Global Civilization vision to saving the world.

There is no counter-offer from the West.

Which is why the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, starting this Sunday in Beijing, is being set up as a game-changer for the global economy. Here the initiative looks likely to switch to Mark II mode, accelerating into what President Xi Jinping dubbed, at Davos in January, “inclusive globalization.”

The big ideas behind this grand Chinese plan, however, are still getting lost in translation. At first this trans-Asian trade expressway was billed as One Belt, One Road (OBOR), a literal translation from the Chinese yi dai yi lu. Now it’s the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but that still does not really fly in the West, even when China has tried adding a piece of soft power spin, as in its attempts to sell the Belt and Road to English-speaking children:

I have been covering the New Silk Roads since they were first announced in 2013. The idea started at the Commerce Ministry and then developed as a natural extension of the Go West campaign – focused on developing western Xinjiang Province – launched in 1999. The Commerce Ministry now insists OBOR/BRI is a global plan and not just tied to the Xi Jinping presidency.

The summit will attempt to portray how its ambitious trade concept has become a multilateral “win-win” shared vision that connects all of Eurasia. Or, to put it more simply, Globalization Mark II.

It’s enlightening to examine the pronouncements made by some of China’s top analysts. Wang Huiyao, president of the independent Center for China and Globalization, says this is the “the new engine of globalization.”

Shen Digli, from the Institute of International Studies at Shanghai’s
Fudan University, stresses an “an inter-connectivity initiative on a global scale.”

Wang Yiwei, from the Center of European Studies at Renmin University, is convinced this could be as important as the creation of the European Union.

And Shin Yinhong, from the Center of American Studies at Renmin University, points out, crucially, that OBOR/BRI would not work if it were merely a geopolitical gamble.

Geopolitics as geo-economics

As much as this will act as a boost to economies from Bangladesh to Egypt and Myanmar to Tajikistan, it is also a far-reaching economic/free trade/investment plan that will open up markets for Chinese technology and merchandise. And with this comes priceless geopolitical reach for China.

In parallel to this connectivity extravaganza, arguably spanning 65 nations, 60% of the world’s population and a third of global economic output, China will accumulate extra capital from Central Asia to the Middle East. It will also polish its status as leader of the developing world, allowing it to once again try and reignite the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

Representatives from more than a hundred nations will converge in Beijing and most of them are from NAM. Of course we will have Vladimir Putin, representing the Russia-China strategic partnership (BRICS, SCO) that spans everything from energy to infrastructure projects (including the future Trans-Siberian high-speed rail). But, crucially, we will also have Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leaders of two key hubs of OBOR/BRI.

Most of the West still needs a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing. And a lot of Western media revel in dismissing OBOR/BRI as a conspiracy, a “scheme”, or a Chinese attempt to “encircle” Eurasia. Only one G7 leader will be in Beijing; Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who is very keen to investigate symbiotic links between Italy’s Industry 4.0 program and China’s Made in China 2025 manufacturing initiative.

Angela Merkel might have turned down her invitation but it doesn’t really matter as German industrialists are all for OBOR/BRI.

And the Trump administration is starting to wake up to the action following Trump-Xi at Mar-A-Lago. The US delegation will be led by Matt Pottinger, Special Assistant to the President and senior director for East Asia at the National Security Council.

And India? The US$62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), one of the highlights of OBOR/BRI, and enthusiastically lauded by Pakistani officials, runs partly through Kashmir. Diplomacy, not trade, would better advance Indian interests. But the reality is the Narendra Modi administration – which has accused China of trying to “undermine the sovereignty of other nations” – is obsessed that the real Chinese agenda is to strategically control the Indian Ocean. So no India in Beijing.

Have yuan, will travel

The New Silk Road comes with a crossfire of numbers. No one knows for sure the true value of projects already signed along the overland belt and across the Maritime Silk Road, but numbers are said to already be as high as US$300 billion. Most of these projects will be developed well into the next decade.

Ratings agency Fitch quotes US$900 billion in projects planned or already happening. Speculation is rife that OBOR/BRI may need as much as US$5 trillion up to 2022. According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asia will need a mind-boggling US$26 trillion for infrastructure projects up to 2030.

The Silk Road Fund, set up at the end of 2014, for the moment relies on just US$40 billion – a mix of foreign exchange reserves and input from the China Development Bank and Export-Import Bank of China. It has invested US$6 billion in 15 projects so far, plus US$2 billion to fund projects in Kazakhstan.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), with 70 member-nations, went online in January 2016 with capital of US$100 billion, but disbursed less than US$2 billion last year.

The New Development Bank (NDB), the BRICS bank, is bound to step up soon, after it got a AAA rating from Chinese credit agencies.

China has belonged to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) since 2015; that’s the European financing leg for OBOR/BRI. It’s also linked to a fund in Luxembourg and another one in Riga, Latvia.

So the key issue for OBOR/BRI remains how to come up with low-cost funding in global capital markets. That will be a top discussion topic at the summit. Zhou Xiaochun, governor of the People’s Bank of China, has already laid down the law; “governments” – including the Chinese government – simply cannot pay for all that’s needed for OBOR/BRI.

So everyone will have to rush to capital markets; set up their own OBOR/BRI-related financial mechanisms; and, crucially, do business in local currencies. That is shorthand for using, most of all, China’s currency. So if you are hitting the New Silk Roads, don’t forget your yuan.

This article was first published by Asia Times

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.

Enveloped in layers of subtle sophistication, there's no way to know the deeper terms Beijing and Moscow have agreed upon behind those innumerable Putin-Xi Jinping high-level meetings.

Diplomats, off the record, occasionally let it slip there may have been a coded message delivered to NATO to the effect that if one of the strategic members is seriously harassed — be it in Ukraine or in the South China Sea – NATO will have to deal with both.

For now, let's concentrate on two instances of how the partnership works in practice, and why Washington is clueless on how to deal with it.

Exhibit A is the imminent visit to Moscow by the Director of the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Li Zhanshu, invited by the head of the Presidential Administration in the Kremlin, Anton Vaino. Beijing stressed the talks will revolve around – what else — the Russia-China strategic partnership, "as previously agreed on by the countries' leaders."

This happens just after China's First Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli, one of the top seven in the Politburo and one of the drivers of China's economic policies, was received in Moscow by President Putin. They discussed Chinese investments in Russia and the key energy angle of the partnership.

But most of all they prepared Putin's next visit to Beijing, which will be particularly momentous, in the cadre of the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) summit on May 14-15, steered by Xi Jinping.

The General Office of the CCP – directly subordinated to Xi — only holds this kind of ultra-high-level annual consultations with Moscow, and no other player. Needless to add, Li Zhanshu reports directly to Xi as much as Vaino reports directly to Putin. That is as highly strategic as it gets.

That also happens to tie directly to one of the latest episodes featuring The Hollow (Trump) Men, in this case Trump's bumbling/bombastic National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. HR McMaster.

In a nutshell, McMaster's spin, jolly regurgitated by US corporate media, is that Trump has developed such a "special chemistry" with Xi after their Tomahawks-with-chocolate cake summit in Mar-a-Lago that Trump has managed to split the Russia-China entente on Syria and isolate Russia in the UN Security Council.

It would have taken only a few minutes for McMaster to read the BRICS joint communiqué on Syria for him to learn that the BRICS are behind Russia.

No wonder a vastly experienced Indian geopolitical observer felt compelled to note that, "Trump and McMaster look somewhat like two country bumpkins who lost their way in the metropolis."

Follow the money

Exhibit B centers on Russia and China quietly advancing their agreement to progressively replace the US dollar's reserve status with a gold-backed system.

That also involves the key participation of Kazakhstan – very much interested in using gold as currency along OBOR. Kazakhstan could not be more strategically positioned; a key hub of OBOR; a key member of the Eurasia Economic Union (EEU); member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO); and not by accident the smelter of most of Russia's gold.

In parallel, Russia and China are advancing their own payment systems. With the yuan now enjoying the status of a global currency, China has been swiftly promoting their payment system, CIPS, careful not to frontally antagonize the internationally accepted SWIFT, controlled by the US.

Russia, on the other hand, has stressed the creation of "an alternative," in the words of Russian Central Bank's Elvira Nabiullina, in the form of the Mir payment system — a Russian version of Visa/ MasterCard. What's implied is that were Washington feel inclined to somehow exclude Russia from SWIFT, even temporarily, at least 90 percent of ATMs in Russia would be able to operate on Mir.

China's UnionPay cards are already an established fixture all across Asia – enthusiastically adopted by HSBC, among others. Combine "alternative" payment systems with a developing gold-backed system – and "toxic" does not even begin to spell out the reaction of the US Federal Reserve.

And it's not just about Russia and China; it's about the BRICS.

What First Deputy Governor of Russia's Central Bank Sergey Shvetsov has outlined is just the beginning: "BRICS countries are large economies with large reserves of gold and an impressive volume of production and consumption of this precious metal. In China, the gold trade is conducted in Shanghai, in Russia it is in Moscow. Our idea is to create a link between the two cities in order to increase trade between the two markets."

Russia and China already have established systems to do global trade bypassing the US dollar. What Washington did to Iran — cutting their banks off SWIFT – is now unthinkable against Russia and China.

So we're already on our way, slowly but surely, towards a BRICS "gold marketplace." A "new financial architecture" is being built. That will imply the eventual inability of the US Fed to export inflation to other nations – especially those included in BRICS, EEU and SCO.

The Hollow Men

Trump's Generals, led by "Mad Dog" Mattis, may spin all they want about their need to dominate the planet with their sophisticated AirSeaLandSpaceCyber commands. Yet that may be not enough to counter the myriad ways the Russia-China strategic partnership is developing.

So more on than off, we will have Hollow Men like Vice-President Mike Pence, with empurpled solemnity, threatening North Korea; “The shield stands guard and the sword stands ready.” Forget this does not even qualify as a lousy line in a cheap remake of a Hollywood B-movie; what we have here is Aspiring Commander-in-Chief Pence warning Russia and China there may be some nuclear nitty-gritty very close to their borders between the US and North Korea.

Not gonna happen. So here's to the great T. S. Eliot, who saw it all decades in advance: "We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men/ Leaning together
 / Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! / Our dried voices, when
 / We whisper together 
/ Are quiet and meaningless
 / As wind in dry grass / 
Or rats' feet over broken glass / 
In our dry cellar."

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.

