Not only would doing so be ahistorical and anti-Marxist but it would be doomed to failure. Any attempt to force asceticism on the current, historically determined, human population could, at best, only last a short time until someone got it in their head to promise all the comforts of the old system to any that would help in overthrowing the new. Anyone who attempts to impose such a system has not yet thrown off the yolk of capitalist morality, “the most moral of all the sciences” which, as Marx says, is “the science of asceticism, and its true ideal is the ascetic but extortionate miser and the ascetic but productive slave.”

It should not be seen as a violation of our ecological ethic to accommodate truly human needs into our ecological society. As I stated before, human beings are members of ecological communities, even if we act as devastating ones under colonial capitalism. Just as our ecological society would fail if we failed to take in to account the species needs of wolves for space, or ponderosa pines for fire, it will fail if we do not take in to account the species needs of humans for creative production and self-actualization.

In fact, if we want to protect the ability of humans to be able to freely associate and creatively produce, shifting to an ecological society is the only option. We need life on Earth to survive in perpetuity if we want to survive in perpetuity. The loss of any single species in the infinitely complex web of life could lead to devastating ripple effects our best scientists cannot predict. The best scientists in the 1920s could not have predicted the effects removing wolves from Yellowstone would have on every aspect of the ecosystem there, the best scientists of the 1960s could not have predicted that an insecticide would have a devastating affect on bird populations (as was revealed in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring). What our scientists can tell us is that Earth’s systems are not machines from which pieces can be removed or replaced, they are not commodities which can be substituted for an exchange value, they are an organic whole of which we and our civilization are but one part and with which our destiny is ultimately entwined. An ecosocialist society has the capacity to realize this and to create a majestic future for all life on Earth.

Man lives on nature — means that nature is his body, with which he must remain in continuous intercourse if he is not to die. That man’s physical and spiritual life is linked to nature means simply that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.

-Karl Marx

Even in the days of Brexit and Donald Trump, the dominant theme of the corporate media remains that the rising tide of ‘globalisation’ will lift all boats. Some go so far as to claim that the UK and the US are not for globalisation because it  favours the developing nations. Others do recognise the division between the exploited multitude and the exploiting elite, but they pose such divisions at a global level, independent of the division between developed and developing nations. Even those who discuss imperialism have focussed on the spheres of finance and/or the realm of extractive industries, and may ignore the sphere of manufacturing.

I. The Mainstream Argument for Globalisation

 Bangladesh is the world’s second largest producer of Western apparel brands. The industry employs millions in Bangladesh, and apparel exports from the country are worth more than US$25 billion per annum. In the wake of fire in one of the export factories at the outskirts of Dhaka in late 2012 that killed at least 117 workers, renowned free trade theorist and long-time Nobel prize hopeful  Jagdish Bhagwati wrote a column in Prospect[4] asserting that the blame lay squarely and only with the local business and state for the deaths, and not at all with the Western brands and/or the final consumers. Bhagwati asserted:

There is only one place where the buck can and should stop: local and national authorities responsible for safeguarding the health and safety of their workers. They repeatedly fail to hold greedy and/or careless entrepreneurs throughout their countries to account.

The likes of Bhagwati have been arguing that globalisation leads to economic development through providing employment, increasing the wage rates and empowering women by providing factory employment, as in the Bangladesh garment industry. The idea is that eventually, through this process, the developing economies will be able to catch up with the West. This has also been the raison d’être for the present NDA government’s flagship policy of Make in India.

Days after the article was printed in Prospect in April 2013, a far deadlier factory accident took place in Bangladesh, killing more than 1100 workers and injuring more than 2000. This time an eight-story building housing several garment factories collapsed while the factories were fully at work. These factories were suppliers to some of the world’s top brands. Predictably, the latter tragedy did little to dent the opinion of Bhagwati. He promptly churned out one more column in the New York Times,[5] in which he continued to blame the locals and absolve the West.

This has been the standard mainstream argument for more than the last two decades: that such globalisation is our only salvation; if there is any problem with it, the problem lies with the manner of its local implementation and not with its global planners in the West. Twenty five years after India embarked on the path of globalisation, and a hundred years after Lenin wrote his tract on imperialism, John Smith’s book on theImperialism in the Twentieth Centurysheds fresh light on the debate.

II. The Reality of Globalization

Smith argues that the centre of gravity of world manufacturing has shifted to the countries of the South and away from North, and that has to be taken into account by any theory on North-South relations, or for that matter on capitalism. Imperialist nations’ imports of manufactured goods have quadrupled since 1980; the percentage sourced from developing countries has tripled in the same period.[6] By 2010, developing nations accounted for more than 40 per cent of world manufactured exports.

Approximately one third of the world trade is reported to be within firms. However, that could well be a substantial underestimate. According to UNCTAD, about 80 per cent of global trade in terms of gross exports is linked to the international production networks of TNCs. Consequently, lakhs of jobs have been moving out of countries like US to the developing countries every year since the 1990s, when this process of ‘globalisation’ picked up pace. According to the International Labour Office (ILO), Asia’s 900-plus Export Processing Zones employed 53 million workers in 2005-06, out of which 40 million were in China alone, and another 3.25 million in Bangladesh; out of another 10 million employed in EPZs, 5 million worked in Mexico and Central America.

Smith begins with global production and consumption of textiles, the very subject of Bhagwati’s case for globalisation. Only 2 per cent of the clothing worn in the US is actually made there. The primary reason is dirt cheap labour. Huge mark-ups are made as the commodity leaves the Southern shop floor on its journey up the North. Take, for instance, a replica football shirt that is mostly made in the Far East for £5 with a 50 per cent mark-up by the local factories. Global companies add another 100 per cent and sell it to retailers for £14. Then retailers in turn add a mark-up of another 150 per cent to sell it at £35 to the final consumer in UK, at seven times the production cost. A Hermes polo shirt retailing at $455 boasts an even more substantial mark-up, in excess of 1800 per cent on its production cost. Smith emphasises that not only do workers in the third world work for low wages, but even the factory owners in the third world work on the tiniest of possible margins, often as low as 2 per cent.

This is the case not only with traditional industries like textiles: so-called hi-tech industries are no different when it comes to outsourcing for dirt cheap labour power. A 2010 study by Asian Development Bank reported that while the total manufacturing cost of an iPhone was $179 in China, it was sold at $500, at a gross profit of 64 per cent. Out of this, the cost of Chinese workers in assembling it was a paltry $6.5 – which is 3.6 per cent of manufacturing cost, or 1.3 per cent of selling cost. If the same iPhones were assembled in the US, the total assembly cost would rise to an estimated $65, but would still leave a huge profit margin of 50 per cent for Apple, signifying the monopoly rent the company is deriving.

Another way of looking at the advantage of ‘China cost’ is the fact that the numbers of workers employed in iPod-related activities in US and China were similar, and yet the total US wage bill for manufacturing iPods was nearly 38 times that in China.In 2013 Hon Hai Precision (known by the name of Foxconn), makers of most of the Apple products worldwide, made $10.7 billion profits on sales of $132 billion, that is $8,685 per employee, while Apple made profits worth $41.7 billion on sales of $164.7 billion, that is $572,800 per employee – 66 times that of its Chinese manufacturer, and that without having even a single manufacturing facility of its own!

Such dirt cheap Chinese labour comes with added benefits, such as their availability literally 24×7, like slaves. A former Foxconn executive cited in a New York Times story (Jan 21, 2012) recalled that when Apple redesigned its iPhone just weeks before it was due on the shelves worldwide, requiring an overnight assembly overhaul, the 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories were woken up in the middle of the night, given a biscuit and a cup of tea, and guided to a workstation. Within half an hour they started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames; within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day!

In 2013 FDI flows to the developing countries surpassed such flows to developed countries for the first time. Moreover, FDI flows between imperialist countries are puffed up by investments in finance and business services; for instance between 2001-2012, FDI in finance and business activities in imperialist countries totalled $1.37 trillion, more than twice the FDI flow in manufacturing. And a much greater part of FDI flow amongst imperialist countries is made of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) amongst the MNCs; in 2007 developed economies received 89 per cent of the $1.64 trillion in M&A.

The reason for the FDI shift in favour of developing countries was simple: the rate of return on FDI was twice as high in developing countries as in imperialist countries. Smith underlines that MNCs increasingly prefer to externalise their operations, with outsourced Southern producers competing with one another in driving down wages and intensifying labour. As per UNCTAD in 1999, prices of manufactures exported by developing countries fell relative to those exported by EU by a shocking 2.2 per cent per annum from 1979 to 1994. Even as manufacturing is outsourced to the South, the ‘value added’ in the South does not grow correspondingly: a World Bank study revealed that the total value of manufactured exports from 55 low wage nations increased by 329 per cent between 1990 and 2004 (434 percent if China is included), while their combined manufacturing value addition (MVA) grew by a mere 46.3 per cent! Between 1990 to 1998, four years after NAFTA, Mexico’s manufactured exports increased nearly 10 fold but MVA barely increased by 50 per cent and its share in global MVA even fell in the same years.

In Chapter 3, Smith emphasises that what is far more important, and yet much less visible, in the present global production networks is the outsourcing, or the hands-off production, as we saw above in the case of textiles from Bangladesh and Apple’s outsourcing to Foxconn. FDI makes arm’s length outsourcing invisible. “Arm’s length means hands clean”, Smith asserts, as it externalises direct responsibility for pollution, poverty wages, and suppression of unions, but without giving up any control over either production or prices.

As the centre of gravity of much of the world’s industrial production has shifted from the North to the South, so has Southern labour become central to the global economy. Smith takes this up in the next chapter. In 1950, 34 per cent of the world’s industrial workers lived in less developed regions; this rose to 53 per cent in 1980; by 2010, it rose to 79 per cent, or 541 million, and since then it has become 83 per cent. Correspondingly, even as industry’s share of employment in the global South rose from 14.5 per cent in 1980 to 23.1 per cent in 2010, industry’s share of employment in imperialist countries declined from 37.1 per cent in 1980 to 22.5 per cent in 2010. Yet as the previous century closed, with all the shift of manufacturing to the South, manufacturing as a means for employment generation was weakening due to automation and information & communication technologies (ICT). ILO reported that “in the late twentieth century, manufacturing ceased being a major sector of employment growth except in East and Southeast Asia” (104[7]).

Here Smith stresses one of the greatest contradictions of the present wave of globalisation: while capital is free to move as it wishes, there are severe restrictions on the movement of labour. This perpetuates wide wage disparities in the global labour markets. He also reminds us of the fact that for several European countries, in the era of their industrialisation, emigration was large enough to make growth rates of population and labour force insignificant or negative. The total migratory flow was equivalent to more than a sixth of the population of Europe in 1900 (17 per cent of 408 million).

By comparison, a negligible 0.8 per cent of the workforce of the developing world has moved to industrialised countries in recent times. If anything, the South appears to be bearing the brunt of this migration, as a lot of it consists of their most skilled workers. For instance, more doctors from Malawi were working in Birmingham than in Malawi itself. As per WHO estimates, between 1995 and 2004, Tanzania lost 78.3 per cent of its doctors through emigration, decreasing its physician density of low 4.1 per 100,000 people to pathetic 0.69; in the US the figure is 250 doctors per 100,000 people. This happened in Tanzania due to the shrinking of public health after the implementation of structural adjustment programmes.

Smith quotes former World Bank Economist Dani Rodrik: “Imagine that the negotiators who recently met in Doha to hammer out an agenda for world trade talks… really meant it when they said that the new round would be… designed to bring maximum benefits to poor countries. What would have they focussed on? Increasing market access…? Reform of the agriculture regime in Europe…? IPR…? The answer is none of the above. The biggest bang by far… was not even on the agenda at Doha: relaxing restrictions on the international movement of workers… nothing else comes close to the magnitude of economic benefits that this would generate…” (113, emphasis added) “One need not wait for trickle down as benefits directly accrue to workers…” Rodrik adds.

Smith argues that the real outcome of the global shift of production is not ‘development’, as the mainstream economics posits, but a vast sea of informal sector activities – “activities that are unrecognised, unrecorded, unprotected or unregulated by the public authorities” (116), as per ILO’s definition. Smith asserts, “What is truly modern is not universal progress towards prosperity and the rule of law but an accelerating descent into informality and precariousness” (120). And he adds in Mike Davis’s words, “the global informal working class is about 1 billion strong, making it the fastest growing and most unprecedented social class on earth” (118).

Moreover, the reproduction costs of the third world labour are borne by the working class families themselves, both in bringing up the children, who begin economically fending for themselves at a very tender age, and also developing their skills through informal channels, mostly on the job. Thus neither the State nor industry bear the reproduction costs, making labour even cheaper for the capital. Hence, most importantly, wages paid to the workers in the South are affected by factors that have nobearing on or relevance to the productivity of these workers, unlike what the marginalists and the neoclassical economists would like us to believe. Contrarily, the working class wages in the South are based on the “factors arising from conditions in the labour market and more general social structures and relations affecting the reproduction of labour-power, including the suppression of the free international movement of labour and the emergence of a vast relative surplus population in the Global South” (132).

In Chapter 5 Smith looks closely at global wage trends in the globalisation period. He examines purchasing power parity (PPP). To briefly explain PPP rates: A unit of developing country currency buys more goods and services locally than if it were converted into dollars (or euros, pounds or yen) and spent in the developed world. Thus we do not get a realistic picture of the real incomes of workers in different countries if we simply convert them into dollars using market exchange rates. For this reason, PPP exchange rates are commonly used to make such a comparison. PPPs are meant to be arrived at by comparing the prices for a common basket of goods and services across different countries, and thus getting a measure of the local purchasing power of different currencies. So while the exchange rate is Rs 65/US$, the PPP exchange rate is Rs 18/US$. For example, in 2017, you could exchange Rs 65 for $1. But if you spent Rs 65 in India, you could buy 3.6 times what you could buy with $1 in the US. (So runs the theory, at any rate.)

Smith argues, however, that PPPs obfuscate, rather than reveal, the real difference in wages across the developing/ developed nation divide. According to UN Statistical Commission’s International Comparison Programme, in the absence of poverty-specific PPPs, the common practice is to use PPPs for aggregate consumption across classes in an economy; hence goods that are important to the poor and comprise a large part of their expenditure carry proportionately less weight. Moreover, PPP measures are skewed in favour of consumption in the developed countries, which is vastly different from that for the poor countries. As per the ILO, in advanced economies, food expenditure is less than 20 per cent of the total expenditure, while it is more than 60 per cent in many developing countries, not counting the inequalities within countries.

Furthermore, thanks to all the outsourcing, labour’s share of national income has been declining across countries, leading to the rise in profit margins. In any case the standard measure of labour’s share, the ratio of total employee compensation (pre-tax wages and salaries plus employer’s insurance and other social contributions) to total national income, is highly misleading, as it includes the salaries of top management including fantastic CEO salaries! Hence Smith attempts to deconstruct the ratio: to take one instance, the lowest 90 per cent of wage earners (84 per cent of the US’s total economically active population) earned 42 per cent of the total payroll in 1980 and just 28 per cent in 2011. Thus the share of the national income received by the bottom 90 per cent of US employees has declined by a staggering 33 per cent over thirty years of globalisation! In a similar vein, according to ILO’s World of Workreport for 2011, the share of domestic income that goes to labour declined in Asia by around 20 per cent between 1994 and 2010. Freeman and Oostendorp surveyed wages during early (1983-89) and later globalisation (1992-99) for 137 occupations across 135 countries and concluded, “Inequality of wages across countries in the same occupation increased over this period despite globalisation, which should have reduced the inequality” (158), thus puncturing the very basis of globalisation for the likes of Bhagwati as quoted above.

In the following chapter Smith examines the paradoxes involved in calculating labour productivity, especially across North-South divide. Productivity can be understood in terms of either value or volume. For example, if, for whatever reasons, the value of the final product increases, this in money terms is an increase in productivity without any actual change in labour productivity. Conversely, it can even be imagined that productivity could increase in volume terms, e.g. more coffee beans picked with the same number of workers, but decline in value terms due to fall in market prices, as has actually happened. Further, when an MNC outsources labour intensive production processes to the developing nations, the productivity of the workers who remain in its employment rises, even though nothing about their specific labour has changed. Thus the growing weight of services in the economies of the imperialist countries is as much a consequence as a cause of outsourcing. Smith in fact argues that, to the extent measured productivity growth is due to outsourcing of the labour intensive part of both manufacturing and services, this solves ‘a great American puzzle’ that the productivity growth is not shared with the American labour, as it reflects cost savings by outsourcing but not increase in output per worker hour in the US. Thus it is important to note that international differences in wages reveal most dramatically that wages are not based on the marginal product of labour, as neoclassical theory posits, but actually on the exchange value of the commodity labour power, as Marx systematically argued in Capital.

In Chapter 9 Smith takes up the most widely cited economic measure, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and shows how it hides more than it reveals about economies,  especially about the economic relations between developing and developed economies. First and foremost, as the value of the final commodity price to the consumers is predominantly captured by the dominant corporates of the North, correspondingly the value capture also reflects in respective computations of the GDP. According to economist Michael Chossudovsky, “for each shirt which is produced in Bangladesh and sold in world market for $3, the GNP of the importing OECD country is going up by about $32” (endnote 10, 316). Similarly, those who cultivate and harvest coffee receive less than 3 per cent of its final retail price. In 2009 according to the International Coffee Organisation, the roasting, marketing and sale of coffee added $31 billion to the GDP of nine most important coffee-importing nations, more than twice of what allcoffee-producing and exporting nations earned from growing and exporting it. This figure for coffee-importing nations does not include the value added/captured by cafes and restaurants!