Notably, the landmark publication of the files last month was given scant Western media coverage. Surprisingly, perhaps, because the story that can be gleaned from the documents tells of a hidden history of the Second World War, namely the systematic collusion between the American and British governments and the Nazi Third Reich.

As a report in Deutsche Welle remarked on the released archives: «The files make clear that [Western] Allied forces knew more about the Nazi concentration camp system before the end of the war than has generally been thought».

This revelation points to more than just «knowledge» among the Western allies of Nazi-era crimes; it points more damningly to state collusion. This would also explain why Washington and London have been reluctant to make the UN war crimes files publicly available.

There has long been a controversial debate among Western nations about why the US and Britain in particular did not do more to bomb the Nazi infrastructure of death camps and railroads. Washington and London have often made the claim that they did know the full extent of the horror being perpetrated by the Nazis until the very end of the war when extermination centers such as at Auschwitz and Treblinka were liberated – by the Soviet Red Army, it should be noted too.

However, what the latest release of UN Holocaust files shows is that Washington and London were indeed well aware of the Nazi Final Solution in which millions of European Jews and Slavic people were being systematically worked to death or exterminated in gas chambers. So the question again is: why did the US and Britain not direct more of their aerial bombing campaign to destroy the Nazi infrastructure?

One possible answer is that these Western allies had a callous disregard for the Nazi victims. Washington and London establishments were themselves accused of harboring antisemitic prejudices, as can be seen from the scandals when both these governments spurned thousands of European Jewish refugees during the Second World War, in effect sending many of them to their deaths under the Nazi regime.

Not excluding the above factor of Western racist insouciance, there is a second more disturbing factor. That the Western governments, or at least powerful sections, were loath to hamper the Nazi war effort against the Soviet Union. Notwithstanding that the Soviet Union was a nominal «ally» of the West for the defeat of Nazi Germany.

This perspective harks to a radically different conception of the Second World War in contrast to that narrated in official Western versions. In this alternative historical account, the rise of the Nazi Third Reich was deliberately fomented by American and British rulers as a bulwark in Europe against the spread of communism. Adolf Hitler’s rabid anti-Semitism was matched only by his detest of Marxism and the Slavic people of the Soviet Union. In the Nazi ideology, they were all «Untermenschen» (subhumans) to be exterminated in a «Final Solution».

So, when Nazi Germany was attacking the Soviet Union and carrying out its Final Solution from June 1941 until late 1944, little wonder then that the US and Britain showed a curious reluctance to commit their military forces fully to open up a Western Front. The Western allies were evidently content to see the Nazi war machine doing what it was originally intended to do: to destroy the primary enemy to Western capitalism as represented by the Soviet Union. This is not to say that all American and British political leaders shared or were even aware of this tacit strategic vision. Leaders like President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill appeared to be genuinely committed to defeating Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, their individual views must be set against a background of systematic collusion between powerful Western corporate interests and Nazi Germany.

As American author David Talbot documented in his book, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA and the Rise of America’s Secret Government (2015), there were massive financial links between Wall Street and the Third Reich, going back several years before the outbreak of the Second World War.

Allen Dulles, who worked for the Wall Street law firm Sullivan and Cromwell and who later headed up the American Central Intelligence Agency, was a key player in the linkage between US capital and German industry. American industrial giants, such as Ford, GM, ITT and Du Pont were invested heavily in German industrial counterparts like IG Farben (manufacturer of Zyklon B, the poisonous gas used in the Holocaust), Krupp Steel and Daimler. American capital, as well as British, was thus integrated into the Nazi war machine and the latter’s dependence on the system of slave labor as provided by the Final Solution.

This would explain why the Western allies did so little to disrupt the Nazi infrastructure with their undoubted formidable aerial bombing capacity. Far more damning than mere inertia or indifference owing to racist prejudice towards the Nazi victims, what emerges is that the Americans and British capitalist elite were invested in the Third Reich. Mainly for the purpose of eliminating the Soviet Union and any kind of genuinely socialist global movement. Bombing Nazi infrastructure would have been tantamount to deleting Western assets.

To this end, as the war was drawing to a close and the Soviet Union looked poised to roll up the Third Reich singlehandedly, the Americans and British belatedly stepped up their war efforts from western and southern Europe. The goal was one of salvaging Western assets remaining in the Nazi regime. Allen Dulles, the director of the-soon-to-be-formed American Central Intelligence Agency, extricated top Nazis and their gold looted from Europe in secret surrender deals known as Operation Sunrise. Britain’s military intelligence MI6 was also involved in the clandestine American effort to salvage Nazi assets via ratlines. The bad faith on display to the Soviet «allies» heralded the chill of the ensuing Cold War that immediately followed the Second World War.

Significant and damning testimony of what was going down was given recently in a BBC interview by Ben Ferencz, the most senior surviving US prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials. At age 98, Ferencz was still able to lucidly recall how scores of Nazi war criminals were let off the hook by the American and British authorities. Ferencz cited US General George Patton who remarked just before the final surrender of the Third Reich in early May 1945, as saying: «We’re fighting the wrong enemy». Patton’s candid expression of deeper animosity towards the Soviet Union than towards Nazi Germany was consistent with how the US and British ruling class had been colluding with Hitler’s Third Reich in a geo-strategic war against the Soviet Union and worker-led socialist movements arising across Europe and America.

In other words, the Cold War which the US and Britain embarked on after 1945 was but a continuation of hostile policy towards Moscow that was already underway well before the Second World War erupted in 1939 in the form of a build up of Nazi Germany. For various reasons, it became expedient for the Western powers to liquidate the Nazi war machine, along with the Soviet Union. But as can be seen, the Western assets residing in the Nazi machine were recycled into American and British Cold War posture against the Soviet Union. It is a truly damning legacy that American and British military intelligence agencies were consolidated and financed by Nazi crimes.

The recent release of UN Holocaust files – in spite of American and British prevarication over many years – add more evidence to the historical analysis that these Western powers were deeply complicit in the monumental crimes of the Nazi Third Reich. They knew about these crimes because they had helped facilitate them. And the complicity stemmed from Western hostility towards Russia as a perceived geopolitical rival.

This is not a mere historical academic exercise. Western complicity with Nazi Germany also finds a corollary in the present-day ongoing hostility from Washington, Britain and their NATO allies towards Moscow. The relentless build up of NATO offensive forces around Russia’s borders, the endless Russophobia in Western propagandistic news media, the economic blockade in the form of sanctions based on tenuous claims, are all deeply rooted in history.

The West’s Cold War towards Moscow preceded the Second World War, continued after the defeat of Nazi Germany and persists to this day regardless of the fact that the Soviet Union no longer exists. Why? Because Russia is a perceived rival to Anglo-American capitalist hegemony, as is China or any other emerging power that undermines that desired unipolar hegemony.

American-British collusion with Nazi Germany finds its modern-day manifestation in NATO collusion with the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine and jihadist terror groups dispatched in proxy wars against Russian interests in Syria and elsewhere. The players may change over time, but the root pathology is American-British capitalism and its hegemonic addiction.

The never-ending Cold War will only end when Anglo-American capitalism is finally defeated and replaced by a genuinely more democratic system.

This article was first published by SCF -

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.

“The problem is that the world has listened to Americans for far too bloody long.”  — Dr. Julian Osborne, from the 2000 film version of Nevil Shute’s 1957 book, On the Beach 

On hard substrata, frequently observed epilithic organisms include corals, actiniarians, hydroids, sponges, ascidians and crinoids – from 2011 seamounts expedition in the SW Indian O_C_IUCN [fwdslash] NERCFor the common man, mountains are a large landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area, usually in the form of a peak. In geography we were taught that a mountain is generally steeper than a hill. And that mountains are formed with movement between tectonic plates or volcanoes erupting. So it is amazing to know that their are mountains under the sea as well and that marine scientists today with the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature ) are undertaking their third expedition to explore these seamounts. This scientific expedition is to explore life on undersea mountains – or seamounts – in the high seas south of Madagascar

So why is an expedition like this needed at all one might ask? This expedition is a key stage of a project, aimed at the conservation and sustainable use of seamount ecosystems in the South West Indian Ocean, led by the IUCN. It is a three-week-long expedition aboard the French Polar Institute’s research vessel Marion Dufresne which will explore the fauna of the Walters Shoal seamount.

The IUCN explains that while past expeditions concentrated solely on collating information on species inhabiting the seabed and the water, this one will gather extensive data on everything from plankton to seabirds and marine mammals to better understand how the seamount is linked to surrounding ecosystems. The summit area of Walters shoal is very shallow; and this will enable scientists to dive on the seamount, observe and collect species by hand rather than relying on robots as they did during previous expeditions. The expedition is to set out from Le Port, Reunion Island on April 23rd. Planned arrival date in Durban, South Africa is May 18th, after three and a half weeks at sea. Scientists will spend around 19 days exploring the seamount.

The expedition will be undertaken in the Walters Shoal, which is a group of submerged mountains in the Western Indian Ocean, on the Madagascar Ridge, 450 nautical miles south of Madagascar, & 700 nautical miles east of South Africa. The summits rise to at least 500m below the water surface and extend over an area of 400km. The maximum summit height is 4,750m – around 60m short of the Mont Blanc. The expedition will set out from Le Port, Reunion Island, and end in Durban, South Africa.

To answer the question as to why such an expedition needs to be undertaken, this is what François Simard, Deputy Director of IUCN’s Marine Programme says – “ Seamounts are islands of marine life with an important role in maintaining the health of the ocean. They contribute to food security by supporting fish stocks, and the unique species they harbour could provide genetic material for the development of future medicines. Yet they face increasing threats from unsustainable fishing and deep sea mining, and remain largely unexplored. We urgently need more research into these hotspots of marine biodiversity or we risk losing species that we didn’t even know existed.”

Seamounts are home to many endemic, slow-growing, slow-reproducing species, and are highly vulnerable to intense fishing practices such as bottom trawling; both commercial and recreational fishing take place on Walters Shoal, including illegal fishing.

Seamounts have the potential to contribute to the development of new medicines through the use of marine genetic resources from the many unique species they support.

Seamounts play an important and only partially understood role in marine ecosystems well beyond the seamounts themselves; damage to seamounts could have widespread effects on ocean health and fisheries.

Fewer than 300 out of the world’s 200,000 seamounts have been explored so far.

Scientists will explore the fauna of the seamount and its role in the surrounding ecosystem.

They will also investigate the effects of unsustainable fishing practices and exploration for future deep sea mining on the seamount ecosystem.Walters Shoal has particularly shallow summits – some only 18 metres below the ocean surface – while the summits of seamounts are usually 1000-2000m below the surface; this will enable scientists to dive on the seamount rather than relying on subsea robots as during previous expeditions, allowing for hands-on data collection and better observation of marine life.

Like most seamounts, the Walters Shoal lies within areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) – marine areas covered by fragmented legal frameworks which leave their biodiversity vulnerable to growing threats. By improving our understanding of seamount ecosystems, this project aims to inform on-going discussions towards an implementing agreement to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The Project is led by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – Global Marine and Polar Programme. Scientific project partners: Muséum National de l’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) Vessel chartered by the Institut Polaire Français (IPEV) The project is financed by the Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial “Walters Shoal” Expedition The “Walters Shoal” expedition is bringing to fruition the objectives of the scientific component of the IUCN FFEM-SWIO project.
Acquiring scientific data to enhance their knowledge and understanding of high seas ecosystems is one way to help move forward and support the future negotiations for the implementation of measures towards a sustainable use of their resources and conservation of their biodiversity.

In addition to the scientific aspects, the expedition aims to raise awareness about these important issues. Thus, it will serve as a basis for the development of a scientific documentary and an educational program.

Marianne Furtado de Nazareth is the former Assistant Editor, The Deccan Herald, adjunct faculty, St. Joseph’s PG College of Media Studies & a PhD scholar at the Madurai Kamaraj University

Not since World War II have more human beings been at risk from disease and starvation than at this very moment. On March 10th, Stephen O’Brien, under secretary-general of the United Nations for humanitarian affairs, informed the Security Council that 20 million people in three African countries—Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan—as well as in Yemen were likely to die if not provided with emergency food and medical aid. “We are at a critical point in history,” he declared. “Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the U.N.”  Without coordinated international action, he added, “people will simply starve to death [or] suffer and die from disease.”

Major famines have, of course, occurred before, but never in memory on such a scale in four places simultaneously. According to O’Brien, 7.3 million people are at risk in Yemen, 5.1 million in the Lake Chad area of northeastern Nigeria, 5 million in South Sudan, and 2.9 million in Somalia. In each of these countries, some lethal combination of war, persistent drought, and political instability is causing drastic cuts in essential food and water supplies. Of those 20 million people at risk of death, an estimated 1.4 million are young children.

Despite the potential severity of the crisis, U.N. officials remain confident that many of those at risk can be saved if sufficient food and medical assistance is provided in time and the warring parties allow humanitarian aid workers to reach those in the greatest need. “We have strategic, coordinated, and prioritized plans in every country,” O’Brien said. “With sufficient and timely financial support, humanitarians can still help to prevent the worst-case scenario.”

All in all, the cost of such an intervention is not great: an estimated $4.4 billion to implement that U.N. action plan and save most of those 20 million lives.

The international response? Essentially, a giant shrug of indifference.

To have time to deliver sufficient supplies, U.N. officials indicated that the money would need to be in pocket by the end of March. It’s now April and international donors have given only a paltry $423 million—less than a tenth of what’s needed. While, for instance, President Donald Trump sought Congressional approval for a $54 billion increase in U.S. military spending (bringing total defense expenditures in the coming year to $603 billion) and launched $89 million worth of Tomahawk missiles against a single Syrian air base, the U.S. has offered precious littleto allay the coming disaster in three countries in which it has taken military actions in recent years. As if to add insult to injury, on February 15th Trump told Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari that he was inclined to sell his country 12 Super-Tucano light-strike aircraft, potentially depleting Nigeria of $600 million it desperately needs for famine relief.

Moreover,just as those U.N. officials were pleading fruitlessly for increased humanitarian funding and an end to the fierce and complex set of conflicts in South Sudan andYemen (so that they could facilitate the safe delivery of emergency food supplies to those countries), the Trump administration was announcing plans to reduce American contributions to the United Nations by 40%.  It was also preparing to send additional weaponry to Saudi Arabia, the country most responsible for devastating air strikes on Yemen’s food and water infrastructure. This goes beyond indifference.  This is complicity in mass extermination.

Like many people around the world, President Trump was horrified by images of young children suffocating from the nerve gas used by Syrian government forces in an April 4th raid on the rebel-held village of Khan Sheikhoun. “That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me—big impact,” he told reporters. “That was a horrible, horrible thing. And I’ve been watching it and seeing it, and it doesn’t get any worse than that.” In reaction to those images, he ordered a barrage of cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base the following day. But Trump does not seem to have seen—or has ignored—equally heart-rending images of young children dying from the spreading famines in Africa and Yemen. Those children evidently don’t merit White House sympathy.

Who knows why not just Donald Trump but the world is proving so indifferent to the famines of 2017?  It could simply be donor fatigue or a media focused on the daily psychodrama that is now Washington, or growing fears about the unprecedented global refugee crisis and, of course, terrorism.  It’s a question worth a piece in itself, but I want to explore another one entirely.

Here’s the question I think we all should be asking: Is this what a world battered by climate change will be like—one in which tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of people perish from disease, starvation, and heat prostration while the rest of us, living in less exposed areas, essentially do nothing to prevent their annihilation?

Famine, Drought, and Climate Change

First, though, let’s consider whether the famines of 2017 are even a valid indicator of what a climate-changed planet might look like. After all, severe famines accompanied by widespread starvation have occurred throughout human history. In addition, the brutal armed conflicts now underway in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen are at least in part responsible for the spreading famines. In all four countries, there are forces—Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in Somalia, assorted militias and the government in South Sudan, and Saudi-backed forces in Yemen—interfering with the delivery of aid supplies. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that pervasive water scarcity and prolonged drought (expected consequences of global warming) are contributing significantly to the disastrous conditions in most of them. The likelihood that droughts this severe would be occurring simultaneously in the absence of climate change is vanishingly small.

In fact, scientists generally agree that global warming will ensure diminished rainfall and ever more frequent droughts over much of Africa and the Middle East. This, in turn, will heighten conflicts of every sort and endanger basic survival in a myriad of ways. In their most recent 2014 assessment of global trends, the scientists of the prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that “agriculture in Africa will face significant challenges in adapting to climate changes projected to occur by mid-century, as negative effects of high temperatures become increasingly prominent.” Even in 2014, as that report suggested, climate change was already contributing to water scarcity and persistent drought conditions in large parts of Africa and the Middle East. Scientific studies had, for instance, revealed an “overall expansion of desert and contraction of vegetated areas” on that continent.  With arable land in retreat and water supplies falling, crop yields were already in decline in many areas, while malnutrition rates were rising—precisely the conditions witnessed in more extreme forms in the famine-affected areas today.

It’s seldom possible to attribute any specific weather-induced event, including droughts or storms, to global warming with absolute certainty.  Such things happen with or without climate change.  Nonetheless, scientists are becoming even more confident that severe storms and droughts (especially when occurring in tandem or in several parts of the world at once) are best explained as climate-change related. If, for instance, a type of storm that might normally occur only once every hundred years occurs twice in one decade and four times in the next, you can be reasonably confident that you’re in a new climate era.

It will undoubtedly take more time for scientists to determine to what extent the current famines in Africa and Yemen are mainly climate-change-induced and to what extent they are the product of political and military mayhem and disarray. But doesn’t this already offer us a sense of just what kind of world we are now entering?

The Selective Impact of Climate Change

In some popular accounts of the future depredations of climate change, there is a tendency to suggest that its effects will be felt more or less democratically around the globe—that we will all suffer to some degree, if not equally, from the bad things that happen as temperatures rise. And it’s certainly true that everyone on this planet will feel the effects of global warming in some fashion, but don’t for a second imagine that the harshest effects will be distributed anything but deeply inequitably.  It won’t even be a complicated equation.  As with so much else, those at the bottom rungs of society—the poor, the marginalized, and those in countries already at or near the edge— will suffer so much more (and so much earlier) than those at the top and in the most developed, wealthiest countries.

As a start, the geophysical dynamics of climate change dictate that, when it comes to soaring temperatures and reduced rainfall, the most severe effects are likely to be felt first and worst in the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America—home to hundreds of millions of people who depend on rain-fed agriculture to sustain themselves and their families. Research conducted by scientists in New Zealand, Switzerland, and Great Britain found that the rise in the number of extremely hot days is already more intense in tropical latitudes and disproportionately affects poor farmers.

Living at subsistence levels, such farmers and their communities are especially vulnerable to drought and desertification.  In a future in which climate-change disasters are commonplace, they will undoubtedly be forced to choose ever more frequently between the unpalatable alternatives of starvation or flight.  In other words, if you thought the global refugee crisis was bad today, just wait a few decades.

Climate change is also intensifying the dangers faced by the poor and marginalized in another way.  As interior croplands turn to dust, ever more farmers are migrating to cities, especially coastal ones.  If you want a historical analogy, think of the great Dust Bowl migration of the “Okies” from the interior of the U.S. to the California coast in the 1930s. In today’s climate-change era, the only available housing such migrants are likely to find will be in vast and expanding shantytowns (or “informal settlements,” as they’re euphemistically called), often located in floodplains and low-lying coastal areas exposed to storm surges and sea-level rise. As global warming advances, the victims of water scarcity and desertification will be afflicted anew.  Those storm surges will destroy the most exposed parts of the coastal mega-cities in which they will be clustered. In other words, for the uprooted and desperate, there will be no escaping climate change.  As the latestIPCC report noted, “Poor people living in urban informal settlements, of which there are [already] about one billion worldwide, are particularly vulnerable to weather and climate effects.”

The scientific literature on climate change indicates that the lives of the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed will be the first to be turned upside down by the effects of global warming. “The socially and economically disadvantaged and the marginalized are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change and extreme events,” the IPCC indicated in 2014. “Vulnerability is often high among indigenous peoples, women, children, the elderly, and disabled people who experience multiple deprivations that inhibit them from managing daily risks and shocks.” It should go without saying that these are also the people least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming in the first place (something no less true of the countries most of them live in).

Inaction Equals Annihilation

In this context, consider the moral consequences of inaction on climate change. Once it seemed that the process of global warming would occur slowly enough to allow societies to adapt to higher temperatures without excessive disruption, and that the entire human family would somehow make this transition more or less simultaneously. That now looks more and more like a fairy tale. Climate change is occurring far too swiftly for all human societies to adapt to it successfully.  Only the richest are likely to succeed in even the most tenuous way. Unless colossal efforts are undertaken now to halt the emission of greenhouse gases, those living inless affluent societies can expect to suffer from extremes of flooding, drought, starvation, disease, and death in potentially staggering numbers.