Moreover, these economic measures are changed depending on the convenience of the developed world. Smith reminds us that it is not a coincidence that in 1991, right after the fall of the Soviet bloc and the beginning of globalisation, the Gross National Product (GNP) as a measure of national income was turned into GDP – a quiet change that had very large implications. Under the old measure, the GNP, the earnings of a multinational firm were attributed to the country where the firm was owned – and where the profits would eventually return. Under the GDP, however, the profits are attributed to the country where the factory is located, even though they won’t stay there and end up in the parent country or a tax haven. Cobb et al.emphasise that, “This accounting shift has turned many struggling nations into statistical boomtowns, while aiding the push for a global economy. Conveniently it has hidden a basic fact: the nations of the North are walking off with the South’s resources, and calling it a gain for the South” (256).

Smith shows that the computation of GDP prioritises value addition through the market over everything else that matters in a society and economy (remember, for more than a decade now our rulers have only GDP growth to show for every ill of society and every single travail of the people). Thus, for GDP, not only are the household sector and the care economy of little consequence, but surprisingly, even the State sector does not matter, as it supposedly does no net value addition, and provides services only equal to the tax collected to pay for these services. Smith calls this “blatant absurdity and a clear indication of the ideological bias embedded in the concept used to construct GDP” (257).

On the other hand, environmental externalities are hardly counted. As a result the GDP of countries like China and India is significantly over-estimated. Conversely, financial services, investment in R&D and software costs have been conveniently added to the measure of national income since the 1990s, padding up the GDP, especially of the imperialist countries. Smith comments wryly, “If GDP is a true measure of a nation’s product then the residents of Bermuda, a British overseas territory, which in 2006 boasted of the world’s highest per capita GDP, are amongst the most productive members of humanity” (260) (Bermuda is not an exception, most of the the top per capita GDP ‘nations’ today are tax havens).

III. Analysis of Globalisation through the Marxian Lens

Perhaps the most significant aspect of Smith’s work lies not only in demonstrating the inadequacy of neoclassical economics in explaining the actual existing reality, but in attempting to explain globalisation of production. In Chapters 7 and 8, Smith attempts to explain globalisation using the basic building blocks of the Marxian framework developed in Capital.

In the present era of excess supply and never-ending global economic crisis, the primary reason for globalisation, according to Smith, remains wide disparities of wages between South and the North, what he calls Global Labour Arbitrage. In the US, for example, worker compensation still makes up nearly 80 per cent of the total domestic corporate income, while wage rates in China and India range from 10 to 25 percent of those for comparable quality workers in the US. But neoclassical theory cannot even attempt to grapple with this phenomenon, as for them price is the true representation of value, and thus the price received for a commodity is identical to the value generated in its production. Smith emphasises, “This conflation (of value and price) excludes the possibility that a firm’s value added… may represent value generated in other firms; while conflation can only be implemented by making the production process invisible, creating a world in which prices are not only discovered in the marketplace… but arise from it. Modern trade theory applies these microeconomic precepts directly to the global economy, substituting individual nations for individual property owners (195).”

Smith reminds us that this is not a new way of looking at North-South economic relations, and indeed this question was asked most persistently by the Cubans after the revolution. While addressing the UN General Assembly, Castro said in 1979: “The first fundamental objective in our struggle consists of reducing until we eliminate the unequal exchange that… converts international trade into a very useful vehicle for the plundering of our wealth. Today, one hour of labour in the developed countries is exchanged for ten hours of labour in the underdeveloped countries… Unequal exchange is ruining our peoples. It must end!” (209-10) And Che reminded the then socialist bloc of the need for a fresh look at the North-South relations in his speech in Algeria in 1965: “How can it be ‘mutually beneficial’ to sell at world market prices the raw materials that cost the underdeveloped countries immeasurable sweat and suffering, and to buy at world market prices the machinery produced in today’s big automated factories?… The socialist countries have the moral duty to put an end to their tacit complicity with the exploiting countries of the West” (211). And Cuba was partially successful in forging somewhat different economic relations (though not changing the basic structure of its economy) with the then USSR from what prevailed in general, especially amongst the so called market-based economies. One instance: during the 1980s the dumping of heavily subsidised US and European sugar surpluses depressed the world market prices to as little as 5 cents/ pound – the “garbage dump price”, according to Castro – yet Cuba received 40 cents price from the USSR.

In Chapter 8, Smith attempts to connect Lenin’s idea of imperialism with Marx’s law of value to clinch his argument. As per Lenin, the division of nations between oppressors and oppressed was the essence of imperialism. Imperialism is characterised by the concentration of capital into giant corporate monopolies, the merging of financial and industrial capital, and of both of these with the State. But after Lenin’s Imperialism, Marx’s ideas on value and attempts to find the source of capitalist exploitation at the shop floor have been rather ignored even among those scholars who were willing to see the huge North-South divide. As leading Marxist Anwar Shaikh argued, “Ever since publication of Lenin’s Imperialism it has become a Marxist commonplace to assert that capitalism has entered its monopoly stage. Now, in the case of monopoly… the laws of price formation must be abandoned… the focus instead shifts to the domestic and international rivalries of giant monopolies… to the antagonisms and conflicts between these states… The law of value, like competitive capitalism itself, fades into history” (emphasis added, 228).

Marx’s basic point about capitalist exploitation was that the source of surplus value is labour, that too at the shop floor. As per Marx, labour power is the only commodity whose use value generates more than the exchange value of the commodity, the value for which it is bought at the market place. (The use value of labour power is living labour.) Therein lies the essential source of surplus value. Once the labour power, that is a worker’s capacity to work, is bought by a capitalist, Marx divides the work day into two broad parts – one part to reproduce the exchange value for which she or he has been bought, and the rest to produce surplus value. Marx also posits that the first part will tend to be equal to whatever is required to reproduce the worker’s labour power, so that she or he can report for work the next day and simultaneously produce the next generation of labour power for the capitalist through family and offspring. Further, a capitalist can increase his surplus in two ways. First by increasing the work day – so, all else remaining equal, if the work day is elongated for the same wages, the surplus increases. Marx called this absolute surplus value. In the early phase of capitalism Marx demonstrates in Capital that absolute surplus value was the predominant form of the capital-labour relation, where the workdays in early factories were never-ending, till the working class organised and fought for limiting the work day. The second way of increasing surplus is if the worker’s subsistence can be produced in a shorter time period, thus shortening the first part of the work day and leaving more work time for generating surplus. This happens as the worker’s productivity rises with technological change, and as such change cheapens the production of the worker’s subsistence needs. Marx calls this relative surplus value, and posits that this becomes the dominant form of surplus extraction in mature phase of capitalism.

But the above two forms of surplus extraction were based on the idea that essentially capitalists extract surplus value from the labour of their respective countries. As the dominant form of surplus extraction becomes arm’s length outsourcing based on huge divergence of global wages, like the outsourcing of textiles to Bangladesh and Apple products to Foxconn, Smith emphasises on a third form of surplus extraction, where the price of labour power can be pushed even below its value. He terms this super exploitation. To quote Higginbottom: “The idea of super exploitation needs to be conceptually generalised at the necessary level of abstraction and incorporated in the theory of imperialism. Super exploitation is a specific condition within the capitalist mode of production… the hidden common essence defining imperialism. The working class of the oppressed nations… is systematically paid below the value of labour power of the working class of the oppressor nations… This is not because the Southern working class produces less value, but because it is more oppressed and more exploited” (239). Smith emphasises that though Marx never elaborated on this third form of surplus value, he did definitely allude at multiple places in Capital (in both Volume I as well as III), to what he called “the constant tendency of capital… to force the cost of labour back towards… absolute zero[8].” Smith concludes, “Now, the capitalist ruling class controls a greater portion of the world wealth than ever in history, and that wealth is growing faster than ever before, while the fraction of it being invested productively has never been lower. Global labour arbitrage – super exploitation – that is, forcing down the value of labour power, the third form of surplus value increase, is now the increasingly predominant form of capital-labour relation” (250).

IV. Debate with Various Left Currents on the Question of Imperialism

Smith’s work embarks on a spirited debate with various Left currents and trends. In the second part of Chapter 7, Smith argues that, to make sense of the imperial order of the 21^st century capitalism, it is essential that global system of commodity production based on significant labour arbitrage is placed at the centre of analysis.

Citing prominent Marxist Ellen Wood in Empire of Capital that, the “new imperialism (is) no longer… a relationship between imperial masters and colonial subjects but a complex interaction between more or less sovereign states” (199), Smith counters that, by leaving out the value relation between labour and capital from the concept of imperialism, “Wood empties it of both the exploitation of labour by capital and the exploitation of poor nations by rich nations, reducing imperialism to interstate rivalry between great powers” (199). Smith also attacks David Harvey’s currently influential argument on new imperialism, which, according to Harvey, is characterised by “a shift in emphasis from accumulation through expanded reproduction to accumulation through dispossession”, this now being “the primary contradiction to be confronted” (199-200), that is surplus extraction through privatisation of welfare and/ or commons, etc. According to Smith, Harvey “does not recognise that imperialism’s most significant shift in emphasis is in an entirely different direction– towards the transformation of its own core processes through the global labour arbitrage-driven globalisation of production” (200), a mode of surplus extraction that is entirely internal to the labour-capital relation and not external in terms of state-people relation and the latter’s dispossession through the instruments of the state. Smith also refutes Harvey’s claim that the shifting of production to the Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs) since the 1970s was a “power shift” in the global political economy in favour of the South. Contrary to Harvey, Smith argues, “Far from ending US dominance – in other words, the ability of its corporations to capture the lion’s share of the surplus-value – outsourcing has opened up new ways” (202) for the imperial capitalists to entrench their dominance over South.

Smith severely criticises Euro Marxists such as Nigel Harris, Charles Bettelheim, Alex Callinicos, Ernest Mandel, and others, who deny or ignore the phenomenon of unequal exchange between North-South, and attempt to explain the deep chasm between North-South wages by claiming that the higher wages in North are due to higher productivity based on higher organic composition of capital (i.e., the ratio between the capital invested in plant, machinery and materials to the capital spent on wages). Euro-Marxists had earlier claimed that wage differentials between developed and underdeveloped countries could be explained by the differences in productivity. Thus, despite earning more, workers of the North could still be more exploited. However, now, as Smith says, the rug has been pulled from under the feet of Euro-Marxists by the recent globalisation and shifting of all sorts of industries, including hi-tech manufacturing, to the South. Now the productivity of the workers in such hi-tech manufacturing in the South is equal to that of workers in the North, but the wage differentials remain.

Smith also has differences with the pioneers of dependency theory like Samir Amin and Monthly Review school about their understanding of contemporary imperialism and the place of outsourcing of manufacturing to the South in it, though agreeing a great deal with their analyses. This debate with other trends in the Left, and Smith’s emphasis on situating imperialism and outsourcing of manufacturing to the Global South right at its centre, have significant political implications, but we will leave it for the interested reader to go through it in original in Smith’s book. 

V. Imperialism and the Crisis of Capitalism in the 21^st Century

In the final chapter of the book Smith argues that the present imperial order is hurtling towards a great capitalist crisis. His main point here is that there is an intimate connection between outsourcing of manufacturing and financialisation (though a detailed analysis of finance is not taken up here). Both are part of the same capitalist system and cannot be looked at in isolation. He insists that the crisis is ultimately rooted not in finance but capitalist production: “There is a very real connection, therefore, between the vertiginous growth of the financial wealth of the world’s ‘high net worth individuals’ (those with more than $1 million in financial assets), which has grown from $32.8 trillion in 2008 to $56.4 trillion in 2014, …and inhuman work and living conditions of the Bangladeshi and Chinese workers…” (299)

Smith points out that outsourcing can on the one hand lead to enormous value capture of a global value chain by corporations of the imperial nations, and simultaneously lead to significant reduction in their capital and labour costs. This to him is one of the keys for the postponement of the capitalist crisis by several decades. Low interest rates in the US encouraged households and corporations to take on more debt and at the same time pushed banks and other private investors to make riskier bets in their hunt for ever higher profit rates. The US could afford to keep the interest rates low in large measure because China and other manufactures-exporting countries, compelled by what Lawrence Summers called the “financial balance of terror”, recycled their export earnings to the US government as loans at zero or negative real rate of interest – “a Marshall plan in reverse, in which poor countries lend the richest the money they needed to purchase the product of their factories.” (282) Andrew Gamble asserts, “It was the cheapness of Chinese goods and its willingness to fund US deficits which kept the bubble inflating as long as it did.” (283)

But this can only postpone the inevitable, as can be seen in case of Japan since the 1990s. “Despite a massive injection of public funds into the crippled banking system that raised Japanese government debt from 10 per cent of GDP to over 180 per cent (now it has become 250 per cent), despite the relocation of labour intensive production processes on a colossal scale to the low wage Asian neighbours, and despite booming growth in the rest of the world, Japan barely managed to keep its head above the mire” (286). And there is every fear now of the “Japanification” of the rest of the developed world, Smith emphasises. According to Martin Wolf of Financial Times, between 1996 and 2006, current account “imbalances increased roughly five times relative to world output. Three categories of large net capital exporters emerged: China and emerging Asia; aging high income exporting economies (Germany and Japan); and the oil exporters… There also emerged two groups of large net capital importers – the US and ‘peripheral Europe’ – Western, Southern and Eastern Europe” (287). In the same period, the US trade deficit increased from 1.6 per cent of GDP to 5.8 per cent. According to Bloomberg (13 Sep 2018), the world today is saddled with a debt of $250 trillion, more than three times the global GDP.

Given the lopsided imperial political economy, corporations are using the easy availability of credit to finance share buybacks and jack-up share prices; between 2009 and 2015, the top 500 US companies returned $2.7 trillion to investors through share buybacks, a period that coincides with the second longest US bull market run since the 1950s. Pre-tax corporate profits are now at record high – more than 12 per cent of GDP – while net investment is barely 4 per cent of output. This is very odd, as investments are supposed to be driven by rate of interest and the opportunity available for profit. Thus capital has gone on what Smith terms as ‘investment strike’. According to UNCTAD, in 2008, the 963 nonfinancial companies in S&P Global index sat on a cash pile of $1.95 trillion; by 2012, total reserves had grown to $3.16 trillion and now it has crossed $5 trillion!

Rapidly the whole globe, including the South, is getting engulfed in this crisis. According to the IMF, the total corporate debt of indigenous nonfinancial firms in major emerging markets, which in 2004 stood at $4 trillion, had by 2014 skyrocketed to more than $18 trillion, or 73 per cent of their GDP; by 2015 according to the International Institute of Finance this had reached $23.7 trillion or 90 per cent of total emerging market GDP. This could lead to a wave of corporate bankruptcies with the potential to torpedo banking systems across the globe. Meanwhile, as per McKinsey, total emerging market debt rose to $49 trillion by 2013 end, accounting for 47 per cent of the growth in the global debt since 2007. China’s total debt as a proportion of GDP has gone up from 156 per cent in 2008 to 244 per cent in 2014 (and now 277 per cent), and for South Korea it has become 254 per cent. Smith asserts, “(I)t is not just financial crisis, it is not just another crisis of capitalism, it is a crisis of imperialism” (314), and hence he believes the need for a global struggle against it cannot be overemphasised.

In the end one would like to raise three important concerns about the work:

1. Smith lapses into determinism and overstating his case when he asserts that twenty-first century capitalism, consisting of global labour arbitrage and outsourcing of manufacturing, is the ‘fully evolved modern form’ (225) of imperialism.
2. This leads him into a greater difficulty, that of downplaying the significance of other aspects of imperialism that Lenin had described in his classical tract, like surplus extraction through control over agricultural commodities and extractive industries in the third world by the first world nations, control over markets in the third world, etc. through out the capitalist past and present.
3. And he launches into an ill-informed critique of Mao’s policies in a section on the Sino-Soviet split (Chapter 7), without substantiating it, and providing little evidence on something that is also not central to his main argument on imperialism.

Finally, for three significant reasons, Smith’s work needs a serious consideration and engagement amongst all those on the Left who are grappling with the political economy of India. First and foremost, it is a reminder that the overarching reality of imperialism needs to be acknowledged for any understanding of present-day India. Second, for those who feel that through ‘make in India’, and by doing more manufacturing, India will somehow be able to ‘catch up’ with the West, this book needs a close reading. And last but not least, Smith does an important job of bringing Marx’s value theory right into the centre of the debate on imperialism and globalisation.

[1]Comments of Manali Chakrabarti and RUPE editors on an earlier draft are gratefully acknowledged.

[2]Rahul Varman teaches at IIT Kanpur (rahulv[at]iitk.ac.in)

[3]Due to lack of standard nomenclature, ‘South’/ ‘developing countries’ has been used here for the poor nations and West, North for the developed imperial industrial powers, primarily US, EU and Japan.

[4]Jagdish Bhagwati, “Don’t blame the brands: When working conditions are bad, point the finger at local authorities”, 2/4/ 2013, Prospect Magazine, http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/bangladesh-pakistan-factory-fire-jagdish-bhagwati-amrita-narlikar,accessed on 09/12/2016

[5]Jagdish Bhagwati, “Responsibility for Sweatshops Is Local, Not Global”, New York Times, July 11, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/05/02/when-does-corporate-responsibility-mean-abandoning-ship/responsibility-for-sweatshops-is-local-not-global,accessed on 09122016

[6]Unless specified otherwise, all the data are from Smith’s book.

[7]Until specified otherwise, all numbers in brackets after quotes are page numbers of Smith’s book. In 2012, the estimated size of the global reserve army of labour was 2.4 billion, while the total “active army” was estimated at 1.4 billion (John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney, The Endless Crisis(New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012).

[8]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, p 748, Penguin, 1990.

Originally published https://rupeindia.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/imperialism-in-the-twenty-first-century-a-review/

The comfort of rich people depends on an abundant supply of poor people. -Voltaire

Greed is as old as time. As long as there are people, greed and avarice will continue to exist. In Ancient Greece they had a special word for it: ‘pleonexia’. Pleonexia is a concept that unites greed, covetousness and avarice in a philosophical context. Strictly speaking, it is ‘the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others’. In other words, ruthless selfishness and the arrogant assumption that other people and things are there to be taken advantage of.

But pleonexia is more than that. It is a disease, a form of psychopathy. Pleonexia is not only greed in the usual sense, but also the insatiable desire to acquire, collect or obtain something, whether it is money, property or power. People who suffer from pleonexia, you might say, are in a state of constant dissatisfaction, controlled by a feeling of never having enough.

Pleonexia is therefore not just greed, but unquenchable greed. It is not about money or possessions, but about the endless accumulation of money and possessions. This could be considered a form of neurosis. An illness. And that is exactly what the Greeks meant by it. Aristotle saw it as a symptom of a disturbed soul.

Pleonexia throughout history

The principle of greed as a syndrome or pathology is to be found regularly in historical and religious texts, not only with the Ancient Greeks. In Ecclesiastes 5:10 we read: ‘Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. The more you have, the more people will benefit from it.’ And in Luke 12:15, Jesus says, ‘Beware! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’

In Buddhism, greed is one of the three poisons, the three sources responsible for all suffering; namely lobha, dvesha and moha, usually translated as ‘greed’, ‘hatred’ and ‘ignorance’. Again, greed is not so much perceived as a sin, but more as an error, a disease. It is also one of the five obstacles to spiritual enlightenment. In other words, a spiritual obstruction.

This has been the prevailing view for centuries. ‘It’s not good to have everything you want,’ Blaise Pascal warns. Bertrand Russel adds that not having everything you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

As late as the mid-twentieth century, social psychologist Erich Fromm says: ‘Greed is a bottomless pit that exhausts people in an endless effort to meet their needs without ever achieving satisfaction.’

Not until our own time, and for the first time in history, something strange happens. Then greed becomes a potential virtue.

From bad to worse

In the past, pleonexia was a sin, an evil, at most a necessary evil. But in our time that is no longer the case. Of course, there have been countless rulers and systems based on greed. Nevertheless, something has changed in the past 50 years. Greed, or pleonexia, has never been this institutionalized. These days, we are dealing with the MORAL of money. Greed, it seems, has become a positive characteristic that is in the interests of a country or group.

This turnaround is largely due to the economist Adam Smith, who, like no other, put economy (read: money) in place of morality. Simply put, he argued that if we position the economy at the heart of society, everything will magically be all right.

This philosophy, however, meant that Smith divided the world into useful and useless individuals. Useful individuals contribute to the economy, useless individuals do not. ‘The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their ambitions,’ he says. The poor are not the victims of a merciless capitalist system, Smith believes, but the cause of a faltering economy. By demonizing the poor, he automatically glorifies the rich. And with that he turns the whole morality on its head. Virtue is more to fear than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience, Smith says.

Money was a necessary evil, now it has become the pivot of our moral compass.

‘Greed is good’

From such a view it is only a small step to the total glorification of greed. In the movie ‘Wall Street’ we meet the iconic character Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas. The villain Gekko is the embodiment of greed. In the film he gives the infamous “greed is good” speech:

‘The point is, ladies and gentleman, that ‘greed’ — for lack of a better word — is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind.’

The speech was based on a famous lecture delivered by trader Ivan Boesky on the positive aspects of greed at the University of California, where he said in part, ‘I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.’

The economist Milton Friedman, champion of free-market capitalism and limited government, was one of the first to try to give greed a place in state policy: ‘The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm,’ he said, ‘capitalism is that kind of a system.’

Pleonexia as a form of government

What has, in short, happened over the past decades, is that we very consciously made pleonexia a form of government.

And that is clearly reflected in the way in which we conduct politics in the West. Donald Trump evidently holds the economy as the highest good. Issues such as the environment, education and science are losing ground, and have been subordinated to the accumulation of money. ‘Economy’ has become the magic word to implement the most rapacious reforms.

The morality of a civilization doesn’t change overnight. There is no point in introducing all kinds of new rules to protect us from the excesses of capitalism, if capitalism remains the engine, and the most important aspect of society.

What we must realize is that the world is sick. Humanity suffers from pleonexia, from a pathological and insatiable greed. Firstly, we must remember all those old warnings: that greed is a disease, a condition that destroys us. Secondly, we must look for a new morality, and with it a state structure that is NOT based on greed.

What being a socialist means is… that you hold out… a vision of society where poverty is absolutely unnecessary, where international relations are not based on greed… but on cooperation… where human beings can own the means of production and work together rather than having to work as semi-slaves to other people who can hire and fire.
– Bernie Sanders

I’m Peter van Els, living in the Netherlands. Autodidact. Life is my greatest teacher and i started writing end 2015, to stand up against lawless and corrupt governments and the real power, the shadow government, the world elite. “Enough is enough” . I said to myself, and besides, I think it’s a moral obligation towards our earth and our posterity. I believe that all the good souls should be connect and unite in love, so we can change the system for the benefit of our planet and our posterity.For Worldpeace and Prosperity for all.

Scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicatethat global temperature rise of 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures would constitute a threshold the planet cannot cross without suffering the worst effects of climate change. Yet according to the U.N. report, mean global land-sea temperatures have already risen above 1°C and the planet could pass the 1.5°C threshold as early as 2030 if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current level and no effective CO₂ down-draw measures takes place. These projections underestimate what is happening in the atmosphere-ocean-land system since, due to amplifying feedbacks from desiccating land, warming oceans, melting ice, methane release and fires, no temperature limit can be specified for global warming.The Paris agreement, which focuses on limits to emissions, hardly acknowledges the essential need to down-draw atmospheric carbon which has already reached >450 ppm CO₂ + Methane equivalent.

Climate science is a complex discipline, yet politicians, economists and journalists appear to believe they understand it, rushing to conclusions based on partial knowledge or ignorance. Lately government members have been referring to climate science as an “ideology”.  Looking at the plethora of misconceptions regarding the accelerating climate crisis in the atmosphere-ocean-land system, it is not clear where to start.:

1. Linear temperature rise projections issued by the IPCC summaries for policy makers take little account of the non-linear to abrupt behaviour of atmospheric conditions, as indicated by sharp climate instabilities during the last glacial-interglacial ages, consequent of amplifying feedbacks from land and ocean.IPCC reports, based on credible scientific peer review papers, have been prefaced bysummaries for policymakers, in part edited by governmentrepresentatives. Consequently the urgency of the climate crisis has been underestimated. Temperature goals such as 1.5^oC or 2.0^oC constitute political goals, not science-based values.The concentration of atmospheric CO₂+Methane of >450 ppm is driving amplifying feedbacks to global warming, namely from warming oceans, melting ice, methane release, fires, desiccated vegetation, push temperatures upwards – unless and until a method is found to draw-down atmospheric CO₂.

B, By analogy a measurements of a patient’s body temperature after they have taken a dose of aspirin, measurements of terrestrial temperatures under the masking effect of a high concentration of sulphur aerosols does not give a true measure of atmospheric temperature. For example, following the post 9/11 cessation of air traffic and of contrails over the US, measured temperatures rose significantly. When taking account of this discrepancy, mean global temperatures are tracking closer 2 degrees Celsius (Hansen et al. 2008. Target atmospheric CO₂: Where should humanity aim?https://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126)

C. For the above reasons,talk of restricting mean global temperatures to any particular figure, such as 1.5^oC or 2^oC above preindustrial levels, ignores the scientific evidence as to how the atmosphere behaves.The “Paris target” of 1.5^oC is meaningless since: (1) no mechanism is known to arrest amplifying feedbacks rom rising above this limit, and (2) no plans for draw-down of atmospheric CO₂ appear to be at hand, the $trillions required for such endeavor being spent on the military and wars.

Rarely has the full extent of the climate catastrophe been conveyed by the mainstream media, including the ABC, as contrasted with the proliferation of pseudo-science infotainment programs, where attractive celebrities promote space travel.Rarely do the major panels include scientists.

Given a 2 to 3-fold rise in extreme weather events, signs of the impending global climate tipping points are everywhere, from hurricane-hit Caribbean islands and southeast US, to cyclone-ravaged and sea level rise-affected southwest Pacific islands, to flooded south Asian regions such as Kerala and Pakistan, to fire-devastated regions in southern Europe and California, to the Australian and east African droughts. The list goes on. To date it is estimated some 400,000 deaths arelinked to climate change each year (https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism)

Yet the warnings are shunned, in particular in rich western countries. Whenever the term “future” is expressed in the mainstream media and in Parliaments, it is rare that a caveat is made regarding the effects of global warming, Should there be a future investigation of those who have been, continue to, promote and preside over the rise in carbon emissions, with the consequent climate calamity,this would be recorded by survivors as the greatest crime ever perpetrated by the Homo “sapiens”.

“To ignore evil is to become an accomplice” (Martin Luther King)

Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist

The lengthy Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)  Special Report on “Global warming  of 1.5 °C” [1] includes a  34-page  Summary for Policy Makers [2].  Because the IPCC Reports are international consensus documents, they present a more optimistic picture. Accordingly it is useful to consider  the  consensus statements of the “Global warming  of 1.5 °C” report in relation to blunter prognostications  of leading climate scientists.

For the benefit of readers I have reproduced below 7 key bits of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers with my succinct comments appended.

B4.1. There is high confidence that the probability of a sea-ice-free Arctic Ocean during summer is substantially lower at global warming of 1.5°C when compared to 2°C. With 1.5°C of global warming, one sea ice-free Arctic summer is projected per century. This likelihood is increased to at least one per decade with 2°C global warming. Effects of a temperature overshoot are reversible for Arctic sea ice cover on decadal time scales (high confidence).

[Comment. A sea-ice-free Arctic Ocean every 10 years on average at plus 2C means devastation of Arctic ecosystems and species.  Such  a massive decrease in Arctic Ocean  albedo (reflectivity) creates a disastrous positive feedback loop successively involving  more light-absorbing, black, ice-free sea, more solar energy absorption and further increased warming (the so-called “albedo flip”). Dr James Hansen and colleagues (2007): “Palaeoclimate data show that the Earth’s climate is remarkably sensitive to global forcings. Positive feedbacks predominate. This allows the entire planet to be whipsawed between climate states. One feedback, the ‘albedo flip’ property of ice/water, provides a powerful trigger mechanism. A climate forcing that ‘flips’ the albedo of a sufficient portion of an ice sheet can spark a cataclysm. Inertia of ice sheet and ocean provides only moderate delay to ice sheet disintegration and a burst of added global warming. Recent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions place the Earth perilously close to dramatic climate change that could run out of our control, with great dangers for humans and other creatures” [3].

A recent summary of Arctic sea ice loss states: “ As early as 2030, researchers say, the Arctic Ocean could lose essentially all of its ice during the warmest months of the year — a radical transformation that would upend Arctic ecosystems and disrupt many northern communities. Change will spill beyond the region, too. An increasingly blue Arctic Ocean could amplify warming trends and even scramble weather patterns around the globe” [4]. Dr James Hansen et al. (2008): “Stabilization of Arctic sea ice cover requires, to first approximation, restoration of planetary energy balance. Climate models driven by known forcings yield a present planetary energy imbalance of +0.5-1 W/m2. Observed heat increase in the upper 700 m of the ocean confirms the planetary energy imbalance, but observations of the entire ocean are needed for quantification. CO2 amount must be reduced to 325-355 ppm to increase outgoing flux 0.5-1 W/m2, if other forcings are unchanged. A further imbalance reduction, and thus CO2 ~300-325 ppm, may be needed to restore sea ice to its area of 25 years ago” [5] i.e. not just cessation of fossil fuel burning and methane (CH4) release but massive and horrendously expensive carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will be required to restore the Arctic sea ice found at circa 300 ppm CO2 [6-8].

B4.2. Global warming of 1.5°C is projected to shift the ranges of many marine species, to higher latitudes as well as increase the amount of damage to many ecosystems. It is also expected to drive the loss of coastal resources, and reduce the productivity of fisheries and aquaculture (especially at low latitudes). The risks of climate-induced impacts are projected to be higher at 2°C than those at global warming of 1.5°C (high confidence). Coral reefs, for example, are projected to decline by a further 70–90% at 1.5°C (high confidence) with larger losses (>99%) at 2ºC (very high confidence). The risk of irreversible loss of many marine and coastal ecosystems increases with global warming, especially at 2°C or more (high confidence).

[Comment. The report predicts essentially total destruction of coral reefs at plus 2C. The IPCC report is consonant with that of top coral scientists who declared (2009): “Temperature-induced mass coral bleaching causing mortality on a wide geographic scale started when atmospheric CO2 levels exceeded 320 ppm. When CO2 levels reached 340 ppm, sporadic but highly destructive mass bleaching occurred in most reefs world-wide, often associated with El Niño events. Recovery was dependent on the vulnerability of individual reef areas and on the reef’s previous history and resilience. At today’s level of 387 ppm [410 ppm in 2018], allowing a lag-time of 10 years for sea temperatures to respond, most reefs world-wide are committed to an irreversible decline. Mass bleaching will in future become annual, departing from the 4 to 7 years return-time of El Niño events. Bleaching will be exacerbated by the effects of degraded water-quality and increased severe weather events. In addition, the progressive onset of ocean acidification will cause reduction of coral growth and retardation of the growth of high magnesium calcite-secreting coralline algae” [9].  Coral reefs provide ecosystems for a huge range of marine life, including nurseries for 25% of ocean fish,  and are of economic importance to about 1 billion people [10].

As succinctly summarized  by the 2017  “World scientists’ warning to Humanity: a second notice”: “We have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century” [11]. This is massive ecocide and speciescide leading to terracide (Biosphere and biodiversity destruction) that has resulted in the present man-dominated era being described as the Anthropocene. One can only endlessly repeat that we cannot destroy what we cannot replace, and further, that it is not ours to destroy [12].]

B5. Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5°C and increase further with 2°C.

[Comment. The IPCC Report did not provide any estimates of annual avoidable mortality due to climate change. It is already estimated that 0.4 million people die from the effects of climate change each year [13, 14]. However this may be an under-estimate because climate change disproportionately impacts Third World people in tropical and sub-tropical countries in which 16 million people die avoidably from deprivation each year [15]. However it gets worse. Thus several top climate scientists have estimated that only about 0.5 billion people will survive this century if climate change is not requisitely addressed, this translating to about 10 billion climate change-related premature deaths this century (at an average of 100 million per year) [16].

Also ignored by the IPCC Report is the long-term health consequence of exposure to pollutants from carbon fuel burning. Thus the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 7 million people die each year world-wide from air pollution, with about half dying from  indoor pollution (e.g. from heating and cooking fires ) and about half due to outdoor pollution (e.g. fine carbon particulates and nitrogen oxides from vehicle exhaust  or from coal-fired and  gas-fired power stations [17]). Thus pollutants from the burning of Australia’s world-leading annual coal exports can be estimated to eventually kill about 75,000 people annually [17], and pollutants from burning the coal exported from the proposed giant Adani Carmichael coal mine in Australia will eventually kill 1.4 million Indians [18].]

C1.3. Limiting global warming requires limiting the total cumulative global anthropogenic emissions of CO2 since the preindustrial period, i.e. staying within a total carbon budget (high confidence). By the end of 2017, anthropogenic CO2 emissions since the preindustrial period are estimated to have reduced the total carbon budget for 1.5°C by approximately 2200 ± 320 GtCO2 (medium confidence). The associated remaining budget is being depleted by current emissions of 42 ± 3 GtCO2 per year (high confidence). The choice of the measure of global temperature affects the estimated remaining carbon budget. Using global mean surface air temperature, as in AR5, gives an estimate of the remaining carbon budget of 580 GtCO2 for a 50% probability of limiting warming to 1.5°C, and 420 GtCO2 for a 66% probability (medium confidence).

[Comment. The IPCC Report asserts a 420 Gt CO2 terminal CO2 pollution budget for a 66% probability of avoiding a +1.5C temperature rise, but the IPCC Report also asserts that annual CO2 pollution totals 42 Gt CO2 i.e. that at present rates of pollution the 420 Gt CO2 terminal CO2 pollution budget for a 66% probability of avoiding a +1.5C temperature rise will be exceeded in 10 years.