And you don’t need a Ph.D. in climatology to arrive at this conclusion either. The overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists agree that any increase in average world temperatures that exceeds 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial era—some opt for a rise of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius—will alter the global climate system drastically.  In such a situation, a number of societies will simply disintegrate in the fashion of South Sudan today, producing staggering chaos and misery. So far, the world has heated up by at least one of those two degrees, and unless we stop burning fossil fuels in quantity soon, the 1.5 degree level will probably be reached in the not-too-distant future.

Worse yet, on our present trajectory, it seems highly unlikely that the warming process will stop at 2 or even 3 degrees Celsius, meaning that laterin this century many of the worst-case climate-change scenarios—the inundation of coastal cities, the desertification of vast interior regions, and the collapse of rain-fed agriculture in many areas—will become everyday reality.

In other words, think of the developments in those three African lands and Yemen as previews of what far larger parts of our world could look like in another quarter-century or so: a world in which hundreds of millions of people are at risk of annihilation from disease or starvation, or are on the march or at sea, crossing borders, heading for the shantytowns of major cities, looking for refugee camps or other places where survival appears even minimally possible.  If the world’s response to the current famine catastrophe and the escalating fears of refugees in wealthy countries are any indication, people will die in vast numbers without hope of help.

In other words, failing to halt the advance of climate change—to the extent that halting it, at this point, remains within our power—means complicity with mass human annihilation. We know, or at this point should know, that such scenarios are already on the horizon.  We still retain the power, if not to stop them, then to radically ameliorate what they will look like, so our failure to do all we can means that we become complicitin what—not to mince words— is clearly going to be a process of climate genocide. How can those of us in countries responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions escape such a verdict?

And if such a conclusion is indeed inescapable, then each of us must do whatever we can to reduce our individual, community, and institutional contributions to global warming. Even if we are already doing a lot—as many of us are —more is needed.  Unfortunately, we Americans are living not only in a time of climate crisis, but in the era of President Trump, which means the federal government and its partners in the fossil fuel industry will be wielding their immense powers to obstruct all imaginable progress on limiting global warming. They will be the true perpetrators ofclimate genocide. As a result, the rest of us bear a moral responsibility not just to do what we can at the local level to slow the pace of climate change, but also to engage in political struggle to counteract or neutralize the acts of Trump and company. Only dramatic and concerted action on multiple fronts can prevent the human disasters now unfolding in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen from becoming the global norm.

Michael T. Klare is the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. His newest book, The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources, has just recently been published.  His other books include: Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy andBlood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum. A documentary version of Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation.

The Great Barrier Reef on the north-east coast of Australia which contains the world’s largest collection of coral reefs, has been the only reef which has been in the news of late  and has a UNESCO heritage label. Today with oceans heating up reefs are threatened and the world holds its breath, hoping to reverse the trend.

Interestingly, a newly discovered reef, the Amazon Reef, spread over 9500 km, at the mouth of the Amazon River is receiving focussed attention from the IUCN and marine scientists. It is important because it is like no other coral reef that we know of. While other reefs exist in clear, sunlit waters, the Amazon Reef lies in very muddy, sediment-filled waters of the Amazon, and is a product of unusual chemosynthesis. The reef lies in a uniquely bio- diverse area, and as scientists explore this area further, new exciting species of life are likely to be discovered.

The reef, which also serves as a natural carbon sink, is surrounded by the largest mangrove stretch in the world, which again is another massive natural carbon sink. Any threat to the reef will directly affect the earth’s ability to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere (carbon sequestration)

Now, oil companies have plans to drill around 15 to 20 billion barrels of oil from the surrounding area, which, once up for consumption, will further adversely affect efforts to mitigate climate change and destroy this pristine habitat.

This is where Greenpeace India has stepped in with the goal of stopping oil exploration near the mouth of the Amazon river and guarantee that the ecosystem of the region, and its vital mangrove carbon sinks, will remain intact and protected.

Ravi Chellam, Executive Director, Greenpeace India, ” I strongly believe that our interactions with Nature, our environment and fellow human beings have to be based on a robust ethical foundation.  We, both as individual human beings and collectively as the human race have no right to damage and destroy any part of nature, especially if our actions will result in extinction of species as extinction is forever!  The case of the newly discovered Amazon reef is particularly compelling for us to take global and collective responsibility for it.  This reef is quite expansive in its scale, occupying at least 9,500 sq km and very unique in its location, at the mouth of the Amazon River and in muddy waters.  Currently we have barely documented 5% of these reefs and it would be unpardonable if we allow any damage to these reefs in the name of “development”.  I find it particularly distressing that the proposed development is for oil drilling when the dangers posed by global warming and climate change are increasingly becoming part of our daily lives.  If the global community has to deliver on the pledges made as part of the Paris Agreement, any future exploration for hydrocarbons, especially in biodiversity rich sites like the Amazon Reefs should be prevented.”

The Amazon Reef is an ecosystem composed of corals, sponges and rhodoliths (calciferous algae). In the southern part of the Reef, there are mainly sponges, some of them are over 2 meters in length.In the 70’s, scientists speculated about the existence of a reef in the region, but no further research was done. Then from 2010 to 2014, scientists went on three expeditions to collect samples and study their findings. This system of corals, sponges and rhodoliths was revealed in April of 2016. Because of its characteristics and extreme conditions , this system of corals is unique. Its discovery was celebrated by specialists as one of the most important in marine biology in recent decades. According to Ronaldo Francini, one of the scientists who revealed the Reef to the world, “this is clearly a hotspot for biodiversity”.

The campaign will hasten the end of the oil age and maintaining global temperatures within 1.5C degrees and contribute to the erosion of political and economic power currently held by fossil fuel corporations globally by weakening their relationships with governments, customers and investors and undermining their social license.

The common man is being made more aware of these issues through online campaigns and what is known as ‘clicktivism’. The Amazon Reef Campaign has crossed 1 million signups globally. The fight to protect our natural treasures, functional ecosystems and a better world is gathering momentum in one more corner of the globe. Greenpeace India is very much part of this global campaign, we have received 3000 sign ups and counting within just four days of the launch of the campaign. Greenpeace India launched the Amazon Reef Campaign on 13th April and is running successfully. Several big names including, Leonard di Caprio,  supports the Amazon reef campaign.

“The reef is a new biome, located in a place where it was thought not possible for reefs to exist – they are located in the mouth of the Amazon basin, where there is a lot of sediments brought by the river (largest in the world in volume of water), there are spots where only 2% of light passes through. So it is a new biome that needs to be studied as is very important for marine biodiversity and fish stocks.

At the same time, this area is risky to drill for oil – from 95 attempts to produce oil in the mouth of the Amazon basin since the 1960s, 27 failed due to mechanical accidents, while the other attempts either didn’t find anything, or the reserves weren’t technically or economically viable.

So it is a new frontier of oil and we can’t access new reserves, where already have more oil reserves guaranteed in the world than we can burn if we want to keep climate warming to 1.5C.

Regarding the mangroves, they are not linked to the reef. Both mangroves and reefs play a very important role in biodiversity and carbon capture. The largest continuous mangrove in the world is in the coast of Amapá and if oil got to it, we know there is no technology for cleaning it up. And the mangroves play an important role in both marine and land biodiversity in the coast, extremely important for artisanal fishing communities and extractivist communities – the coast of Amapá is home to several traditional communities, fishing, extractivist, indigenous and quilombola (former slaves from the 18th and 19th centuries that ran away,” says Thiago F. C. Almeida a Brazilian Climate & Energy Campaigner.

Regarding the mangroves, they are not linked to the reef, but both mangroves and reefs play a very important role in biodiversity and carbon capture. The largest continuous mangrove in the world is on the coast of Amapá and if oil destroyed it, there is no technology to clean it up. And the mangroves play an important role in both marine and land biodiversity in the coast, extremely important for artisanal fishing communities – the coast of Amapá is home to several traditional communities, fishing, extractivist, indigenous and quilombola (former slaves from the 18th and 19th centuries that ran away).

Plus, coral systems are very susceptible to the impacts of climate change. Between the atmosphere and the ocean, there is an exchange of gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), which is absorbed, and oxygen, which is released by the action of the algae. As we are emitting large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, the oceans are having to absorb much of this gas in a short period of time, which throws the system out of balance. One of the effects of this excess CO2 is that the ocean is becoming more acidic. And acidity harms mollusks and corals, which are unable to form with the same amount of carbonates.  As an analogy, it is as if the ocean has osteoporosis. A study published in Nature Climate Change shows that in corals reefs, the diversity and complexity of marine life falls as the acidity of the water rises. Species that use calcium carbonate to build their shells and skeletons, like mussels and corals, are particularly vulnerable to acidification. In addition, the areas surrounding mangroves and corals are inhabited by species of turtles, marine mammals, etc., that, we know today, play an important role in the sequestration of carbon in the ocean.

Oil exploration involves seismic surveys. The waves stun marine animals and diving birds, interfering with their navigation and communication abilities.  This can be deadly for individuals and species.  The drilling process also involves large volumes of waste being produced.  This includes extracted water mixed with oil and other contaminants, drilling “muds” (including toxic chemicals and heavy metals) to cool and lubricate the equipment and other forms of industrial waste. These inevitably end up in the ocean and are ingested by marine life of all sizes.  Some of the tiniest marine creatures, foundational to our ecosystems, the plankton, are particularly susceptible to crude oil pollution and suffer population reductions.

Oil companies are estimated to drill around 15 to 20 billion barrels of oil from the surrounding area, which, once up for consumption, will contribute immensely to global warming and adversely affect efforts to mitigate climate change. So we need to support the campaign, save the reef  and stop the drilling.

Marianne Furtado de Nazareth is the former Assistant Editor, The Deccan Herald, adjunct faculty, St. Joseph’s PG College of Media Studies & a PhD scholar at the Madurai Kamaraj University

The United Nations is currently preparing a world conference 5-7 June 2017 devoted to the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal N° 14: Conserve and sustainable use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. Non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the U.N. are invited to submit recommendations for the governmental working group which is meeting 24 to 27 April in New York.