However this IPCC analysis ignores the reality of disproportionate national contributions to historical and current CO2 pollution. Thus it has been estimated several years ago on the basis of 2009 estimations of the terminal CO2 budget that simply on the basis of present rates of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution measured in Gt CO2-equivalent per year (i.e. including contributions from other  GHGs , notably methane, CH4)  many high polluting countries (e.g. Australia and the US) have already used up their terminal CO2 pollution budget and are stealing the residual  “entitlement” of all other countries [19-21].

Various expert climate scientists and science-informed analysts have concluded that exceeding the +1.5C limit (and possibly exceeding the +2C limit as well)  is not a matter of if but when. Thus paleoclimate and earth scientist Dr Andrew Glikson (2018): “According to the U.N. report, mean global land-sea temperatures have already risen above 1°C and the planet could pass the 1.5°C threshold as early as 2030 [12 years’ time] if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current level and no effective CO2  down-draw measures takes place…  [indeed] talk of restricting mean global temperatures to any particular figure, such as 1.5^oC or 2^oC above preindustrial levels, ignores the scientific evidence as to how the atmosphere behaves. The “Paris target” of 1.5^oC is meaningless since: (1) no mechanism is known to arrest amplifying feedbacks from rising above this limit, and (2) no plans for draw-down of atmospheric CO2 appear to be at hand, the $trillions required for such endeavour being spent on the military and wars” [22].

Similarly, climate scientists Benjamin Henley and Andrew King (2018):  “Global temperature is rapidly approaching the 1.5°C Paris target. In this study, we find that in the absence of external cooling influences, such as volcanic eruptions, the midpoint of the spread of temperature projections exceeds the 1.5°C target before 2029, based on temperatures relative to 1850–1900” [23].

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p style=”font-weight: 400;”>Science-informed climate analyst David Spratt (2018) : “Is there a carbon budget remaining for 1.5°C? No, from a sensible risk-management viewpoint, there is no carbon budget for 1.5°C  without including a lot of “negative emissions”, that is, drawing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere to reduce the warming. 
“We have no carbon budget left for the 1.5°C target and the opportunity for holding to 2°C is rapidly fading unless the world starts cutting emissions hard right now,” says Prof Michael Mann. Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf of Germany’s PotsdamUniversity considers that we are now “in a kind of climate emergency” and that at least 1.5°C is “locked in”.  (“Locked in” means that the warming will occur for the present level of emissions in the absence of large-scale carbon drawdown and/or solar radiation management.) Three other senior Australian scientists to whom I have spoken agree with the 1.5°C figure articulated by Mann and Rahmstorf. Some think it is likely to be somewhat higher” [24].

Indeed the IPCC in its  Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)  stated (2014): “Emissions ranges for baseline scenarios and mitigation scenarios that limit greenhouse gas concentrations to low levels (about 450 ppm CO2-eq, likely to limit warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels) are shown for different sectors and gases in Figure SPM.14” [25]. However  according to Professor Ron Prinn (from100-Nobel-Laureate MIT) in 2013 we may have already reached 478 ppm CO2-equivalent [26-30].

The German WBGU (2009) and the Australian Climate Commission (2013) have estimated that no more than 600 billion tonnes of CO2 can be emitted between 2010 and zero emissions in 2050 if the world is to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature  rise [31, 32]. Australia has a climate criminal policy (supported by both the ruling Coalition and the Labor Opposition)  of unlimited coal, gas and iron ore  exports,  and it can be estimated that exploitation of Australia’s huge resources in these areas would mean exceeding the  whole world’s  2009 terminal  CO2 pollution budget by a factor of 3 [33]. Similarly, the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CH4 on a 20 year time frame and with aerosol impacts considered is 105 times that of CO2 [34],  and the 50 Gt (billion tonnes) CH4 in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf that is predicted to be released in coming decades [35] is thus equivalent to 50 billion tonnes CH4 x 105 tonnes  CO2-equivalent/tonne CH4 = 5,250 tonnes CO2-e or about nine (9) times more than the world’s terminal greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution budget. We are doomed unless we can stop this massive Arctic CH4 release [29].]

C2.2. In electricity generation, shares of nuclear and fossil fuels with carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) are modelled to increase in most 1.5°C pathways with no or limited overshoot. In modelled 1.5°C pathways with limited or no overshoot, the use of CCS would allow the electricity generation share of gas to be approximately 8% (3–11% interquartile range) of global electricity in 2050, while the use of coal shows a steep reduction in all pathways and would be reduced to close to 0% (0–2%) of electricity (high confidence).

[Comment. The problem with nuclear power in the context of a carbon economy is that the overall nuclear cycle from mining uranium or thorium ores to safe disposal of waste (including old power stations) involves considerable CO2 generation from cement manufacture and fossil fuel burning. The CO2 pollution from the nuclear cycle increases as rich ores are depleted and resort is made to low-grade ores. Thus  physicist Dr Mark Diesendorf:  “Other experts… have reported an increase in [CO2] emissions from 117 g/kWh for high-grade ore to 437 g/kWh for low-grade ore. For comparison, the life-cycle emissions from wind power are 10–20 g/kWh, depending upon location, and from gas-fired power stations 500–600 g/kWh. So depending on your choice of analysis, nuclear power can be viewed as almost as emissions-intensive as gas” [36].  Very expensive  and yet to be commercialised  fast breeder reactors make highly efficient use of limited uranium ore resources because  “the fast reactor “burns” and “breeds” fissile plutonium” [37, 38].  However a  nuclear power-based “plutonium economy” is a toxicological, nuclear waste, nuclear weapons proliferation, security and human rights nightmare.

Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) has similarly failed to be  applied commercially on a large scale and there are valid concerns  about long-term security of sequestration that might be reversed by natural disaster (e.g. earthquakes) or malice. Various kinds of technologies have been developed for removing CO2 from the atmosphere or from power station exhaust, but the cost of removing CO2 is at best the same as the profit from coal burning in the first place i.e. intergenerational justice demands cessation of fossil fuel burning [8].

The IPCC’s notion that natural gas would be “approximately 8% … of global electricity in 2050” is a disturbing take on “zero GHG emissions by 2050”.  Methane (CH4) (about 85% of natural gas)  is 105 times worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas (GHG) on a 20 year time frame and taking aerosol impacts into account. Methane leaks (3.3% in the US based on the latest US EPA data and as high as 7.9% for methane from “fracking” coal seams; a 2.6 % leakage of CH4 yields the same greenhouse effect as burning the remaining 97.4% CH4). Using this information one can determine that gas burning for electricity  can be much dirtier than coal burning greenhouse gas-wise (GHG-wise). While gas burning for power generates twice as much electrical energy per tonne of CO2 produced (MWh/tonne CO2) than coal burning, and the health-adverse pollution from gas burning is lower than for coal burning, gas leakage in the system means that gas burning for power can actually be worse GHG-wise than coal burning depending on the degree of systemic gas leakage.  Gas is dirty energy and a coal-to-gas transition simply means long-term investment in another carbon fuel and delaying urgently required cessation of carbon fuel burning [39]. Notwithstanding the science, under Obama the US had a massive coal to gas transition with extensive use of fracking. In climate criminal Australia there has been massive application of fracking and Australia, the world’s biggest coal exporter,  is set to become the world’s leading exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). ]

C3. All pathways that limit global warming to 1.5°C with limited or no overshoot project the use of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) on the order of 100–1000 GtCO2 over the 21st century. CDR would be used to compensate for residual emissions and, in most cases, achieve net negative emissions to return global warming to 1.5°C following a peak (high confidence).

[Comment. A Carbon Brief analysis of the IPCC 1.5C Report agrees: “What is clear is that very rapid emission reductions coupled with large-scale deployment of negative emissions are needed if the world wants to have any chance of limiting warming to 1.5C” [40]. However carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is very expensive [8], and the ever-growing need for CO2 drawdown is a huge, imposed and inescapable burden on our  children and future generations [41-44]. The “1000 GtCO2 [removal] over the 21st century” is greater than the German WBGU’s  2009  estimate that no more than 600 billion tonnes of CO2 can be emitted between 2010 and zero emissions in 2050 if the world is to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature  rise [31].

The expressed need for atmospheric CO2 drawdown raises the question not properly addressed by the IPCC of what would be a desirable level of atmospheric CO2. In 2018 the atmospheric CO2 reached a peak of 412 ppm and in 2016 global warming (assisted by an El Nino event) reached +1.2C. The atmospheric CO2 has been increasing in a quasi-linear fashion for the last 4 years [45]. The IPCC evidently settles for no more than a level of circa 430 ppm CO2, this corresponding to an average global warming of 1.5C [46] and a level expected from extrapolation of 21st century US NOAA Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 data in about 2028 i.e. in about 10 years’ time [45].]

D5.3.Global model pathways limiting global warming to 1.5°C are projected to involve the annual average investment needs in the energy system of around 2.4 trillion USD2010 between 2016 and 2035 representing about 2.5% of the world GDP (medium confidence).

[Comment. This IPCC  estimate of an expenditure of $2.4 trillion between 2016 and 2035 ($0.12 trillion per year) required to limit global warming to 1.5°C can be compared to estimates of damage-related Carbon Price and hence of inescapable  Carbon Debt.  Thus Dr Chris Hope (from 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University, UK) has estimated a damage-related cost of carbon pollution as $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent [47]. The  IPCC’s estimate  of annual CO2 pollution of 42 Gt CO2 (see C1.3 above)  corresponds to an inescapable Carbon Debt [48] that is increasing each year by  $8.4 trillion i.e. avoidance of +1.5C gives a Benefit/Cost ratio of   $8.4 trillion/ $0.12 trillion = 70 to 1. However World Bank analysts have estimated that annual GHG pollution properly taking land use and methanogenesis into account is 64 Gt CO2-equivalent [49] that corresponds to an inescapable Carbon Debt that is increasing each year by  $12.8 trillion i.e. avoidance of +1.5C gives a Benefit/Cost ratio of   $12.8 trillion/ $0.12 trillion = 107 to 1.

What prevents the governments of high polluting countries from making such modest investments to avoid +1.5C when the Benefit/ Cost ratio for Humanity is about 100 to 1?  The short explanation for this deadly and  criminal inaction is One Percenter neoliberal greed with attendant corruption and mendacity. A useful suggestion would be a global social contract that determines  that politicians and corporate leaders who presently ignore the dire warnings of the international scientific collective and fail to act in this worsening and deadly climate emergency will ultimately be  held to account judicially for their depraved indifference.

This part of the IPCC Report implicitly raises the generally ignored matter of  historical and continuing Carbon Debt that can  be measured by the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) it has introduced into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century [48, 50]. Thus the total Carbon Debt of the world from 1751-2016 (including CO2 that has gone into the oceans) is about 1,850 billion tonnes CO2. Assuming a damage-related Carbon Price of $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent [47],   this corresponds  to a Carbon Debt of $370 trillion, similar to the total wealth of the world and 4.5 times the world’s total annual GDP. Using estimates from Professor James Hansen  of national contributions to Historical  Carbon Debt [50] and assuming a damage-related Carbon Price in USD of  $200 per tonne CO2-e [47],  the World has a Carbon Debt of US$370 trillion that is increasing at US$13 trillion per year,  and Australia has a Carbon Debt of US$7.5 trillion (A$10 trillion) that is increasing at US$400 billion (A$533 billion) per year and at US$40,000 (A$53,000) per head per year for under-30 year old Australians [48]. One wonders when the utterly betrayed young will revolt (non-violently one hopes) [44]. ]

Final comments.

 The 2018 IPCC Report is a dire warning to world governments that we are badly running out of time to contain a global warming of 1.5 °C. However at the present +1.C -1.2C it is it is already apparent that the World is suffering from global warming-exacerbated hurricanes, precipitation events, fires, biodiversity loss, and droughts. TropicalIsland Nations and tropical coastal regions are already suffering  devastating storm surges from warming-induced sea level rise and more energetic hurricanes.  

The IPCC Report makes it clear that based on present behaviour the world has only about 10 years before the +1.5C limit is exceeded.  Indeed the remorseless annual increase in atmospheric CO2 [45] and in fossil fuel use (notably in the electricity sector) [51] begs the question of when the world is actually going to substantially commence the processes  of  atmospheric CO2 drawdown and cessation of fossil fuel burning that, according to the IPCC Report, are both required in order to avoid exceeding +1.5C [1, 2]. Indeed it gets worse because, for example, the IPCC’s own AR5 Report  (2014) regards  “450 ppm CO2-eq, [as] likely to limit warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels” [25] while a top atmospheric  GHG expert estimated that in 2013 we had  already reached 478 ppm CO2-equivalent [26].

A sensible, science-based position is that in the absence of requisite emergency action it is realistically too late to avoid a catastrophic +2.0C global warming but we are obliged to do everything we can to make the future “less bad” for our children and future generations. Science-ignoring, climate criminal  neoliberal politicians and corporate leaders who refuse to act in this worsening climate emergency must be resolutely and implacably held legally accountable by existentially threatened Humanity.

Bombardment (or other military invasion) of a country that has not invaded nor threatened to invade the attacking country(s) is “aggression” under international law, and is the chief crime that the Nazis were hanged for at Nuremberg after World War II.

The U.S. and its allies have routinely committed aggression, in places such as Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. A particular instance of it, to be discussed here, could be especially prosecutable, because the alleged ‘cause’ for the invasion could turn out to have been a provable lie, an intentional fabrication which had been concocted by the perpetrators so as to ‘justify’ their invasion. This particular instance was the U.S.-and-allied bombing of Syria, by over a hundred missiles, on April 14th.

The concept here is “War of Aggression” in Wikipedia, whose article makes clear that certain types of invasions, such as in boundary-dispute cases, do not constitute a war-crime. That article cites a statement from the Nuremberg Tribunal: “To initiate a war of aggression … is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Lying about the cause for invading is almost invariably an important part of that “accumulated evil.” Hitler was infamous for doing it. Did the U.S. do this on April 14th?

That Wikipedia article refers to the International Criminal Court (ICC) as the standing body that possesses the authority to judge such cases. However, the U.S. Government has refused to accept that Court’s authority, and prefers instead to be forced to a military surrender as the earlier fascist powers were, before it will yield to any such court’s authority. They know that that won’t happen, so are brazen in what they now are doing. The U.S. Government rejects international law (except as applied to other countries — especially ones that the U.S. aristocracy wants to conquer, such as Syria, Russia, Iran, and China). Because the U.S. Government has not surrendered, as the earlier Axis powers did in WW II (when the U.S. was a democracy, instead of a dictatorship as it now is), it maintains its freedom to do what the Germans and the Japanese and the Italians did in WW II — to do such things: aggressions. Like the earlier fascists, the U.S. and allied aristocracies invade and expect to win and thus to possess immunity from prosecution for their crimes. Of course, thus far, they have succeeded, even after the blatant lying that had ‘justified’ the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

This does not mean, however, that the U.S. Government will necessarily be free from the international ‘court’ of public opinion, if and when a demonstrable act of aggressive war by the U.S. Government can be clearly and incontrovertibly presented to that ‘court’ (assuming, of course, that the news-media aren’t themselves likewise effectively controlled by the U.S. Government and its allies — or by their aristocrats, who advertise in and own them).

For the international ‘court’ of public opinion to be applicable, a certain modicum of honesty on the press’s part will therefore be essential. The present article is consequently being submitted to all U.S.-and-allied news-media for publication, broadcast, and public discussion, so as to enable the international ‘court’ of public opinion to function, on this matter (since the U.S. Government blocks the ICC from having jurisdiction over it). The international ‘court’ of public opinion will be able to function only if these news-media publish the case that’s presented here. Otherwise, the public just won’t even have a chance. So, here is that case:

THE CASE

The U.S. Government and its allies alleged that there had been a chemical weapons attack which the Syrian Government had perpetrated in the town of Douma Syria on April 7th. The U.S. Government organized a bombardment of the Syrian Government, which occurred seven days later. The U.S. Government did everything it could to prevent the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW, the internationally authorized body which investigates such matters) from inspecting the area, either before or after the U.S.-and-allied bombing. The OPCW wanted to investigate in order to determine whether there had actually been the alleged chemical-weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian Government, as the U.S. regime and its allies had alleged in order to allegedly justify their April 14th invasion.

Some U.N. delegates were even afraid that the aggressive U.S. might take “military action” in order to prevent an OPCW investigation there. Syria’s Government headlined on April 10th, “OPCW to send a fact-finding mission to Douma upon request of Syria and Russia”. Pamela Falk of CBS News reported on April 10th, that “Because the U.S. and Russia draft resolutions are unlikely to pass the Security Council, the Russian mission to the U.N. is planning to introduce a resolution, obtained by CBS News, that supports an OPCW fact-finding mission to Douma.” But events were racing too fast for anything to issue from the U.N. The U.S. and its allies were determined to invade, and quickly.