The Association of World Citizens has long been concerned with the Law of the Sea and had been active during the 10-year negotiations on the law of the sea during the 1970s, the meetings being held one month a year, alternatively in New York and Geneva. The world citizens position for the law of the sea was largely based on a three-point framework:

a) that the oceans and seas were the common heritage of humanity and should be seen as a living symbol of the unity of humanity;

b) that ocean management should be regulated by world law created as in as democratic manner as possible;

c) that the wealth of the oceans, considered as the common heritage of mankind should contain mechanisms of global redistribution, especially for the development of the poorest, a step toward a more just economic order, on land as well as at sea.

The concept of the oceans as the common heritage of humanity had been introduced into the U.N. awareness by a moving speech in the U.N. General Assembly by Arvid Pardo, Ambassador of Malta in November 1967. Under traditional international sea law, the resources of the oceans, except those within a narrow territorial sea near the coast line were regarded as “no one’s property” or more positively as “common property.” The “no one’s property” opened the door to the exploitation of resources by the most powerful and the most technologically advanced States. The “common heritage” concept was put forward as a way of saying that “humanity” – at least as represented by the States in the U.N. – should have some say as to the way the resources of the oceans and seas should be managed. Thus began the 1970s Law of the Seas negotiations.

Perhaps with or without the knowledge of Neptune, lord of the seas, the Maltese voted to change the political party in power just as the sea negotiations began. Arvid Pardo was replaced as Ambassador to the U.N. by a man who had neither the vision nor the diplomatic skills of Pardo. Thus, during the 10 years of negotiations the “common heritage” flame was carried by world citizens, in large part by Elisabeth Mann Borgese with whom I worked closely during the Geneva sessions of the negotiations.

Elisabeth Mann Borgese (1918-2002) whose birth anniversary we mark on 24 April, was a strong-willed woman. She had to come out from under the shadow of both her father, Thomas Mann, the German writer and Nobel laureate for Literature, and her husband Giuseppe Antonio Borgese (1882-1952), Italian literary critic and political analyst. From 1938, Thomas Mann lived in Princeton, New Jersey and gave occasional lectures at Princeton University. Thomas Mann, whose novel The Magic Mountain was one of the monuments of world literature between the two World Wars, always felt that he represented the best of German culture against the uncultured mass of the Nazis. He took himself and his role very seriously, and his family existed basically to facilitate his thinking and writing.

Borgese had a regular professor’s post at the University of Chicago but often lectured at other universities on the evils of Mussolini. Borgese, who had been a leading literary critic and university professor in Milan, left Italy for the United States in 1931 when Mussolini announced that an oath of allegiance to the Fascist State would be required of all Italian professors. For Borgese, with a vast culture including the classic Greeks, the Renaissance Italians, and the 19th century nationalist writers, Mussolini was an evil caricature which too few Americans recognized as a destructive force in his own right and not just as the fifth wheel of Hitler’s armed car.

G.A. Borgese met Elizsabeth Mann on a lecture tour at Princeton, and despite being close to Thomas Mann in age, the couple married very quickly shortly after meeting. Elisabeth moved to the University of Chicago and was soon caught up in Borgese’s efforts to help the transition from the Age of Nations to the Age of Humanity. For Borgese, the world was in a watershed period. The Age of Nations − with its nationalism which could be a liberating force in the 19th century as with the unification of Italy − had come to a close with the First World War. The war clearly showed that nationalism was from then on only the symbol of death. However, the Age of Humanity, which was the next step in human evolution, had not yet come into being, in part because too many people were still caught in the shadow play of the Age of Nations.

Since University of Chicago scientists had played an important role in the coming of the Atomic Age, G.A. Borgese and Richard McKeon, Dean of the University felt that the University should take a major role in drafting a world constitution for the Atomic Age. Thus the Committee to Frame a World Constitution, an interdisciplinary committee under the leadership of Robert Hutchins, head of the University of Chicago, was created in 1946. To re-capture the hopes and fears of the 1946-1948 period when the World Constitutions was being written, it is useful to read the book written by one of the members of the drafting team: Rexford Tugwell. A Chronicle of Jeopardy (University of Chicago Press, 1955). The book is Rex Tugwell’s reflections on the years 1946-1954 written each year in August to mark the A-bombing of Hiroshima

Elisabeth had become the secretary of the Committee and the editor of its journal Common Cause. The last issue ofCommon Cause was in June 1951. G.A. Borgese published a commentary on the Constitution, dealing especially with his ideas on the nature of justice. It was the last thing he wrote, and the book was published shortly after his death: G.A.Borgese. Foundations of the World Republic (University of Chicago Press, 1953). In 1950, the Korean War started. Hope for a radical transformation of the UN faded. Borgese and his wife went to live in Florence, where weary and disappointed, he died in 1952.

The drafters of the World Constitution went on to other tasks. Robert Hutchins left the University of Chicago to head a “think tank”- Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions – taking some of the drafters, including Elisabeth, with him. She edited a booklet on the Preliminary Draft with a useful introduction A Constitution for the World (1965) However, much of the energy of the Center went into the protection of freedom of thought and expression in the USA, at the time under attack by the primitive anti-communism of then Senator Joe McCarthy.

In the mid-1950s, from world federalists and world citizens came various proposals for UN control of areas not under national control: UN control of the High Seas and the Waterways, especially after the 1956 Suez Canal conflict, and of Outer Space. A good overview of these proposals is contained in James A. Joyce. Revolution on East River (New York: Ablard-Schuman, 1956).

After the 1967 proposal of Arvid Pardo, Elisabeth Mann Borgese turned her attention and energy to the law of the sea. As the UN Law of the Sea Conference continued through the 1970s, Elisabeth was active in seminars and conferences with the delegates, presenting ideas, showing that a strong treaty on the law of the sea would be a big step forward for humanity. Many of the issues raised during the negotiations leading to the Convention, especially the concept of the Exclusive Economic Zone, actively battled by Elisabeth but actively championed by Ambassador Alan Beesley of Canada, are with us today in the China seas tensions. While the resulting Convention of the Law of the Sea has not revolutionized world politics – as some of us hoped in the early 1970s – the Convention is an important building block in the development of world law. We are grateful for the values and the energy that Elisabeth Mann Borgese embodied and we are still pushing for the concept of the common heritage of humanity.

Rene Wadlow, President and a representative to the United Nations, Geneva, Association of World Citizens

Some believe that the commons are incompatible with commodity markets. Others claim that markets and commons may form mutually beneficial relations with each other. What are your own views on this issue?

I think it is entirely possible for markets and commons to “play nicely together,” but only if commoners can have “value sovereignty” over their resources and community governance.  Market players such as businesses and investors cannot be able to freely appropriate the fruits of a commons for themselves without the express authorization of commoners.  Nor should markets be allowed to uses their power to force commoners to assume market, money-based roles such as “consumers” and “employees.”  In short, a commons must have the capacity to self-regulate its relations with the market and to assure that significant aspects of its common wealth and social relationships remain inalienable – not for sale via market exchange.

A commons must be able to develop “semi-permeable boundaries” that enable it to safely interact with markets on its own terms.  So, for example, a coastal fishery functioning as a commons may sell some of its fish to markets, but the goals of earning money and maximizing profit cannot be allowed to become so foundational that it crowds out commons governance and respect for ecological limits.

Of course, market/commons relations are easier when it comes to digital commons and their shared wealth such as code, text, music, images and other intangible (non-physical) resources.  Such digital resources can be reproduced and shared at virtually no cost, so there is not the “subtractability” or depletion problems of finite bodies of shared resources.  In such cases, the problem for commons is less about preventing “free riding” than in intelligently curating digital information and preventing mischievous disruptions.  In digital spaces, the principle of “the more, the merrier” generally prevails.

That said, even digital commoners must be able to prevent powerful market players from simply appropriating their work for commercial purposes, at no cost.  Digital commoners should not simply generate “free resources” for larger market players to exploit for private gain.  That is why some digital communities are exploring the use of the newly created Peer Production License, which authorizes free usage of digital material for noncommercial and commons-based people but requires any commercial users to pay a fee.  Other communities are exploring the potential of “platform co-operatives,” in which an networked platform is owned and managed by the group for the benefit of its members.

The terms by which a commons protects its shared wealth and community ethos will vary immensely from one commons to another, but assuring a stable, benign relationship with markets is a major and sometimes tricky challenge.

During the last years we saw a boom in digital-commons, developed in urban areas by collectives and hack labs. What are the potentialities for non-digital commoning in the city in its present form – heavily urbanized and under constant surveillance? Are its proportions incompatible with the logic of the commons or the social right to the city is still achievable?

There has been an explosion of urban commons in the past several years, or at least a keen awareness of the need and potential of self-organized citizen projects and systems, going well beyond what either markets or city governments can provide.  To be sure, digital commons such as maker spaces and FabLabs are more salient and familiar types of urban commons.  And there is growing interest, as mentioned, in platform co-operatives, mutually owned and managed platforms to counter the extractive, sometimes-predatory behaviors of proprietary platforms such as Uber, Airbnb, Taskrabbit and others.

But there are many types of urban commons that already exist and that could expand, if given sufficient support.  Urban agriculture and community gardens, for example, are important ways to relocalize food production and lower the carbon footprint.  They also provide a way to improve the quality of food and invigorate the local economy.  As fuel and transport costs rise with the approach of Peak Oil, these types of urban commons will become more important.

I might add, it is not just about growing food but about the distribution, storage and retailing of food along the whole value-chain.  There is no reason that regional food systems could not be re-invented to mutualize costs, limit transport costs and ecological harm, and improve wages, working conditions, food quality (e.g., no pesticides; fresher produce), and affordability of food through commons-based food systems.  Jose Luis Vivero Pol has explored the idea of “food commons” to help achieve such results, and cities like Fresno, California, are engaged with re-inventing their local agriculture/food systems as systems.

Other important urban commons are social in character, such as timebanks for bartering one’s time and services when money is scarce; urban gardens and parks managed by residents of the nearby neighborhoods, such as the Nidiaci garden in Florence, Italy; telcommunications infrastructures such as Guifi.net in Barcelona; and alternative currencies such as the BerkShares in western Massachusetts in the US, which help regions retain more of the value they generate, rather than allowing it to be siphoned away via conventional finance and banking systems.

There are also new types of state/commons partnerships such as the Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban commons. This model of post-bureaucratic governance actively invites citizen groups to take responsibility for urban spaces and gardens, kindergartens and eldercare. The state remains the more powerful partner, but instead of the usual public/private partnerships that can be blatant ripoffs of the public treasury, the Bologna Regulation enlists citizens to take active responsibility for some aspect of the city. It’s not just government on behalf of citizens, but governance with citizens. It’s based on the idea of “horizontal subsidiarity” – that all levels of governments must find ways to share their powers and cooperate with single or associated citizens willing to exercise their constitutional right to carry out activities of general interest.

In France and the US, there are growing “community chartering” movements that give communities the ability to express their own interests and needs, often in the face of hostile pressures by corporations and governments.  There are also efforts to develop data commons that will give ordinary people greater control over their data from mobile devices, computers and other equipment, and prevent tech companies from asserting proprietary control over data that has important public health, transport, planning or other uses.  Another important form of urban commons is urban land trusts, which enable the de-commodification of urban land so that the buildings (and housing) built upon it can be more affordable to ordinary people.  This is a particularly important approach as more “global cities” becomes sites of speculative investment and Airbnb-style rentals; ordinary city dwellers are being priced out of their own cities.  Commons-based approaches offer some help in recovering the city for its residents.

Why bring the commons to the management and governance of a city?  Urban commons can also reduce costs that a city and its citizens must pay. They do this by mutualizing the costs of infrastructure and sharing the benefits — and by inviting self-organized initiatives to contribute to the city’s needs. Urban commons enliven social life simply by bringing people together for a common purpose, whether social or civic, going beyond shopping and consumerism.  And urban commons can empower people and build a sense of fairness.  In a time of political alienation, this is a significant achievement.

Urban commons can unleash creative social energies of ordinary citizens, who have a range of talents and the passion to share them.  They can produce artworks and music, murals and neighborhood self-improvement, data collections and stewardship of public spaces, among other things.  Finally, as international and national governance structures become less effective and less trusted, cities and urban regions are likely to become the most appropriately scaled governance systems, and more receptive to the constructive role that commons can play.

Contemporary struggles for protection of commons seem to be strongly intertwined with ecological matters. We can clearly see this in struggles like the one that is currently taking place in North Dakota. Is there a direct link between the commons and ecology?

Historically, commoning has been the dominant mode of managing land and even today, in places like Africa, Asia and Latin America, it is arguably the default norm, notwithstanding the efforts of governments and investors to commodify land and natural resources.  According to the International Land Alliance, an estimated 2 billion people in the world still depend upon forests, fisheries, farmland, water, wild game and other natural resources for their everyday survival.  This is a huge number of people, yet conventional economists still regard this “subsistence” economy and indigenous societies as uninteresting because there is little market-exchange going on.  Yet these communities are surely more ecologically mindful of their relations to the land than agribusinesses that rely upon monoculture crops and pesticides, or which exploit a plot of land purely for its commercial potential without regard for biodiversity or long-term effects, such as the massive palm oil plantations in tropical regions.

Commoning is a way for we humans to re-integrate our social and commercial practices with the fundamental imperatives of nature.  By honoring specific local landscapes, the situated knowledge of commoners, the principle of inalienability, and the evolving social practices of commoning, the commons can be a powerful force for ecological improvement.

What should be the role of the state in relation to the commons?

This is a very complex subject, but in general, one can say that the state has very different ideas than commoners about how power, governance and accountability should be structured.  The state is also far more eager to strike tight, cozy alliances with investors, businesses and financial institutions because of its own desires to share in the benefits of markets, and particularly, tax revenues.  I call our system the market/state system because the alliance – and collusion – between the two are so extensive, and their goals and worldview so similar despite their different roles, that commoners often don’t have the freedom or choice to enact commons.  Indeed, the state often criminalizes commoning – think seed sharing, file sharing, cultural re-use – because it “competes” with market forms of production and stands as a “bad example” of alternative modes of provisioning.

Having said this, state power could play many useful roles in supporting commoning, if it could be properly deployed.  For example, the state could provide greater legal recognition to commoning, and not insist upon strict forms of private property and monetization.  State law Is generally so hostile or indifferent to commoning that commoners often have to develop their own legal hacks or workarounds to achieve some measure of protection for their shared wealth.  Think about the General Public License for software, the Creative Commons licenses, and land trusts.  Each amounts to an ingenious re-purposing of property law to serve the interests of sharing and intergenerational access.

The state could also be more supportive of bottom-up infrastructures developed by commoners, whether they be wifi systems, energy coops, community solar grids, or platform co-operatives.  If city governments were to develop municipal platforms for ride-hailing or apartment rentals – or many other functions – they could begin to mutualize the benefits or such services and better protect the interests of workers, consumers and the general public.

The state could also help develop better forms of finance and banking to help commoning expand.  The state provides all sorts of subsidies to the banking industry despite its intense commitment to private extraction of value.  Why not use “quantitative easing” or seignorage (the state’s right to create money without it being considered public debt) to finance the building of infrastructure, environmental remediation, and social needs?  Commoners could benefit from new sources of credit for social or ecological purposes – or a transition to a more climate-friendly economy — that would not likely be as remunerative as conventional market activity.

For more on these topics, I recommend two reports by the Commons Strategies Group:  “Democratic Money and Capital for the Commons:  Strategies for Transforming Neoliberal Finance through Commons-based Alternatives,” about new types of commons-based finance and banking (http://commonsstrategies.org/democratic-money-and-capital-for-the-commons-2/); and “State Power and Commoning:  Transcending a Problematic Relationship,” a report about how we might reconceptualize state power so that it could foster commoning as a post-capitalist, post-growth means of provisioning and governance.  (http://commonsstrategies.org/state-power-commoning-transcending-problematic-relationship)

How essential is, in your opinion, direct user participation for practices of commoning? Can the management of the commons be delegated to structures like the state or are the commons essentially connected to genuine grassroots democracy?

Direct participation in commoning is preferred and often essential.  However, each of us has only so many hours in the day, and we can remember the complaint that “the trouble with socialism is that it takes too many evenings.”  Still, there are many systems, particularly in digital commons, for assuring bottom-up opportunities for participation along with accountable governance and transparency.   And there are ways in which commons values can be embedded in the design of infrastructures and institutions, much as Internet protocols favor a distributed egalitarianism.  By building commons principles into the structures of larger institutions, it can help prevent or impede the private capture of them or a betrayal of their collective purposes.

That said, neither legal forms or nor organizational forms are a guarantee that the integrity of a commons and its shared wealth will remain intact.  Consider how some larger co-operatives resemble conventional corporations.  That is why some elemental forms of commoning remain important for assuring the cultural and ethical integrity of a commons.

We are entering in an age of aggressive privatization and degradation of commons: from privatization of water resources, through internet surveillance, to extreme air pollution. What should be the priorities of the movements fighting for protection of the commons? What about their organizational structure?

Besides securing their own commons against the threats of enclosure, commons should begin to federate and cooperate as a way to build a more self-aware Commons Sector as a viable alternative to both the state and market.  We can see rudimentary forms of this in the “assemblies of the commons” that have self-organized in some cities, and in the recently formed European Commons Assembly.  I am agnostic about the best organizational structure for such work because I think it will be emergent; the participants themselves must decide what will be most suitable at that time.  Of course, in this digital age, I have a predisposition to think that the forms will consist of many disparate types of players loosely joined; it won’t be a centralized, hierarchical organization.  The future is a “pluriverse,” and the new organizational forms will need to recognize this reality in operational ways.

What is your vision of a commons-based society? How would it look like?

I don’t have a grand vision.  I stand by core values and learn from ongoing practical lessons.  We don’t know the developmental evolution that will occur in the future, or for that matter, what our own imaginations and capacities might be able to actualize.  Emergence happens.  Yet I do believe that commoning is far more of a default talent of the human species than homo economicus.  We are hard-wired to cooperate, coordinate and co-evolve together.  Especially as the grand, centralized market/state systems of the 20^th century begin to implode through their own dysfunctionality, the commons will more swiftly step into the breach by offering more local, convivial and trusted systems of survival.

The transition of “commonification” will likely be bumpy, if only because the current masters of the universe will not readily cede their power and prerogatives. They will be incapable of recognizing a “competing” worldview and social order.  But the costs of maintaining the antiquated Old Order are becoming increasingly prohibitive.  The capital expense, coercion, organizational complexities, and ecological instability are growing even as popular trust in the market/state and its political legitimacy is declining.

Rather than propose a glowing vision of a commons-based society, I am content to point to hundreds of smaller-scale projects and movements.  As they find each other, replicate their innovations, and federate into a more coordinated, self-aware polity – if we dare call it that! – well, that’s when things will get very interesting.

Interview by Antonis Brumas and Yavor Tarinski

When you’re in a hole, it’s usually best to stop digging. But when President Trump told supporters at his 100th day rally in Pennsylvania that “we are putting our coal miners back to work,” he just burrowed deeper into the bed of administration lies on energy.

The truth of the matter is that climate regulations aren’t a “war on coal,” and no amount of presidential photo-ops will bring mining jobs back. A recent report from the Center for Global Energy clearly shows why.

The demand for U.S. coal has collapsed in the past six years, it explains, following big improvements in energy efficiency (like better lighting and appliances), cheaper gas and renewables, and a decline in coal exports as other countries look to cleaner sources of energy.

Three of the four largest coal mining companies have filed for bankruptcy, while Bob Murray — CEO of the largest remaining one — recently warned Trump that coal jobs are unlikely to return. The CEO should know, as Murray Energy’s formula for avoiding bankruptcy has largely involved slashing jobs, compromising safety, and worsening labor conditions.

America’s main competitors get the point and have already planned to phase out coal. On April 21, the United Kingdom met its energy needs without burning any coal at all — for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. And the country’s last coal-burning power station will close within the next decade.

Meanwhile, a majority of energy companies in the European Union have promised to stop investing in new coal plants by 2020.

China is also fast reducing its reliance on coal. It recently canceled over 100 planned new coal-fired power plants, as well as slashing production at state-controlled coal mines. China has pledged to reduce coal production by 800 million tons per year by 2020, more than the entire annual output of all U.S. mines combined.

Instead of trying to revive the mining sector, in short, we should be planning for its replacement.

Initiatives like the Empower Kentucky project are trying to do just that. They’re promoting jobs in energy efficiency and renewable energy while helping the coal miners who’ve been hung out to dry — not by the EPA, but by bankrupt coal companies intent on protecting their bosses’ benefits.

States are increasingly stepping up to plan for these transitions while the federal government pursues the myth of coal, as a new Institute for Policy Studies report points out. For example, Oregon plans to phase out coal completely by 2030 and expects half of all its electricity to come from renewables by 2040.