On the night of April 10th, Russian Television bannered “Europe air traffic control issues alert over ‘possible air strikes on Syria within 72 hours’”. Infowars headlined on April 11th “REPORT: U.S. SET TO TARGET 70 DIFFERENT SITES IN SYRIA” and reported that, “The United States is planning to target as many as 70 different sites in Syria, including some at which Russian soldiers are stationed, a source close to the Department of Defense has told Infowars. … According to the source, evidence provided by the controversial White Helmets group, which some have linked to jihadist groups in the region, will be used to justify the attack. The source added that Trump wasn’t supposed to tweet about the air strikes. Earlier today, Trump tweeted, ‘Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and smart! You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!’” He was international judge, jury, and executioner, like George W. Bush was regarding Iraq in 2003.

On April 12th, Breitbart News bannered “May Readies UK for Syria Strikes, Defies Strong Public Opposition” and reported: “Theresa May is clearing the way to launch attacks on the Syrian regime, despite multiple polls showing only one in five Brits support missile attacks.”

This would be an invasion by the aristocracies, not by the publics; these invading nations are dictatorships; their publics have no control over their nations’ international relations, none really at all. To call these nations ‘democracies’ is thus to insult democracy. These nations’ respective aristocracies make even such life-and-death decisions — invasions and other international war-crimes — regardless of the desires and interests of their subjects (called ‘citizens’). And they are doing it (like they did against Iraq in 2003, and against Libya in 2011) against a Government and nation that had never invaded nor even threatened to invade any of the invaders. It’s thus clearly “aggressive war.” Even if Syria’s Government had perpetrated a chemical attack in Douma, the invading nations have been invading without even having sought from the U.N. an authorization to do it. Back in 2003, when the same invaders destroyed Iraq, they at least tried to obtain a U.N. authorization to invade. When that effort failed, they simply ordered the U.N.’s weapons-inspectors out, so as not to kill them, too, in their war-crime. But Donald Trump and his allies didn’t even try to get a U.N. authorization. (And he has treated the OPCW’s investigators with just as much impatience and contempt as G.W. Bush had treated Hans Blix’s in 2003.)

Also on April 12th, Russian Television reported, “The first four chemical weapons experts from the OPCW have arrived in Syria on a fact-finding mission (FFM) into the April 7 Douma incident.”

The U.S. had barred at the Security Council any OPCW findings prior to any invasion; but on the day of the U.S.-and-allied invasion, April 14th, the OPCW announced its determination to investigate Douma, notwithstanding the U.S. regime’s opposition to that. The OPCW insisted upon doing their job, maybe even to expose that this invasion had been a war-crime, if that’s what it was. So, the OPCW simply took upon itself to act, to gather evidence.

This investigation had been wanted by Syria and Russia, but the U.S. and its allies tried at the United Nations to block it. Now that the OPCW was in Syria, the U.S. and its allies charged that the Syrian Government didn’t want any such investigation, and was delaying it so as to hide evidence; the Syrian Government responded that it needed some time in order to be able to make Douma safe enough to allow OPCW investigators to work there. Some armed anti-Government fighters still remained inside Douma. The OPCW were waiting for the Government’s go-ahead to enter Douma.

On Wednesday, April 18th, Reuters headlined “Head of chemical weapons watchdog: UN security team was shot at in Douma”, and reported that,

The head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said on Wednesday that a U.N. security team doing reconnaissance in Douma, Syria came under gunfire a day earlier, sources told Reuters.

OPCW Director General Ahmet Üzümcü told a meeting at the organization’s headquarters in The Hague that the security team was forced to withdraw, delaying the arrival of chemical weapons inspectors due to visit the site.

America’s allegations that Syria was overstating the dangers to the OPCW investigators were now clearly lies. It was manifestly the case. The lies from the American side poured like a river, just as usually had been the case — most infamously during the lead-up to the 2003 invasion and destruction of Iraq, which likewise was rushed through on the basis of lies, by the U.S. and its allies.

Also on April 18th, TruePublica bannered “Syrian ‘Rebels’ Used Sarin Nerve Gas Sold By Britain” and reported that the UK Government had “granted licences for the sale of chemical weapons ingredients and components to Syria ten months after the uprising began.” The poorly written text in that news-report failed to make unambiguously clear in its opening, whether these chemicals had been sold to Syria’s Government and/or to the U.S.-UK-backed jihadists who were trying to overthrow it. But both seem to have been the case, and some of these were “donations” and not merely sales; so, at least some of them went to the jihadists whom UK was backing, and weren’t sales to the Syrian Government. (See bottom of page 50 in this document, saying “the revision of the Syria sanctions regime led to some licence revocations in July 2012 for the export of chemicals,” and “the Government is satisfied that no gifting package contravenes its policy,” but the TruePublica report failed to link to any documentation whatsoever, for its vaguely written allegation here, neither to this document nor to anything.) So: the chemical incidents that the U.S. and UK regimes were blaming against Syria’s Government might actually all have been due instead to “chemical” “donations,” by the accusing countries, those foreign invader-regimes, donated to their jihadist allies now in Syria, working in conjunction to provide fake excuses for the U.S. and its allies to invade. Britain might have supplied the terrorists chemical weapons, in this particular instance. Furthermore, on 8 September 2013, London’s Metro newspaper had headlined “British government confirms chemicals were sold to Syria between 2004 and 2010”. And on 7 October 2013, Christof Lehmann’s NSNBC news-site bannered “Top US and Saudi Officials responsible for Chemical Weapons in Syria”. Those were alleged to have been donations of such chemicals to the jihadists. Furthermore, America’s two leading scientists on such matters, Theodore Postol and Richard Lloyd, issued the most-detailed investigation ever of the 21 August 2013 Ghouta chemical attack in Syria that U.S. President Obama was trying to use as a ‘justification’ to invade that nation, and they concluded “the US Government’s Interpretation of the Technical Intelligence It Gathered Prior to and After the August 21 Attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT.” Furthermore Robert Parry at his Consortium News reported on 23 December 2013 that “Ake Sellstrom, the head of the United Nations mission investigating chemical weapons use in Syria, agrees that the vector analysis – at the heart of the New York Times’ indictment of the Syrian government for the deadly Aug. 21 Sarin gas attack – doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.” That fact explained why Gareth Porter at Inter Press Service had headlined on 27 August 2013, “In Rush to Strike Syria, U.S. Tried to Derail U.N. Probe”. As Seymour Hersh reported in the London Review of Books on 19 December 2013, “The White House’s misrepresentation of what it knew about the attack, and when, was matched by its readiness to ignore intelligence that could undermine the narrative.” Obama continued in George W. Bush’s footsteps, though as a candidate he had condemned Bush’s international policies. Trump now was doing the same. The U.S. regime (like in 2003) simply didn’t want the truth to become publicly known. America’s Republican Party aristocrats and their politicians and news-media had blamed Obama for being too soft against Assad for not bombing Syria, but actually Obama was merely less brazen than his successor Donald Trump (financed by Republican Party aristocrats who had financed Bush) has turned out to be. The U.S. and its allies were clearly lying about the Ghouta incident, just like they had done about “Saddam’s WMD.” So, UK firms, and also “US and Saudi Officials,” might have given jihadists such chemicals. What’s especially damning is the “donations,” since those would have been to the jihadists, in order for them to set up “false-flag” attacks (such as they did in Ghouta), to be blamed against Assad. And still today in the U.S. and allied countries the politicians and news-media refer to Obama as having been indecisive instead of a liar on the Ghouta incident, and Assad is unquestioningly presumed to have been to blame for the Ghouta chemical attack, just as the U.S.-and-allied aristocracies want.

Finally, on April 21st of 2018, the Syrian Government announced that Douma was sufficiently safe for the OPCW inspectors to be able to investigate, and the OPCW entered there, and began its work.

On April 22nd, Russian Television headlined “‘Whole story was staged’: Germany’s ZDF reporter says Douma incident was false flag attack” and reported that “‘People told us in a very convincing manner that this whole story was staged,’ Uli Gack, a reporter with the German ZDF public broadcaster, said (referring to the alleged Douma chemical attack) while he spoke live on ZDF Heute (‘Today’) show on Saturday.” He had entered along with the OPCW investigators.

The OPCW receives funding from the U.S. Government and so has never yet made public their findings regarding Douma. On 5 November 2013, Reuters reported that “The United States has been the biggest contributor to the OPCW’s fund for the Syria mission, with Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland also contributing.” Obviously, if the OPCW findings indicate that this alleged event wasn’t really a chemical attack by the Syrian Government but instead was staged by the anti-Government fighters who are supported by the U.S. Government, or otherwise was not planned by the Syrian Government, then the U.S. and its allied Governments (UK, and France) who bombed Syrian Government facilities on April 14th are war-criminals, irrespective of whether they can be prosecuted for that, or for anything else. They’re then just international gangsters, but will be known to be that by an honest OPCW report. So, the U.S. has done everything possible to block it.

Since the OPCW has refused, even as of this late date, to make public its findings, that ZDF Heute news-report, from their reporter who accompanied the OPCW investigators, is perhaps the only independent evidence yet available regarding whether the U.S.-and-allied bombing-campaign on April 14th was a war-crime. (Of course, also, no U.S. or British or French ‘news’ medium has done any follow-up report regarding whether their Government is a war-criminal on this.)

The journalist in that April 20th ZDF report speaks German very fast there, and no translation-option is provided in the video. Furthermore, the video will be gone entirely, after a year (“Video available until 20.04.2019, 19:00”) even in its spoken-only, German-only, version, and so my written news-report and translation here won’t merely make the ZDF report’s contents available to English-speaking audiences for the first time, but it will also provide these contents in a permanent form, which can be included in the various web archives, which that video is not. (Videos are often not archivable. They unfortunately have this severe problem, as historical evidence.)

It’s a two-minute and 29 second video. Here is the video (for as long as it’s still online):

https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute-19-uhr/videos/zitat-sgs-gack-syrien-100.html

In it, ZDF’s reporter Uli Gack said: “IS [Islamic State] had created the attack. The place was a commando post for the Islamists who had installed chlorine containers and were waiting that this place, highly interesting for the Syrian airforce, would be bombarded, which happened, and the chlorine containers were bombarded. People say that several provocations of this type had happened in Douma. During one of these so-called exercises by the IS, people had been exposed to the gas, which was filmed and then shown as proof for the April 7 attack. I can not put my hand into the fire for this, but there seems truth in the stories.”

Interviewer (also from ZDF, which is a German Government channel, and Germany is allied with the U.S. and therefore supports U.S. propaganda against Syria’s Government) then asks: “So, why would Assad or the Russians hinder the examinations of the facts?”

Gack: “The terrain under places like Homs is like Swiss cheese, everywhere cells appear from the underground and it is dangerous for the examiners. At least, this could be true. The traces of the gas are disappearing slowly and it may be impossible to know who is responsible.”

On May 4th, the OPCW announced that their collection of evidence regarding the Douma incident was now over, the analysis of it would require “three to four weeks,” and “At this time, it is not possible to give a timeframe for when the Douma report will be issued to States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention,” meaning that they were struggling to find a way to present an honest report which wouldn’t hurt their employer, OPCW.

The OPCW reported on July 24th, that “The Secretariat has verified the destruction of all 27 chemical weapons production facilities (CWPFs) declared by the Syrian Arab Republic.”

On September 6th, the U.N. reported that, “IZUMI NAKAMITSU, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, updating the Council on the implementation of resolution 2118 (2013) on the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons programme, said that the Technical Secretariat of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had verified the destruction of all 27 chemical weapons production facilities declared by that country.” This announcement was made at that time because the jihadists in Syria’s most-densely pro-jihadist province, Idlib, the American Government’s allies there, had been documented by the Syrian and Russian Governments to have prepared in Idlib yet another assembly of chemicals to be ready to be spread by a Syrian and Russian bombing campaign, which had been planned by Syria and its ally Russia, in order to exterminate the jihadists in Idlib. So, clearly, any further banned chemicals on Syrian territory would be from the U.S. and its allies, not from Syria and its allies. This crucial fact has not been reported to the American people by American ‘news’ media. The U.S. regime still harbors hopes of sparking a chemical release in Syria that they can blame against Syria’s Government as an excuse to bomb it further — to commit still more aggressions against Syria.

On September 24th, the OPCW reported that, “The FFM [Fact-Finding Mission] continues to collect and analyse information with regard to the alleged use of toxic chemicals as a weapon in Douma and will provide a final report on its findings in due course.” Presumably, the OPCW wants to find a way to phrase their report so that the U.S. Government and its allies won’t discontinue funding the OPCW. Perhaps by the time it is finally issued, the ‘news’ media won’t need to give it more than a perfunctory and extremely brief ‘news’ report, with a dull headline. (If even that.) After all: On May 4th, the OPCW had announced that their collection of evidence regarding the Douma incident was over, and the analysis of it would require “three to four weeks,” so that the analysis was completed by around June 1st — and yet it hasn’t been made public.

This is like a repeat of what the U.S. regime and its allies had done to Iraq in 2003, regarding “Saddam’s WMD” that didn’t exist — invasion on the basis of lies about “weapons of mass destruction” — as if the U.S. regime isn’t itself the world’s worst producers of such things and users of them, too: “pots calling the kettle black” and then invading that kettle. The U.N. is terrifically exercised about eliminating chemical-and biological weapons stockpiles from weak countries such as Iraq and Syria, but what about eliminating them from the world’s most powerful countries, which are even storing ebola virus for military use (or at least the U.S. and UK Governments are)? What about that? Nothing. There’s no International Criminal Court to judge these leaders, who really are international war-criminals, even if OPCW ends up saying that Assad had been a domestic war-criminal. To be an international war-criminal is vastly more heinous, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the leaders of the U.S. alliance are that.

In the international court of public opinion, today’s fascist powers could yet be internationally responded-to by consumer boycotts of their mega-corporate brands (whose owners control those fascist governments), and by other means. Furthermore, there exists the possibility of international economic sanctions against such fascist regimes, which kill millions and endanger the whole world. And, also, why are politicians in the U.S.-allied nations being re-elected by the publics there? Certainly those voters don’t want to be controlled by the U.S. regime’s stooges, as now is the case there. An exposure of the U.S. regime as being an international fascist dictatorship could produce real results, even if the U.S. regime continues stiffing the International Criminal Court. Whether the OPCW will risk doing this — calling out the U.S. alliance’s lie on this occasion — is the question. But, for the sake of world peace, they ought to do it, not cave to their funders. Otherwise, how much longer will this decades-long string, of invasions by the U.S. and its allies (such as of Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, and Syria and Yemen now), continue? If the ICC cannot prosecute America’s Presidents, then what use is it, really? So, all that is left here is an honest OPCW — if it is honest — and honest news-media (if they too will be honest).

What is at stake here could be whether fascist control of the world will be stopped, at all — ever.

A typical example of the depth of the enormously profitable corruption in the U.S., by which millions of Americans get routinely destroyed in order to expand yet further the wealth of America’s billionaires, the aristocrats, is summarily described here and here. This documentary, which is only summarized there, demonstrates that not only the people in the invaded countries are being destroyed by these aristocrats. Fascism is bad for everyone except the very few people who are enriched (enormously) by it, the super-rich who stand behind it, and who control it.

PS: 

What is the historical and ideological source of this fascism, which is now gripping the world? On 10 July 2018, I headlined at The Saker, “Vladimir Putin’s Basic Disagreement with The West” and attributed the source of the U.S.-UK alliance to the UK magnate, Cecil Rhodes, late in the 1800s. He saw that in order for the British Empire to continue expanding, it would need to do so in alliance with the then-emerging U.S. empire — a tight alliance between these two aristocracies — and that it should include also Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In 1877, he wrote: “I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. I contend that every acre added to our territory means the birth of more of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence. Added to this, the absorption of the greater portion of the world under our rule simply means the end of all wars.” He rationalized: further conquest by this ‘race’ would be the only path to permanent peace. The concept of ‘national security’, then, means, to them, expanding this particular empire, until it rules the entire planet. That’s their goal. That’s their ‘Paradise’. As I document also there, the American billionaire George Soros carries on today in Rhodes’s footsteps, to expand the U.S.-UK empire. But the idea is not his; it is Rhodes’s. And today it has come to be based on two specific mechanisms. The U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency is one bastion of this neo-Rhodes-ian system. The City of London’s constituting the bastion of the half of the world’s privately-owned wealth (most of the global aristocracy’s wealth) that’s hidden in offshore locations, where there is complete secrecy and non-accountability to any government, is the other half of this Rhodes-ian Paradise. It’s actually a global aristocratic gangland. That’s the reality of the Rhodes-ian system, which is today’s fascist Axis.

Here are three Snowden-released confidential documents that are typical as being Rhodes-ian:

One document, dated 12 November 2004, is headed “TOP SECRET” and to be sent “TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL” or to the entire core Rhodes empire, and it related that “From 4 – 6 October, Lt Gen Hayden and GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters, in Cheltenham, England] Director David Pepper co-chaired the annual NSA-GCHQ Joint Management Review (JMR) at Chevening House. The fine Palladian house, the country residence of the UK Foreign Secretary, dates back to 1630. It is set in 27 acres of gardens, within an estate of 3,000 acres, and is located 23 miles south of London, in the Kent countryside.” It said “that NSA and GCHQ must work hard to keep one another apprised and well connected throughout (actually one of NSA’s Special US Liaison Officer, London’s key responsibilities); A validation of the common cause that joins our two nations.”