Expanding renewable energy is good for jobs, too. “Green jobs” in energy efficiency, public transportation, and renewables already outnumber those employed by oil, gas, and coal companies, according to figures from the Department of Energy.

The contrast between coal and solar power is even stronger. Coal now employs just 160,000 Americans, a third of whom are miners. Solar energy, by contrast, now employs over 370,000 people and is one of the fastest growing parts of our economy.

The figures don’t tell the whole story, of course, with most new solar jobs in California while some coal states lag far behind. But the key lesson here is that the state legislatures promoting renewable energy most heavily are reaping the rewards.

Instead of pretending that coal jobs could return, politicians should be promoting renewable energy as a way to create work that former coal employees can be proud of while protecting our air and climate.

There’s little chance of the Trump administration getting out of its coal hole, but that’s all the more reason for local leaders to step up to the plate.

Oscar Reyes is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. 

An American friend living in Germany told me a story about when she first arrived. She and her German boyfriend were out walking when she heard a noise that got louder as they approached the town’s main square. Puzzled, she asked her partner about the unfamiliar sound.

“That’s the sound of people talking to each other,” he told her.

People outside, not drowned out by the noise of cars or amplified music. Imagine!

On my recent trip to Europe, where I was speaking about my new book, The Revolution Where You Live, I, too, found people everywhere outside, enjoying common spaces.

Jane Jacobs, the author and activist who revolutionized urban planning, wrote often about the outdoor spaces where people encounter each other. Even in large, gritty cities such as New York and Berlin, these urban commons connect us to each other and to the land, water, plants, and animal life of our home. We experience what it means to belong to something larger, to be welcome simply because we are alive.

But common spaces have to be protected, especially as powerful private interests seek to increase private wealth.

In BerIin, I visited Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen, author of several books on urban gardening who fought for decades for garden space. We walked together to her favorite outdoor market, where we admired the massive displays of tulips and sampled chocolates made by a family-run business. She spoke to friends, asked farmers about their early spring greens, and recommended a coffee truck run by a Turkish family whose business gave these immigrants a foothold in the larger community. Going to market was as much about enjoying the company and savoring the tastes, smells, stories, and sights as it was about shopping for dinner.

We also visited a large park near to Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz, a part of the center city once bisected by the Berlin Wall. The park land had been owned by the East German railway, but after the wall came down, city planners pressed for a freeway through this rare green space. The railroad company wanted to sell the land to developers.

A local citizens’ movement pushed back, though, on behalf of those who had small garden allotments on the land, neighbors, and others who wanted green space in what was becoming a dense and crowded city. Meyer-Renschhausen was among the group that succeeded, after 15 years, in getting the land made into Gleisdreieck, a permanent park named after the old train junction.

She took me to see the gardens where she and dozens of others grow food and flowers in tiny fenced-in lots, many with sheds or tiny cottages.

“People are poor, and they need open spaces, places to garden for health reasons and because it’s boring to be inside in small flats all the time,” she said. “We have a huge rate of unemployment in the cities, and gardens offer one possibility for people to see that you can help yourself.”

Walkers and cyclers explore the gardens via narrow pathways. Nearby, a shipping container, converted into a coffee stand, offers espresso drinks, fresh carrot/apple/ginger juice, and pastries. Couples and families gather around tables made from brightly painted pallets and other found objects. Truck tires, trees, and tiny furniture keep the children busy while their parents sip coffee and read the paper.

Further on, people gather at a skateboard park, picnic on open lawns, and care for the beehives at a community garden space used by Bosnian refugees.

Such scenes are harder to find in the United States, where isolation has reached that point that it is literally killing us via addiction, mental illness, and suicide. According to the recent World Happiness Report, Americans’ well-being declined substantially over the past 10 years, in large part become of the erosion of the social fabric. Inequality reduces our sense of social solidarity. The fetish for privatization devalues open spaces along with other commons, like public education, a stable climate, and clean air and water. Powerful corporations profit by “enclosing,” or taking for themselves, a commons that actually belongs to all of us (or, as in the case of water and the atmosphere, by using it as a dump). It takes tenacious people’s movements to push back – like the ones Meyer-Renschhausen helped lead.

It’s worth it, though, for many reasons. Common spaces offer chances for the everyday encounters that help to weave the social fabric. And when that fabric is strong and resilient, there is little we can’t do.

Here are more photos from Berlin’s outdoor market and Gleisdreieck Park.

Sarah van Gelder is co-founder and columnist at YES! Magazine and the author of The Revolution Where You Live: Stories of a 12,000 Mile Journey Through a New America.

On May 10th, a panel convened by David Phillips at the Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Program on Peace-building and Rights,addressed the outrage that there are almost 21 million victims of human trafficking around the world, according to a 2016 report from the International Labour Organization. 

The panel, co-sponsored by Elizabeth Salett, Director of Human Trafficking Search, (www.humantraffickingsearch.net) was organized "to raise awareness about the interconnection between human trafficking and armed conflict and the many forms it takes – whether it is through child recruitment, sex slavery, organ trafficking, forced labor or forced military service." Salett told AlterNet via email, "It was also to learn about the recent work of the UN Security Council and its efforts to the strengthen the international response to addressing human trafficking."

Lucy Usoyan, President of the Ezidi Relief Fund spoke first, explaining the plight of Ezidi women in Iraq and Syria under ISIS, how they are sold on the black market to ISIS soldiers and kept as sexual slaves and domestic servants for months, sometimes years. In Iraq and Syria alone, there are at least 3,000 Ezidi (an ethnically and religious Kurdish minority) women and girls enduring forced labor and sexual slavery at the hands of ISIS, who believe their atrocities are "a holy condition" as Usoyan explained. 

Compounding the situation, even their liberation from ISIS doesn't guarantee a smooth transition home. In some cases, Usoyan noted, the women are rejected by their communities, treated as if their captivity and ISIS's cruelty were their ownfault. This presents an additional challenge for the institutions, like the U.N. and foreign governments who assist these women; freedom from ISIS does not necessarily mean freedom from persecution. 

The next speaker, Tom Wheeler, Senior Policy Advisor, Development and Human Rights, United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations,  exlained the opportunities and challenges said institutions have to fight human trafficking in all its forms. He discussed how the issue is "a high priority" for the current British Prime Minister, Theresa May.

He pointed to the Modern Slavery Act of 2015, which consolidates previous laws related to slavery, and according to Wheeler, provides more protections for women performing any kind of labor against their will. It also provides more stringent requirements for any business worth over £36 million (about $50 million in US dollars), to prove that they are preventing domestic slavery in their supply chain.

For UK-based companies, human trafficking is a problem in corporate warehouses, where workers are often paying off debts to human smugglers that brought them to the country. It's also a problem in countries where the companies aren't based, but get their source materials from, for example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where workers are forced to dig for minerals commonly found in our cell phones, overseen by various groups involved in local armed conflicts.

When the state is weak on enforcing anti-slavery laws, Wheeler believes it's up to businesses to recognize whether they are unwittingly participating in these conflicts by using forced labor.

The next speaker, James Cockayne, Head of Office at United Nations University elaborated on the role the United Nations can play in this issue. He noted that there are multiple policies and programs that touch on parts of the issue: armed conflicts, peacebuilding, labor, and migration but no one umbrella framework focuses on how they relate to each other in contributing to human trafficking. Siloing and fragmentation among departments, both UN speakers noted, is a key challenge; more coordination and communication between departments working on the programs and policies addressing human trafficking is crucial. 

Of course, these programs and policies are also only as good as the people enforcing them. On the ground peacekeepers and relief workers in conflict zones need to be trained to look for signs of trafficking. During a question and answer session, one attendee mentioned that perhaps doctors too need to be trained to spot these signs, as they may be the first sources of aid that victims see. 

Cockayne continued, this push must be done with political will, not only from the U.N., but from governments around the world. Cockayne believes that "we can't deal [with human trafficking] without political will because the people involved are the least politically powerful." Even on a micro level, trafficking victims are least likely to call the police, for fear of retaliation from their captors or even that their immigration status may be found out. 

There are a few positive signs for institutions addressing the issue. In December 2016, the Security Council adopted its first anti-human trafficking resolution, after many years of assuming it was a decision for a country's own criminal courts to solve, even if countries like Iraq and Syria that don't have the infrastructure to do so.

The resolution asks the Secretary General to produce recommendations and report on progress in a year. Cockayne cautioned that the UN can't be the only actor involved: the body can "parse resolutions, have great debates," but getting these debates to translate into concrete action, "will require a whole other push." In addition to Theresa May's committment, Cockayne sees some promise in Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, who has said that his fight against human trafficking would be a core part of his government legacy, a sign, according to the UN staffers, that fighting human trafficking is a bipartisan issue.

During the closing remarks, Cockayne asked Usoyan whether the UN staff on the ground in Syria and Iraq were "assisting correctly." Usoyan answered that it depended on the area. In "Northern Syria sure there's a U.N. office, but it's been closed for a year." In Sinjyar, there are still 500 families living in tents and the U.N., she said, has refused to supply vaccines to Northern Syria. Cockayne promised a follow-up. 

Perhaps more than the usual meeting locations, a classroom in Columbia University provided space for true candor and communication.

Ilana Novick is a production editor for AlterNet. Follow her on Twitter @faintpraise. 

In the movie The Day After Tomorrow, the entire earth is struck by a catastrophic weather pattern that causes a massive rise in sea levels and ushers in a new ice age. It’s a pretty cheesy movie that is high on special effects and low on quality acting.

How likely is an event like that? Will we be struck by some sort of rogue storm that transforms the face of the planet.

Probably not.

But we do know that sea levels are rising and it certainly is changing the face of the earth. Although it’s happening at a much slower rate, the long term effects will be incredibly devastating.

In this post we’re going to explain why sea levels are rising, what will happen as a result, and how cities are preparing for it.

Why Are Sea Levels Rising?

City of London. Image Via

There isn’t much doubt that sea levels are rising. From 1880 - 2009, the global sea level rose approximately 8 inches. That means that all the oceans are now approximately 8 inches higher now than they were 150 years ago.

Even more frightening, the average annual rate of the global rise dramatically increased from 1993 - 2008, up 65 - 90 percent over the previous years. The waters are rising faster, with the U.S. East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico increasing the fastest.

But why is this happening? Several reasons:

As humans have increased greenhouse gases as well as cut down the world’s forests, the overall temperature has risen about 1.4 degrees since 1880.