Another document, dated 19 November 2004, is likewise headed “TOP SECRET” and to be sent “TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL.” It’s headlined “Leaders Peer into the Future, See Global System.” It said: “Last week, SIGINT leaders flew in from around the world to attend the annual SIGINT Site Commanders Operational Review here at Fort Meade. This year’s SCOR conference focused on how we are to govern the global SIGINT network in the 21st century. It went very well.”

Another document, dated 24 November 2004, is likewise headed “TOP SECRET” and to be sent “TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL.” It’s headlined “Finding the Achilles’ Heel.” It said: “JWAC [Joint Warfare Analysis Center] provides the combatant commands, Joint Staff, and other customers with effects-based precision targeting options for selected networks and nodes in order to carry out the national security and military strategies of the United States during peace, crisis, and war.” It discussed “Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. As we continue the Global War on Terrorism, new opportunities are identified and analytic partnerships are formed.”

Tim Shorrock at Salon wrote on 10 June 2013:

“The largest concentration of cyber power on the planet is the intersection of the Baltimore Parkway and Maryland Route 32,” says Michael V. Hayden, who oversaw the privatization effort as NSA director from 1999 to 2005. He was referring not to the NSA itself but to the business park about a mile down the road from the giant black edifice that houses NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Md. There, all of NSA’s major contractors, from Booz to SAIC to Northrop Grumman, carry out their surveillance and intelligence work for the agency.

So: Lt. Gen. Hayden in London on 12 November was preparing what would be presented at Ft. Meade on 19 November to America’s SIGINT from around the world. Then, on 24 November, JWAC was discussing “effects-based precision targeting options” that the entire SIGINT would adopt, after that meeting which Hayden had had 12 days earlier at the luxurious and private country residence of the UK Foreign Secretary. This “TOP SECRET” meeting seems to have been an instance of close coordination between U.S. and UK. No announcement was ever made regarding what was said or agreed-to at any of those top-secret meetings.

But, above all: Why were only the Rhodes circle of nations’ leaders (“TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL”) included in these “TOP SECRET” U.S. Government communications? Why not also French? Why not also Israeli? Why not also Saudi? Why not also Japanese? Etc.? (In other words: why not all other aristocracies that are allied with America’s aristocracy.) None of those countries were allowed to participate in these crucial and secret meetings.

Is “the special relationship” the core of the U.S. empire? Is that what it basically is? If so, it’s what Rhodes wanted. And it certainly isn’t democracy, not anywhere. It’s privatized government, in the hands of the U.S. and UK aristocracies, which control the generals and the weapons-making firms whose boards the generals join after their ‘public’ service. This is an entity that’s independent of any treaty the U.S. Government has. It stands above any of America’s treaties. And, yet, this alliance never faced the U.S. Constitution’s requirements in order to be able to become a treaty obligation or right with any foreign nation. The U.S. Government has — to put this matter in clear terms — been taken over by international gangsters, U.S. and foreign, who work closely together, via agents everywhere, answerable ultimately only to the U.S. and UK aristocracies, and beyond any laws at all, entirely unConstitutional.

It is fascist, and it is trying to expand — they’re more like Adolf Hitler, than like Francisco Franco. It’s aggressive war, to control the world. It’s clearly war-criminal.

That’s what the OPCW is now facing.

To understand it more fully, I recommend especially two videos:

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The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire (Documentary)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_ylvc8Zj8

It starts by describing the British-Empire origin of the City of London, which is an independently ruled land within London and controls the UK’s currency, the pound. Here are highlights from the video when it describes the present day, the period since around 1960, as the military basis of the British global empire became replaced by a financial basis, while the U.S. military increasingly took over the military part of the joint imperial operation:

32:00-35:00 “We are still plundering developing countries as former colonial powers.” “Wealthy individuals, organized crime, and corporations, shifted their wealth offshore in exchange for secrecy and no tax. And, as countries around the world began to deregulate and open their economies, it became ever easier to do so. Today, as much as half of all global offshore wealth may be hidden in Britain’s secrecy jurisdictions. One of the losers is Africa, whose flight capital flows mostly into the modern British spider’s web. … Secrecy jurisdictions were starving developing nations of their wealth and their tax-revenues. … Western nations block attempts to provide greater transparency of international financial flows.” (The two nations that especially do are UK and U.S.)

35:00-35:25 “The oil in Gabon has not benefited the people in Gabon. And this is true for the copper in Zambia, for the gold in Mozambique or in Mali.”

36:35-36:55 “Worldwide, developing countries lose over a trillion dollars every year in capital flight and tax-evasion. Most of this wealth flows into large Western nations like the United States and Britain and enables their currencies to stay strong, whilst developing nations’ currencies remain weak.” (Almost 100% of the offshore tax-haven monetary flows consist of frauds, organized crime, and tax-evasion; virtually none of it is legal; and this is why that secrecy is essential to it.)

45:25-45:30  “Today, close to half of the world’s secrecy jurisdictions are British dependencies.”

56:00-56:20 “British politicians see themselves as essentially lobbyists for the City of London.”

1:01:35-1:02:30 “Today, offshore is the way elites and multinational corporations conduct their affairs. Tax-evasion is the way business is done. This kind of sophisticated cheating requires a huge infrastructure … of highly educated people who think it is their right to help others to cheat societies. We have a new Mafia in town. It does not actually shoot people. It does not put bullets in their kneecaps. But its trade is just as deadly; it deprives people of opportunities to have healthcare, education, security, justice, and essentially a fulfilling life. Accountants form the backbone of the offshore system.” (The same corporations that thrive from them “are then rewarded with government contracts.”)

——

Operation Gladio – Full 1992 documentary BBC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGHXjO8wHsA

This one presents members of the aristocracy, ‘former’ fascists in Germany Italy and elsewhere, describing terrorist acts they had participated in throughout Europe during 1945-onward, for the CIA and its allied intelligence-services, operations which were designed so as to be blamed on communists, in order to cement Europe to the U.S., against the U.S.S.R. After the death of the anti-fascist American President FDR, the U.S. quickly got taken over by closeted American pro-fascists and even pro-nazis, who worked with Hitler’s and Mussolini’s people in Europe, so as to extend the U.S.-UK empire globally, and U.S. coups immediately became the CIA’s method supplementing the military’s cruder method, standard armed conquest.

——

What they show is the basic history that all students, everywhere, should know before they head off to college, so that they can understand the broader context in which their professors are functioning. And that’s the context I described in my “Vladimir Putin’s Basic Disagreement with The West”.

Here is an operation by the Rhodes-ians, under the leadership of U.S. President Barack Obama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-RyOaFwcEw

Here is an act of partisan resistance against those nazis, today: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/09/thousands-evacuated-explosions-ukrainian-arms-depot/

These wars are on in many places. One shouldn’t have to be targets that the new nazis are trying to kill, before one becomes knowledgeable about whom they are, and what they really stand for. Any nation’s politicians who support the new nazism are enemies of the people whom they had promised to represent. For example, this is the real reason why America’s NSA actually isn’t recording just the metadata on every phone call to or from every phone in America, but is also recording every phone-conversation, in blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; and not only Trump’s appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh lies to endorse it, but also his colleague on the U.S. DC Circuit Appeals Court, Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland did. They actually don’t care about the U.S. Constitution; they just pay “lip service” to it. This is how these gangsters-in-suits run the country. Obviously, there is bipartisan support, by America’s aristocrats, for establishing a total-surveillance government. Whereas Garland refused to say why he voted for it, Kavanaugh said his reason was that “national security” overrides the U.S. Constitution. And, now, he is on the Supreme Court, which interprets the U.S. Constitution. He’s normal there, not unusual. He’s not the basic problem; the aristocracy that he serves is the basic problem.

Will the OPCW stand up against it? Or will it instead serve its masters? Blaming the invaded Government is so much safer than blaming the invaded ones, especially for an authority that’s being paid by the invading ones.

But, if the OPCW won’t do it, who will? Who even can? And, what kind of world would that then leave us with?

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Most people have passed through some kind of initiation in life. By that, I mean a crisis that defies what you knew and what you were. From the rubble of the ensuing collapse, a new self is born into a new world.

Societies can also pass through an initiation. That is what climate change poses to the present global civilization. It is not a mere “problem” that we can solve from the currently dominant worldview and its solution-set but asks us to inhabit a new Story of the People and a new (and ancient) relationship to the rest of life.

A key element of this transformation is from a geomechanical worldview to a Living Planet worldview. In my last essay, I argued that the climate crisis will not be solved by adjusting levels of atmospheric gases, as if we were tinkering with the air-fuel mixture of a diesel engine. Rather, a living Earth can only be healthy – can only stay living in fact – if its organs and tissues are vital. These comprise the forests, the soil, the wetlands, the coral reefs, the fish, the whales, the elephants, the seagrass meadows, the mangrove swamps, and all the rest of Earth’s systems and species. If we continue degrading and destroying them, then even if we cut emissions to zero overnight, Earth would still die a death of a million cuts.

That is because it is life that maintains the conditions for life, through dimly understood processes as complex as any living physiology. Vegetation produces volatile compounds that promote the formation of clouds that reflect sunlight. Megafauna transport nitrogen and phosphorus across continents and oceans to maintain the carbon cycle. Forests generate a “biotic pump” of persistent low pressure that brings rain to continental interiors and maintains atmospheric flow patterns. Whales bring nutrients up from the deep ocean to nourish plankton. Wolves control deer populations so that forest understory remains viable, allowing rainfall absorption and preventing droughts and fires. Beavers slow the progress of water from land to sea, buffering floods and modulating silt discharge into coastal waters so that life there can thrive. Mycelial mats tie vast areas together in a neural network exceeding the human brain in its complexity. And all of these processes interlock with each other.

In my book Climate – A New Story I make the case that much of the climate derangement that we blame on greenhouse gases actually comes from direct disruption of ecosystems. It has been happening for millennia: drought and desertification has followed wherever humans have cut down forests and exposed soil to erosion.

The phrase “disruption of ecosystems” sounds scientific compared to “harming and killing living beings.” But from the Living Planet view, it is the latter that is more accurate. A forest is not just a collection of living trees – it is itself alive. The soil is not just a medium in which life grows; the soil is alive. So is a river, a reef, and a sea. Just as it is a lot easier to degrade, to exploit, and to kill a person when one sees the victim as less than human, so too it is easier to kill Earth’s beings when we see them as unliving and unconscious already. The clearcuts, the strip mines, the drained swamps, the oil spills, and so on are inevitable when we see Earth as a dead thing, insensate, an instrumental pile of resources.

Our stories are powerful. If we see the world as dead, we will kill it. And if we see the world as alive, we will learn how to serve its healing.

The Living Planet View

And in fact, the world is alive. It is not just the host of life. The forests and reefs and wetlands are its organs. The waters are its blood. The soil is its skin. The animals are its cells. This is not an exact analogy, but the conclusion it invites is valid: that if these beings lose their integrity, the whole planet will wither.

I will not try to make an intellectual case for the livingness of planet Earth, which would depend on what definition of life I use. Besides, I’d like to go further and say Earth is sentient, conscious, and intelligent as well – a scientifically insupportable claim. So instead of trying to argue the point, I’ll ask the skeptic to stand barefoot on the earth and feel the truth of it. I believe that however skeptical you are, however fervently you opine that life is just a fortuitous chemical accident driven by blind physical forces, a tiny flame of knowledge burns in every person that Earth, water, soil, air, the sun, the clouds, and the wind are alive and aware, feeling us at the same time as we feel them.

I know the skeptic well because I am he. A creeping doubt takes hold of me when I spend a lot of time indoors, in front of a screen, surrounded by standardized inorganic objects that mirror the deadness of the modernist conception of the world.

Surely the exhortation to connect barefoot with the living Earth would be out of place at an academic climate conference or meeting of the IPCC. Occasionally such events indulge a moment of touchy-feely ceremony or trot out an indigenous person to invoke the four directions before everyone enters the conference room to get down to business, the business of data and graphs, models and projections, costs and benefits. What is real, in that world, is the numbers. Such environments – of quantitative abstractions as well as conditioned air, unvarying artificial light, identical chairs, and ubiquitous right angles – banish any life except the human. Nature exists only in representation, and Earth seems alive only in theory, and probably not at all.

What is considered real in those places are the numbers – how ironic, given that numbers are the quintessence of abstraction, of the reduction of the many to the one. The data-driven mind seeks to solve problems by the numbers too. My inner math geek would love to solve the climate crisis by evaluating every possible policy according to its net carbon footprint. Each ecosystem, each technology, each energy project, I would assign a greenhouse value. Then I would order up more of this one and less of that one, offsetting jet travel with tree planting, compensating for wetlands destruction here with solar panels there, to meet a certain greenhouse gas budget. I would apply the methods and mindsets that have grown up around financial accounting – money being another way of reducing the many to the one.

Unfortunately, as with money, carbon reductionism ignores everything that seems not to affect the balance sheet. Thus it is that traditional environmental issues such as habitat conservation, saving the whales, or cleaning up toxic waste get short shrift in the climate movement. “Green” has come to mean “low-carbon.”

In the Living Planet view, this is a huge mistake, since the ignored whales, wolves, beavers, butterflies, and so on are among the organs and tissues that keep Gaia whole. By offsetting our air travel miles with tree planting, sourcing our electricity from solar panels, and thereby donning the mantle of “eco-friendly,” we assuage the conscience while obscuring the ongoing harm that our present way of life generates. We imply that “sustainability” means the sustaining of society as we know it, but with non-fossil fuel sources.

This is not to say that it is fine to continue burning fossil fuels as always. In reaction to my last essay, some people labeled me a climate denier or a tool of climate deniers. This is a natural reaction in a highly polarized environment in which the first lens applied to any person or position is “Which side are you on?” In a war setting, any information, however true, that is inconsistent with our side’s narrative must be rejected as rendering aid and comfort to the enemy. When both sides do that, the result is a binary choice that shuts out any alternative that may lie outside either pole and even outside the spectrum of opinion that the two poles define. Furthermore, shutting out conflicting data means that each side becomes impervious to growth, change, and truth.

Thus it is that the Living Planet view (as I interpret it) elicits hostility not only from the anti-environmentalist right but also from the global warming alarmist left – even though the left at least is temperamentally aligned with its premise. Their hostility originates in the implication that I will now draw out: that global warming is not the main threat to the biosphere, and that focusing on carbon emissions and clean energy is not the highest priority response.

The real threat to the biosphere is actually worse than most people even on the left understand; it includes and far transcends climate; and, we can meet it only through a multidimensional healing response.

Are greenhouse gas emissions a problem? Yes. They put more stress on global life systems that development, ecocide, and pollution have already dangerously weakened. Here is a loose analogy: Imagine that Earth’s winds and currents, flows of temperature and moisture, and life-sustaining weather patterns are like a gigantic meandering garden hose, perforated with tiny holes to irrigate plants. Imagine that these plants have grown around the hose to hold it more or less in place. Now uproot those plants (destroy ecosystems) at the same time as you increase the water pressure dramatically (greenhouse forcing). Without the plants holding it down, the hose begins to writhe and kick and run completely awry, no longer delivering water to where it needs to go.

On the real Earth, the ecosystems – in particular forests, savannas, and wetlands – that once anchored patterns of flow into place are severely damaged. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases have intensified the system’s thermodynamic flux, further disrupting atmospheric patterns and further damaging weakened ecosystems. However, even without elevated greenhouse gases, the massive killing of life would spell disaster. Fossil fuel emissions intensify an already bad situation.

Reordering of Priorities

With healthy ecosystems, elevated CO2, methane, and temperature might pose little problem. After all, temperatures were arguably (this is extremely controversial) higher than today in the early Holocene as well as during the Minoan Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, and Medieval Warm Period, and there was no runaway methane feedback loop or anything like that. A living being with strong organs and healthy tissues is resilient.

Sadly, Earth’s organs have been damaged and her tissues have been poisoned. She is in a delicate state. That is why cutting greenhouse emissions is important. However, a Living Planet view invites a different ordering of priorities than the one that conventional climate discourse suggests:

First priority is to protect all remaining primary rainforest and other undamaged ecosystems. Particularly important are mangrove swamps, seagrass meadows, and other wetlands, especially on the coasts. These forests and wetlands are precious treasures, reservoirs of biodiversity, regeneration hothouses for life. They hold the deep intelligence of the earth, without which full healing is impossible.

The second priority is to repair and regenerate damaged ecosystems worldwide. Ways to do that include:

• A massive expansion of marine reserves for ocean regeneration
• Bans on bottom trawling, drift nets, and other industrial fishing practices
• Regenerative agricultural practices that rebuild soil, such as cover cropping, perennial agriculture, agroforestry, and holistic grazing
• Afforestation and reforestation
• Water retention landscapes to repair the hydrological cycle
• Protection of apex predators and megafauna

The third priority is to stop poisoning the world with pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, plastics, PCBs, heavy metals, antibiotics, chemical fertilizers, pharmaceutical waste, radioactive waste, and other industrial pollutants. These weaken Earth on the tissue level, pervading the entire biosphere to the point where, for example, orcas are now found with PCB levels high enough to classify the orca’s body as toxic waste. Pesticides and habitat destruction are also causing a massive die-off of insects, amphibians, birds, soil biota, and other life, weakening Gaia’s ability to maintain herself.

The fourth (and still important) priority is to reduce atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases. To a large extent, this result will be a by-product of the other three priorities. Both reforestation and regenerative agriculture can sequester massive amounts of carbon. Furthermore, to truly protect and repair ecosystems would necessitate a moratorium on new pipelines, offshore oil wells, fracking, tar sands excavation, mountaintop removal, strip mines, and other extraction of fossil fuels, as all of these entail severe ecological damage and risk. The Living Planet view also supports certain carbon-motivated proposals that have broader ecological and social benefits: rooftop solar, local diets and local economies, bikeable cities, smaller passive-solar houses, demilitarization, repairable rather than disposable goods, and reuse and upcycling. To love and care for each precious part of this planet, we have to transform the fossil fuel infrastructure regardless of the greenhouse gas issue.

Paradoxically, we do not need the greenhouse argument to reduce greenhouse gases. By following the priorities listed above, we will achieve (and perhaps surpass) most of what the mainstream climate movement is calling for, but from a different motivation. There are significant points of departure, however. The Living Planet approach rejects big hydroelectric projects because they destroy wetlands, degrade rivers, and alter the flow of silt to the sea. It abhors the biofuel plantations that are overtaking vast areas of Africa, Asia, and South America since these often replace natural ecosystems and small-scale, sustainable peasant agriculture. It dreads geoengineering schemes such as whitening the sky with sulfur aerosols. It has little use for giant carbon-sucking machines (carbon capture and storage technology). It looks with horror at the consumption of forests around the world to produce wood chips for converted coal-fired power plants. It is doubtful of huge bird-killing wind turbines and vast photovoltaic arrays on denuded landscapes.

Polarization and Denial

In the preceding section, I referred to the controversial claim that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the present. I would like to revisit that, not because I think it is important to establish one way or another, but because it offers a window onto a deeper problem that freezes our culture into a holding pattern on numerous issues, not just global warming. The deeper problem is polarization.

Hockey stick reconstructions seem to show the contrary to the Medieval Warm Period assertion – that today is warmer than any time in the past ten thousand years. On the other hand, skeptics assail the methodological and statistical underpinnings of these studies and then adduce evidence of early warm temperatures such as higher sea levels in the early and middle Holocene.

After a couple years of book research, I am confident I could argue either side of the issue. I could, with impressive research citations, argue that the Medieval Warm Period (now called the Medieval Temperature Anomaly) was not really that warm after all, and in any event mostly concentrated in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean basin. I could also argue, again citing dozens of peer-reviewed papers, that the anomaly was significant and global. The same goes for pretty much every aspect of the climate debate – I can argue either side well enough to impress its partisans.

Already the reader’s hackles might be up for implying an equivalency between the two sides, one of which consists of unscrupulous corporate-funded right-wing pseudo-scientists who let their greed come before humanity’s survival, and the other of humble scientists of integrity backed by self-correcting institutions of peer review that ensure that the consensus position of science approaches ever closer to the truth. Or is it that one side consists of brave dissidents who risk their careers to question the reigning orthodoxy, and the other of groupthinking, risk-averse careerists beholden to the globalist agenda of rabid left-wing “enviros” and “greenies”?

The polarizing invective coming from both sides suggests a high degree of ego investment in their positions and makes me doubt that either side would countenance evidence that contradicts their view.

In the face of the extreme polarization of American (and to some degree Western) society today, I’ve adopted a rule of thumb, which applies as much to warring couples as it does to politics: the most important issue is to be found outside the fight itself, in what both parties tacitly agree on or refuse to see. To take sides is to validate the terms of the debate, and to participate in the ignoring of hidden issues.

A meta-level tacit agreement in the climate debate is the reduction of the question of planetary health to the question of whether temperatures are hotter now than X years ago. By pinning alarm over ecological deterioration onto global warming, we imply that if the skeptics are right, then there is no cause for alarm. So the climate movement must prove the skeptics wrong at all costs – even to the point of excluding evidence of historical warm temperatures since these do not fit the narrative.

What is the motive to prove them wrong at all costs? With apologies to the right-wing climate blogosphere, it isn’t to further the diabolical plots of George Soros and Al Gore to implement a socialist One World Government. The motive is a well-founded alarm at the state of the planet. The alarmist camp is channeling into warming an authentic alarm at the anthropogenic deterioration of the biosphere. Basically, both sides have agreed to equate catastrophe with runaway global warming and to debate about that as a proxy for the larger issue of planetary health. In so doing, I fear the environmentalists have ceded sacred ground and agreed to stage the fight on difficult terrain. They have substituted a hard sell for an easy sell. They have substituted a fear narrative (the costs of climate change) for a love narrative (save the whales). They have preconditioned care for the earth on the acceptance of a politically charged theory that requires trust in the institution of science along with the systems of authority that embed it. This, at a time when overall trust in authority is on the wane – and for good reason.

As for the skeptics, I am afraid that the “denialist” slur is in many cases accurate. Whether or not there are valid criticisms to be made of establishment climate science, the skeptical position typically is part of a larger political identity that, in order to maintain its coherency, must dismiss every environmental problem along with global warming. Hewing to a position that everything is fine, climate skeptic blogs usually insist that plastic waste, radioactive waste, chemical pollutants, biodiversity loss, greenhouse gases, GMOs, pesticides, etc. are not a problem; therefore, nothing needs to change. Resistance to change is at the core of psychological denial. On some level, the woman knows she has cancer, but to admit that would require that she quit smoking. The man knows that his marriage is falling apart, but to admit that would require he stop working all the time. And to quit requires a further investigation into what drives these addictions.

So also with our civilization: on some level, we know that the way we are living – more, the way we are being – is destroying our health and our marriage (to the rest of life). We sense a growing unhappiness underneath our collective addiction to consumption and growth. And, we know that we stand on the brink of an initiation into an entirely different kind of civilization. A profound change is upon us, and, fearful of that change, we deny that anything is the matter. The climate skeptics are only the most obvious deniers, but perversely, the global warming mainstream perpetuates a kind of denial too, by upholding a vision of sustainability attainable merely by switching energy sources. The common oxymoron of “sustainable growth” exemplifies this delusion, as growth in our time entails the conversion of nature into resource, into product, into money. Instead, we can embrace the full metamorphosis of civilization and enter a world where development no longer means growth, where the abstract no longer precedes the real, and where the measurable no longer subjugates the qualitative.

One aspect of this shift is the recovery of non-quantitative ways of knowing, those beyond what we call scientific, data-driven, or metric-driven. Let me come out of the closet here: I do not trust climate science, nor the institution of science generally. Generally, I trust the sincerity and intelligence of individual scientists, but as an institution science is subject to a kind of collective confirmation bias mediated by its institutions of publication, grants, academic promotion, and so on. My distrust is also partly personal: I’ve had many experiences that science says are impossible nonsense. I have researched and benefited from healing modalities that science says are quackery. I have lived in cultures where scientifically unacceptable phenomena were commonplace. I have seen scientific consensus fail (for example in the lipid hypothesis of arteriosclerosis). And I see how deeply embedded science is in an obsolescent civilizational world-story. This is not to say that I know the standard narrative of global warming is wrong. I don’t know that at all. It is just that I don’t know it is right either. That is why I have turned my attention to what I DO know, starting with the knowledge that comes through my own bare feet.

The Living and the Local

Perversely, the dominant global warming narrative facilitates denialism by shifting alarm onto a defeasible scientific theory whose ultimate proof can only come when it is too late. With effects that are distant in space and time, and causally distant as well, it is much easier to deny climate change than it is to deny, say, that whale hunting kills whales, that deforestation dries up the land, that plastic is killing marine life, and so forth. By the same token, the effects of place-based ecological healing are easier to see than the climate effects of photovoltaic panels or wind turbines. The causal distance is shorter, and the effects more tangible. For example, where farmers practice soil regeneration, the water table begins to rise, springs that were dry for decades come back to life, streams begin flowing year round again, and songbirds and wildlife return to the area. This is visible without needing to trust distant scientific institutions.

The regenerated soil also happens to store a lot of carbon. Carbon is the atomic basis of life – the very word organic means soil-containing. We may come to understand atmospheric CO2 levels as a kind of ecological barometer that tells us how successful we have been in restoring life to Earth.

Soil regeneration typifies the intrinsically local, placed-based application of the Living Planet paradigm. In contrast, because numbers and metrics are generic – a ton of carbon here is the same as a ton of carbon there – conceiving the ecological crisis in the quantitative terms of CO2 levels encourages globalized, standardized solutions, which are evaluated in terms of their measurable carbon impact. One result has been widespread planting of ecologically and culturally inappropriate trees, which sometimes end up creating disastrous knock-on effects. The carbon stored in their biomass is measured, but not the carbon lost when they use up available groundwater and die thirty years later, leaving the soil barren and vulnerable. Nor do we measure the diffuse ecosystem effects that ensue, nor the pest management costs, nor the disruption of traditional livelihoods that drives urbanization. Such are the perils of metrics-based decision-making: we ignore what we choose not to measure, what is hard to measure, and what is immeasurable.

When we see the places and ecologies of this planet as living beings and not ensembles of data, we realized the necessity of intimate place-based knowledge. Quantitative science can be part of developing this knowledge, but it cannot substitute for the close, qualitative observation of farmers and other local people who interact with the land every day and through generations.

The depth and subtlety of the knowledge of hunter-gatherers and traditional peasants are hard for the scientific mind to fathom. This knowledge, coded into cultural stories, rituals, and customs, integrates its practitioners into the organs of land and sea so that they can participate in the resiliency of life on Earth.

Ritual and Relationship

One of the puzzles of climate science is the persistence of the Holocene Optimum – ten thousand years of anomalously stable climate that has allowed civilization to flourish. Science, as far as I can tell, attributes this basically to good luck. I have encountered among indigenous people a completely different explanation: that the rituals performed by cultures who were in a good relationship with the spirits of the earth maintained conditions conducive to human well-being. Indigenous cultures were in constant communication with other-than-human beings, supplicating or negotiating for ample and timely rains, mild winters, and so forth. But they weren’t merely praying for good weather, they also saw themselves as upholding the long-term relationships with natural powers that were necessary to maintain a world fit for human habitation. Some Dogon I once encountered told me that climate change is the result of removing sacred ritual artifacts from Africa and other places and transporting them to museums in Europe and North America. Dislocated and ritually neglected, they can no longer exercise their geospiritual function. The Kogi say something similar: not only must sacred sites on Earth be protected or the planet will die, but also we must maintain the proper ceremonial relationship to those places.

The modern mind tends to reduce such practices to helplessly superstitious prayers for rain. Our theory of causality has little room to recognize the efficacy of ceremony and ritual to maintain local or global climate equilibrium. I for one am prone to accept indigenous beliefs and practices at face value because I believe that the modern understanding of physical, force-based cause and effect has blinded us to other, mysterious layers of causality. But if you prefer to hold on to modern causality, modern ecology, and modern climate science, you might still validate the rituals of place-based cultures as inseparable from an entire way of life, which in mundane, practical ways included care for water, earth, and life. What motivates this care? It is respect for all beings and systems as sacred living beings. In that mindset, of course, one seeks to communicate with them.

The upshot is not that we should imitate indigenous rituals, but to learn the worldview behind them – the worldview that located them within a living, intelligent, sacred world. Then we will be able to translate that understanding into our own systems of ritual (the ones we call technology, money, and law).

To a primal part of my psyche, it seems obvious that human affairs affect the climate through vectors of symbol and metaphor. This intuition is not so far from the medieval view that social iniquity brought down God’s wrath in the form of natural disasters. As I write this the rain pours down on the farm; having filled all the culverts and basins, it is now breaching the swales, wreaking destruction, carrying off topsoil. Fourteen inches already and still it pours. Meanwhile, the American Southwest suffers record heat and extreme drought. The inequitable distribution of rainfall mirrors the unequal distribution of wealth in our society. So much here that one knows not what to do with it; so little there that life itself becomes impossible. Our culture too has its rituals: we manipulate the symbols we call money and data in the magico-religious belief that physical reality will change thereby. And it does – our rituals are powerful. Yet they bear a hidden price. As other cultures understood, to invoke magic for selfish ends inevitably brings disaster. Sooner or later, a deranged Earth climate will follow derangement in the social climate, political climate, and psychic climate. I may be projecting meaning onto noise, but 2018, a year of extreme polarization in human affairs, has also been a year of extreme polarization of temperature: heat in some places and seasons, cold in others.

What is a human being for?

The Living Planet view, by which I mean the conscious ensouled planet view, acknowledges an intimate link between human and ecological affairs. I often hear people say, “Climate change is not a threat to Earth. The planet will be fine. It is only human beings that might go extinct.” If we understand humanity, however, as the beloved creation of Gaia, born for an evolutionary purpose, then we could no more say she will be fine without humans as we could say a mother will be fine if she loses her child. I’m sorry, but she will not be fine.

The aforementioned idea of an evolutionary purpose, while contrary to modern biological science, follows naturally from a view of the world and the cosmos as sentient, intelligent, or conscious. It opens the questions, “What are we for?” “Why are we here?” and “Why am I here?” Gaia has grown a new organ. What is it for? How might humanity cooperate with all the other organs – the forests and the waters and butterflies and the seals – in service to the dream of the world?

I do not know the answers to these questions. I only know that we must start by asking them. We must – not as a matter of survival. Whether as individuals or as a species, we live for something. We are not given life merely to survive it. What do we serve? What vision of beauty beckons us? This is the question we must ask as we pass through the initiatory portal we call climate change. In asking it, we summon a collective vision that forms the nucleus of a common story, a common agreement. I do not know what it will be, but I do not think it is the old future of flying cars, robot servants, and bubble cities overlooking a befouled and barren landscape. It is a world where the beaches are littered with seashells again, where we see whales by the thousands, where flocks of birds cover the sky, where the rivers run clean, and where life has returned to the ruined places of today.

We live for something. We may not have a grand vision of human destiny to guide us, yet still an internal compass points the way. Following it means stepping into our care. Serving it, we feel, yes, this is why I am here. Maybe your care will guide you to conventional climate marches and the like, or maybe it will guide you to heal and protect a tiny part of Earth, or maybe to address the social climate, the spiritual climate, the relational climate – the health of the new organ of Gaia we call humanity. Some of these activities have no discernible effect on carbon footprint, yet intuition tells us that all are part of the same revolution. A society that exploits the most vulnerable people will necessarily exploit the most vulnerable places too. A society devoted to healing on one level inevitably will come to serve healing on every level.

I can now be more precise about the nature of the initiation I referenced at the outset. Its driving question is, Why are we here? – a key landmark of the maturation process into adulthood. We might, therefore, understand the present convergence of crises as an initiation into collective adulthood – the graduation of modern civilization into its purpose. This is not about survival; that is why the fear narrative, the cost-benefit narrative, the existential threat narrative does not serve the cause of ecological healing. Can we replace it with the love narrative? With the beauty narrative? The empathy narrative? Can we connect with our love for this hurting living planet, and look at our hands and minds, our technology and our arts, and ask, How shall we best participate in the healing and the dreaming of Earth?

Charles Eisenstein wrote this article for charleseisenstein.net. Charles is the author of “Sacred Economics” and “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible.”

Every year we celebrate earth day to demonstrate that we care about the future of our planet.

There are a lot of things that can be done such as planting a tree, reduce litter, and much more.

But, what if, you’re too busy or lazy to go out and do these things? You’d be surprised to know that there are a number of things that you can do to play your part.

This includes anything from, switching off your electronics when they’re not in use, to saving water when you’re in the bathroom.

Become a handyman and invest in tools to do quick fixes at home instead of throwing away stuff.

Check out this guide below inspired by United Nation’s guide to saving the world.

Then-candidate Jerry Brown at a gubernatorial campaign rally in Oakland, California, on November 1, 2010. (Photo credit: Steve Rhodes/Flickr)

California Gov. Jerry Brown has been hailed as a “climate leader.” Here’s why that’s not true.

September 25, 2018 -- There is an oily sheen on California’s status as global climate leader: The state’s oil is among the dirtiest and most carbon-intensive crude in the world. Yet, Gov. Jerry Brown has approved more than 20,000 new oil wells in California during the past eight years.

Further, the state’s “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation,” or REDD plan, purports to offset the emissions from new wells with forest leases in the Global South. Instead, what we need is real action to move California away from increasing dirty oil-and-gas production and accountability to ensure that the state’s carbon-neutral goals do not result in carbon trading and seizures of Indigenous lands in Central and South America.

Governor Brown’s affair with big oil and gas is also a major environmental justice issue. A new analysis found that 77 percent of the new oil wells approved during his tenure are in low-income communities and communities of color.

In September, Governor Brown summoned the first-ever Global Climate Action Summit, to celebrate governments, companies and investors focused on climate. Unfortunately, many of California’s own grassroots leaders who know what’s best for the health of their communities and environments weren’t invited to this exclusive gathering.

Instead, the summit focused on “market-based schemes” like REDD and other cap-and-trade carbon trading systems that fail to consider the health and safety impacts of fossil-fuel extraction upon local and Indigenous communities. But to reach carbon neutrality, we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground, keep forests standing and respect Indigenous rights.

In response, counter-summits were held. “It Takes Roots,” for example, organized its own “Solidarity to Solutions Week” in which grassroots groups from across the globe came together to share solutions to climate change and address fossil-fuel impacts on Indigenous lands and poor communities where extractive industries create daily toxic threats.

On September 13, advocates blocked the entrance to Governor Brown’s Climate and Forest Task Force meeting and risked arrest as they demanded entry. Calling out the false solutions like REDD that the task force continues to push, local and international Indigenous leaders delivered an open letter to Governor Brown and members of the task force.

The letter states:
You cannot commodify the sacred—we reject these market based climate change solutions and projects like the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program (REDD+), because they are false solutions that further destroy our rights, our ability to use our forests, and our sovereignty and self-determination. The Governors Climate and Forests Task Force does not represent us and has no authority over our peoples and territories.
Carbon pricing, including carbon trading, carbon taxes and carbon offsets, are false solutions to climate change that do not keep fossil fuels in the ground. Instead, carbon pricing and REDD pretend to remedy the situation after the fact. These are fraudulent climate mitigation mechanisms that, in fact, help corporations and governments keep extracting and burning fossil fuels.

California’s own climate change bill, AB 32, which has a cap-and-trade provision, has failed to protect Black, Latino and Indigenous communities from emissions that cause asthma and cancer. A University of Southern California study found that many of the state’s worst polluters—all companies registered under AB 32’s cap-and-trade program—increased their emissions of localized toxic air pollutants despite decreases in their greenhouse gas emissions.

The California state legislature recently passed SB 100, a valiant effort to reduce the use of fossil fuels to generate the state’s electricity, but the bill fails to address fossil-fuel drilling in Californians’ backyards.

Instead, Governor Brown continues to willfully ignore the health threats faced by the thousands of local residents forced to live next to oil-and-gas operations. Every day that action is delayed, the health of communities is being harmed by the reproductive, developmental and respiratory toxins that are used in California’s oil fields.

In 2017, when faced with Indigenous protesters calling for him to “keep oil in the ground,” Governor Brown responded that protesters should themselves be put “in the ground.” One year later, the governor faces a growing chorus of environmental, public health, faith, labor and community groups that are calling on him to confront California’s oil-and-gas production.

In April, these diverse groups formalized as the “Brown’s Last Chance” campaign, demanding a halt to new oil-and-gas extraction, along with a transition plan for a full phaseout from fossil fuels. More than 800 organizations have signed on, and more than two dozen climate scientists endorsed the campaign. They warned that a phaseout of oil-and-gas production is necessary to meet the climate targets of the Paris Agreement and protect the public health of millions of Californians living near oil-and-gas wells. Other groups calling on Governor Brown to address the state’s oil-and-gas extraction include more than 100 local elected officials across California and six women Nobel laureates.

Research clearly shows that any expansion of oil production would exceed the Earth’s carbon budget of 2 degrees Celsius (many scientists and climate justice activists actually put the tipping point at closer to 1.5 degrees). Yet California continues to issue new drilling permits. In fact, under Governor Brown, California oil-and-gas permit approvals reached a 30-year peak.

What Governor Brown needs to understand is that the majority, not the minority, are calling for true climate leadership. As the world’s sixth-largest economy, California has the potential to serve as a climate model for other states and nations alike. But Brown’s Global Climate Action Summit proved to be nothing more than a trade show set to line the pockets of fossil-fuel corporations. We will not allow our futures to be traded away. With tremendous people power, led by frontline and Indigenous leadership, we took to the streets to advocate for real community-led solutions. Real climate leadership is actionable and accountable. We need action to move California away from increasing dirty oil and gas production and we need accountability that carbon neutral goals do not result in carbon trading and land grabs of forests on Indigenous lands. Fighting climate change means fighting for climate justice.

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute, and originally published by Truthout.

###
 
Martha Arguello is the executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles.

Dallas Goldtooth is the national “Keep It in the Ground” campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Firstly, in April the Central Bank of the Russian Federation dumped nearly a half of US Treasuries that it had on its balance, having reduced their stock from $96.2 billion to $48.7 billion.

In May the Central Bank continued to do this, having reduced the quantity of treasuries on its balance even more.

Certain news agencies only emphasized that Russia dropped out of the list of the largest holders of treasuries, having noted that this “is less than $30 billion”. They use students in these news agencies, and as a result such “news” appears.

Having read the full report of US Department of the Treasury, it is easy to see that the size of the Russian investments in treasuries was reduced to $14.9 billion.

I.e., more than sixfold in two months. But there still isn’t any data for June…

Secondly, some observers noticed that against this background the Central Bank of the Russian Federation continued to increase its gold reserves.

Since the Central Bank shows in its report the amount of gold in the dollar equivalent, we will have to convert it at the rate of the corresponding number.

• On April 1st 80482/1340 = 60,061 million ounces.
• On May 1st 81146/1315 = 61,707 million ounces.
• On June 1st 80511/1301 = 61,884 million ounces.

As we see, the amount of gold indeed steadily grows.

Some were stupid enough to be indignant because the Central Bank buys gold while it goes down in price. On the one hand, if it bought it at the top peak of the price, then it would be worse. On the other hand, it is possible to assume that in the near future certain events are expected that can significantly raise the price of gold.

If we work like system analysts, then we need to coordinate at least two more facts with the aforementioned.

Thirdly, the majority of Russian state corporations and a number of banks and companies with State capital switched (or are in the process of switching) to the Russian System for the transfer of financial messages of the Bank of Russia (SPFS), which actually means abandoning SWIFT.

Very recently, in June, “Gazprom Neft” also tested a transition to SPFS.

As was stated in the press release: “The use of a sole system that all Russian credit organisations are connected to instead of many local bank clients allows to considerably increase the speed, reliability, and security of carrying out financial operations and to optimise expenses”.

And fourthly, the head of “VTB” Andrey Kostin met with Putin the other day and presented to him a report on the activity of the bank. During the meeting Kostin, in particular, said two things:

“1. Since the beginning of this year, people seem to be less interested in making dollar deposits or taking out dollar loans, compared to ruble-denominated deposits and loans. We believe this to be an important step towards the de-dollarisation of the Russian finance sector.

2. VTB experts have drafted a package of proposals designed to further promote the ruble in international settlements and thus develop the Russian market for floating Eurobonds, shares and creating other derivatives that are now used only in the West. I think that we need to create our own financial tools. This would serve as an additional safeguard for the Russian financial sector against external shocks, and would give a new impetus to its development”.

As we can see, both State corporations, and State banks are actively preparing for the de-dollarisation of economy (or, if to be more exact, carrying it out with confidence) and possible problems from SWIFT, and also increase the self-sufficiency of all systems (communication, payment, and so on).

I think that if there is the desire, then it is possible to significantly add to the provided list of measures. Russia consistently and surely dumps the dollar (and, quite possibly, prepares for the “perfect storm” in the global economy that was predicted long ago), and today none of Trump’s words or actions can change these aspirations.

Because no Trump is able to stop the impending storm.

Cross posted with http://www.stalkerzone.org/aleksandr-rodgers-russia-is-preparing-for-a-perfect-storm-in-the-global-economy/
Source: http://alternatio.org/articles/articles/item/61392-rossiya-gotovitsya-k-idealnomu-shtormu-v-mirovoy-ekonomike

Here it is – my short film about North Korea. No need to drag it, to prolong it – let’s just watch it all together:

This is my 25-minutes piece about the DPRK (North Korea) – country that I visited relatively recently; visited and loved, was impressed with, and let me be frank – admired.

I don’t really know if I could call this a ‘documentary’. Perhaps not. A simple story, a poem, you know: I met a girl, tiny and delicate, at the roller-skating ring in Pyongyang. How old was she? Who knows; perhaps four or five. She was first clinging to her mom, then to a Korean professor Kiyul, even to a former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Then she began skating away, waving innocently, looking back at me, at us, or just looking back…

Suddenly I was terribly scared for her. It was almost some physical fear. Perhaps it was irrational, like panic, I don’t know…

I did not want anything bad to happen to her. I did not want the US nukes start falling all around her. I did not want her to end up like those poor Vietnamese or Iraqi or Afghan children, victims of the Western barbarism; of the chemical weapons, depleted uranium, or cluster bombs. I did not want her to starve because of some insane sanctions pushed through the UN by spiteful maniacs who simply hate “the Others”.

And so, I produced a short film, about what I saw in North Korea. A film that I made for, dedicated to, that little girl at the roller-skating ring in Pyongyang.

When I was filming, collecting footage in DPRK, the war, an attack from the West or from Japan or South Korea, looked possible, almost likely.

When, some time later, I was editing, in Beirut, with a Lebanese editor, US President Donald Trump was threatening to “take care of the North Korea”. What he meant was clear. Trump is a ‘honest man’; honest in a mafia-style way. In the film I call him ‘a manager’. He may not be an Einstein, but he usually says what he means, at each given moment. You know, again, the Yakuza-style.

Now when I am releasing this humble work of mine, things look brighter after the Singapore Summit, although I really do not trust the West, after more than 500 years of barbaric colonialist wars and crusades. The ‘manager’ is perhaps honest when he says that now he likes President Kim, but then again, tomorrow he could be ‘honest’ again, declaring that he changed him mind and wants to break his arm.

Time to hurry, I feel. Time to hurry and to show to as many people as possible, how beautiful North Korea is, and how dignified its people are.

*

I can “sell” footage or “sell rights” and make some money for my other internationalist projects, but the whole thing would get delayed, and only limited number of people would see it in such case.

By releasing it like this, the film will make nothing, zero, but I guess it is my duty to do it this way. Hopefully, the film, or ‘a poem’, will be seen by many and the pressure on the West and on Japan will grow – pressure to stop intimidation of the people who already suffered so tremendously much!

If someone wants to support my films, including my works in progress (two big documentary films I am working on right now, one about Afghanistan after almost two decades of the NATO occupation, another about almost total environmental destruction in Kalimantan/Borneo), it can be done HERE. But no pressure. Just enjoy this particular film and other films that I will be soon and gradually releasing.

*

In the meantime, North Korea is standing.

While the West is calculating, what to do next. I don’t have a good feeling about all this. I hope I am wrong. I hope this is just a beginning of the serious peace process…

But I guess I have seen too many ruins of the cities, of countries and entire continents. Most of them were bombed, reduced to rubble after various ‘peace processes’. Mostly the bombs and missiles began flying after some sound agreements were reached and signed.

I don’t want the same thing to happen to North Korea. I don’t want this girl whom I spotted at the roller-skating ring, to vanish.

What I did this time is not much, but it is something. In this dangerous situation, almost everything counts. Let’s all do “something”, even if it is just a tiny bit.Rain is made of water drops, but it can stop a big fire. This time let us try to stop the madness by tiny drops of sanity and tenderness.

*

[Originally published by New Eastern Outlook, a publication of Russian Academy of Sciences]

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

While you argue with the 17-year-old at the movie theater who gave you a small popcorn when you paid for a large, someone is being obliterated in your name. While we sleep and eat and make love and shield our eyes on a sunny day, someone’s home, family, life and body are being blown into a thousand pieces in our names.

Once every 12 minutes.

The United States military drops an explosive with a strength you can hardly comprehend once every 12 minutes. And that’s odd, because we’re technically at war with—let me think—zero countries. So that should mean zero bombs are being dropped, right?

Hell no! You’ve made the common mistake of confusing our world with some sort of rational, cogent world in which our military-industrial complex is under control, the music industry is based on merit and talent, Legos have gently rounded edges (so when you step on them barefoot, it doesn’t feel like an armor-piercing bullet just shot straight up your sphincter), and humans are dealing with climate change like adults rather than burying our heads in the sand while trying to convince ourselves that the sand around our heads isn’t getting really, really hot.

Speaking before the graduates of Russian military academies, Putin said the new weapons represent a quantum leap in the nation's military capability.

"A number of our weapons systems are years, and, perhaps, decades ahead of foreign analogues," Putin told young military officers who gathered in an ornate Kremlin hall. "Modern weapons contribute to a multifold increase in the Russian military potential."

The tough statement comes as Putin is preparing for a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump set for July 16 in Helsinki, Finland. Russia-U.S. relations have plunged to post-Cold War lows over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria, the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and differences over nuclear arms control issues.

"We have achieved a real breakthrough thanks to the colossal efforts by science and design bureaus and industries, a real feat by workers, engineers and scientists," Putin told the officers.

The Russian leader singled out the new Avangard hypersonic vehicle and the new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, which are set to enter service in the next few years. Putin also mentioned the Kinzhal hypersonic missile that has already been put on duty with the units of Russia's Southern Military District.

Those systems were among an array of new nuclear weapons the Russian leader presented in March amid tensions with the West.

Putin said then that the Avangard has an intercontinental range and can fly in the atmosphere at a speed 20 times the speed of sound. The Russian leader added that the weapon can change both its course and its altitude en route to a target, making it "absolutely invulnerable to any air or missile defense means."

He said Avangard has been designed using new composite materials to withstand temperatures of up to 2,000 Celsius (3,632 Fahrenheit) resulting from a flight through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.

The Sarmat is intended to replace the Soviet-designed Voyevoda, the world's heaviest ICBM, which is known as "Satan" in the West and which carries 10 nuclear warheads.

Putin said in March that Sarmat weighs 200 metric tons (220 tons) and has a higher range than Satan, allowing it to fly over the North or the South Poles and strike targets anywhere in the world. He noted that Sarmat also carries a bigger number of nuclear warheads, which are more powerful than the ones on Satan.

This article was written by Vladimir Isachenkov from The Associated Press

It is hard to see how other countries have been robbing the American piggy bank and taking its savings. In fact, the U.S. takes in savings from other nations: it must borrow to make payments on what it owes abroad.

At the beginning of 2018, the U.S. owed the rest of the world about $7.7 trillion. This is the difference between U.S. investments abroad of $ 27.8 trillion and U.S. assets held by non-nationals of $35.5 trillion.

U.S. borrowing to cover current debt payments is only a sidebar to the main story. The rest of the world routinely holds U.S. dollars and owns debt securities denominated in U.S. dollars. By accepting the U.S. dollar as world money, the rest of the world is lending to the U.S.

This lending has given the U.S. the ability to spend abroad without having to worry about earning foreign currency to pay for its overseas investments and consumption.

This "exorbitant privilege" was acquired by the U.S. because its currency has been the main "reserve currency" since prior to the end of the Second World War.

In 1944 the U.S. invited 43 allied nations to meet in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The conference gave birth to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, both headquartered in Washington, D.C.

The 730 assembled delegates were anxious to prevent the kind of "beggar thy neighbour" policies the U.S. and others had pursued that culminated in the disastrous 1930s Great Depression (similar to policies that Donald Trump has initiated 74 years later).

The U.K. championed its own plan -- designed and named after its author, John Maynard Keynes -- for a monetary clearings union run by central banks.

It would have made surplus nations automatically re-cycle funds to deficit nations, forcing the strong creditor nations to assist weak debtor nations, and discourage them from trying to run deflationary economic surpluses with the rest of the world.

Instead, the U.S. delegation prevailed, and when the Bretton Woods meetings adjourned, private commercial banks remained at the centre of world trade.

Wall Street bankers dominated profit-making foreign exchange markets and were anxious their foreign currency desks continue to be agents for international finance, which is why U.S. delegates made sure the Keynes plan was scrapped.

As world trade and finance gradually recovered after the 1939-45 war, countries needed to buy or borrow U.S. dollars from banks in order to expand trade with each other.

World commercial expansion became dependent on payments made in the U.S. dollar, a currency that all nations -- except the U.S. -- had to earn through export surpluses, or go into debt.

From Bretton Woods until this day, nations, corporations, and even individuals have been induced to build up reserves of U.S. dollars.

Across the world, prices for traded goods like oil or gold or wheat continue to be mostly set in U.S. dollars, international payments are denominated in U.S. dollars, and wealth is held in U.S. dollar assets.

The U.S. dollar is the main reserve held by central banks, banks make U.S. dollar international loans and register U.S. dollar deposits, and international bonds are issued in U.S. dollars.

China alone holds over $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury bills, which did not stop the Americans from announcing $50 billion in new tariff protection against Chinese imports.

The Chinese have created the Asian Infrastructure Bank as an alternative source of lending to the U.S.-dominated IMF and World Bank, and as an outlet for placing their own U.S. dollar reserves.

The Chinese and the Russians have expressed interest in developing a super reserve currency to replace the U.S. dollar.

The IMF did create such a currency: the poorly named Special Drawing Rights (SDR) in 1969. But, it remains a small supplement to official central bank reserves. About 20 billion in SDRs were held by central banks until an additional 180 billion SDRs were allocated in 2009 following the global financial crisis.

Unhappiness with the use of the U.S. dollar as the world currency is felt by many nations. Since it gives the U.S. ability to borrow from the rest of the world to finance its economic expansion abroad and at home, American authorities are not looking to change a system that works to their advantage.

The U.S. has a low savings rate, about 1.5 per cent of GDP currently, and it imports the savings of other countries.

The U.S. has been a net borrower from the rest of the world since the mid-1980s. You might say the U.S. has been using the rest of the world as a piggy bank ever since.

Duncan Cameron is president emeritus of rabble.ca and writes a weekly column on politics and current affairs.