This rise in temperature has caused the ocean waters to get warmer, which in turn causes them to expand. Expanding waters leads to higher levels.

Additionally, the warming waters are causing the ice caps, glaciers, and ice sheets of the world to melt, which is then funneling water into the oceans. As more and more ice melts, the seas will continue to rise.

How much are the seas going to continue rising? It’s an inexact science since so many variables are at play, but general estimates can be made.

Even if all contributors immediately stopped, it’s likely that the oceans will rise between 1.2-2.6 feet by 2100. If things continue at their current pace, sea levels could rise as much as 6.6 feet. The main factor determining the sea levels will be how quickly the world’s ice continues to melt.

National Geographic puts it this way:

"Oceans will likely continue to rise as well, but predicting the degree to which they will rise is an inexact science. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we can expect the oceans to rise between 11 and 38 inches (28 to 98 centimeters) by 2100, enough to swamp many of the cities along the U.S. East Coast. More dire estimates, including a complete meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet, place sea level rise to 23 feet (7 meters), enough to submerge London."

What’s going to happen as sea levels rise? Bad things.

#1 - It’s Going To Screw Up Our Farming

City Of Durbin. Image Source

What do plants need to survive? Water. Fresh, clean water. When you pour a cup of coffee on an office plant, you kill it. When you pour polluted water on a plant, you suck the life out of it. AND, when you pour saltwater on a plant, you destroy it.

As sea levels rise, we can expect the groundwater to become more salty, meaning that plants are going to be guzzling increasing amounts of saltwater. This isn’t good.

What happens when plants suck up saltwater? It stunts their growth and sometimes kills them.

#2 - It’s Going To Pollute Our Drinking Water

You can’t drink seawater. Anyone who has watched a lost at sea movie knows that the moment you drink saltwater, you start dehydrating.

As our sea levels rise and the water comes further ashore, it’s going to start sinking into our freshwater sources in the ground. Coastal areas rely on these sources for freshwater, and their pollution could be catastrophic.

This is why numerous communities are already working to install desalinization plants which will transform saltwater into freshwater. As levels continues to rise, this kind of project will become increasingly pressing.

#3 - The Economy Will Suffer

Hundreds of coastal communities rely on the ocean to sustain their economies. As sea levels rise, those economies will take an enormous hit, and entire industries may be destroyed.

Oceanfront properties will be ruined and recreational areas will be washed away. Historical landmarks will be erased and beaches themselves will be totally altered. Tourists will find these areas far less appealing, dramatically reducing income from real estate and tourist activities.

#4 - It Will Significantly Alter Plant Life

City of Mumbai. Image Via

As saltwater works its way higher and higher up the coast, it’s going to alter the composition of the soil. When this happens, plant life is going to have to adapt. Some plants will vanish, unable to live in the salty soil. Other, new plants may emerge and thrive.

Trees in particular will struggle as it’s difficult for them to extract water from salty soil. Their growth may be stunted and some species may disappear altogether.

#5 - The Wildlife Will Suffer

Hundreds of thousands of animals make their home along the coast. As the ocean levels rise, their homes will be disrupted, altered, and even destroyed. Birds, turtles, and all manner of wildlife will either die off or be forced to dramatically adapt.

As plant life is changed and destroyed, wildlife food sources will become increasingly scarce. Flooding will destroy nests and endangered animals like turtles will find it more difficult to survive.

#6 - Flooding Will Get Worse

Currently, tidal increases occur twice each month during full and new moons. The combined gravitational pull of the sun and moon cause the tide to rise a bit higher along the coast. Usually these tidal increases don’t cause problems, although occasionally flooding can occur depending on water levels, storms, and winds.

As sea levels increase, tidal flooding events will become significantly worse. Already, some coastal areas are seeing flooding happen at a 400% greater rate since 1970.

An analysis of 52 different locations showed that things will be particularly bad by the year 2045.

"By 2045, many coastal communities are expected to see roughly one foot of sea level rise. The resulting increases in tidal flooding will be substantial and nearly universal in the 52 communities analyzed.

One-third of the 52 locations would face tidal flooding more than 180 times per year. Nine locations, including Atlantic City and Cape May, New Jersey could see tidal flooding 240 times or more per year."

This flooding will have massive effects on these locations, destroying property and completely disrupting communities.

#7 - Donald Trump Will Lose Valuable Property

New York City. Image Via.

As sea levels rise, many properties along the coast will become unusable. Property magnates like Donald Trump will find themselves losing valuable buildings and acreages due to increased flooding.

South Florida in particular, where “Trump Hollywood” is located, is often called the ground zero of the rising tides.

As the New Yorker reports:

"Of all the world’s cities, Miami ranks second in terms of assets vulnerable to rising seas—No. 1 is Guangzhou—and in terms of population it ranks fourth, after Guangzhou, Mumbai, and Shanghai. A recent report on storm surges in the United States listed four Florida cities among the eight most at risk. (On that list, Tampa came in at No. 1.) For the past several years, the daily high-water mark in the Miami area has been racing up at the rate of almost an inch a year, nearly ten times the rate of average global sea-level rise."

This doesn’t bode well for Trump and other property owners in the region. Who knows how long it will be until entire portions of the coast are submerged?

How Are Cities Preparing?

Clearly, cities need to begin making preparations for the incoming tides, and many coastal towns, both in the U.S. and around the world have begun doing just that.

As Erin Thread notes regarding New York City:

"To protect coasts against tidal flooding, the city plans to reinforce beaches, build bulkheads, and protect sand dunes that act as natural barriers.  The city may also enact rock breakwaters offshore to attenuate waves associated with storms, and erect storm walls and levees in areas that are particularly vulnerable to storm surge.  The city’s plan contains a rigorous geological analysis of the landscape and makes recommendations specific to boroughs and neighborhoods based on what types of mitigation strategies the rock and soil in each locale can support."

The only question is: will it be enough?

Conclusion

The oceans are rising. The statistics bear it out and people can also see it with their own eyes. Over time, our coastlands are going to move further inland and low-lying areas will find themselves submerged.

If cities are not prepared, the effects will be devastating. However, with proper preparation, the worst may be avoided.

Paul Atwood, a Senior Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, provides a concise summary of the history that informs North Korea’s “relations with the United States” and “drives its determination never to submit to any American diktat”.

Excerpts from Atwood’s summary are here used as a framework, with other sources where indicated.

Atwood notes it is an American “myth” that the “North Korean Army suddenly attacked without warning, overwhelming surprised ROK defenders.”  In fact, the North/South border “had been progressively militarized and there had been numerous cross border incursions by both sides going back to 1949.”

Part of what made the US’s ultimate destruction of Korea (which involved essentially a colossal version of one of the cross-border incursions) “inevitable” was the goal of US planners to access or control “global… resources, markets and cheaper labor power”.

In its full invasion of the North, the US acted under the banner of the United Nations.  However, the UN at that time was “largely under the control of the United States”, and as Professor Carl Boggs (PhD political science, UC Berkeley) puts it, essentially was the United States. (28)   While it is still today the world’s most powerful military empire, the US was then at the peak of its global dominance – the most concentrated power-center in world history.  Almost all allies and enemies had been destroyed in World War II while the US strategically preserved its forces, experiencing just over 400,000 overall war-related deaths after Germany and Japan declared war on the US, whereas Russia, for example, lost tens of millions fending off the Nazi invasion.  Boggs further notes that as the UN gradually democratized, US capacity to dictate UN policy waned, with the US soon becoming the world leader in UN vetoes. (154)

In South Korea, “tens of thousands” of “guerrillas who had originated in peoples’ committees” in the South “fought the Americans and the ROK” (Republic of Korea), the Southern dictatorship set up by the US.  Before hot war broke out, the ROK military “over mere weeks” summarily executed some 100,000 to 1 million (74) (S. Brian Wilson puts the figure at 800,000) guerillas and peasant civilians, many of whom the dictatorship lured into camps with the promise of food.  This was done with US knowledge and sometimes under direct US supervision, according to historian Kim Dong-choon and others (see Wilson above for more sources).  The orders for the executions “undoubtedly came from the top”, which was dictator Syngman Rhee, the “US-installed” puppet, and the US itself, which “controlled South Korea’s military.”  After the war, the US helped try to cover up these executions, an effort that largely succeeded until the 1990s.

At a point in the war when the US was on the verge of defeat, General Douglas MacArthur “announced that he saw unique opportunities for the deployment of atomic weapons. This call was taken up by many in Congress.”  Truman rejected this idea and instead “authorized MacArthur to conduct the famous landings at Inchon in September 1950”, which “threw North Korean troops into disarray and MacArthur began pushing them back across the 38^th Parallel”, the line the US had “arbitrarily” drawn to artificially divide Korea, where there was “overwhelming support for unification” among the country’s population as a whole.  The US then violated its own artificial border and pushed into the North.

China warned the US it would not sit by while the its neighbor was invaded (China itself also feared being invaded), but MacArthur shrugged this off, saying if the Chinese “tried to get down to Pyongyang” he would “slaughter” them, adding, “we are the best.”  MacArthur “then ordered airstrikes to lay waste thousands of square miles of northern Korea bordering China and ordered infantry divisions ever closer to its border.”

It was the terrible devastation of this bombing campaign, worse than anything seen during World War II short of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that to this day dominates North Korea’s relations with the United States and drives its determination never to submit to any American diktat.

General Curtis Lemay directed this onslaught. It was he who had firebombed Tokyo in March 1945 saying it was “about time we stopped swatting at flies and gone after the manure pile.” It was he who later said that the US “ought to bomb North Vietnam back into the stone age.” Remarking about his desire to lay waste to North Korea he said “We burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea too.” Lemay was by no means exaggerating.

Lemay estimated the US “killed off” some “20% of the [North Korean] population.”  (For comparison, the highest percentage of population lost in World War II was in Poland, which lost approximately 16.93 to 17.22% of its people overall.)  Dean Rusk, who later became a Secretary of State, said the US targeted and attempted to execute every person “that moved” in North Korea, and tried to knock over “every brick standing on top of another.”

Boggs gives many examples of mass atrocities, one taking place in 1950 when the US rounded up “nearly 1,000 civilians” who were then “beaten, tortured, and shot to death by US troops”, another in Pyongyang when the US summarily executed 3,000 people, “mostly women and children”, and another when the US executed some 6,000 civilians, many with machine guns, many by beheading them with sabers.  He notes this list, just of the major atrocities, “goes on endlessly.” (75)

Above: US/UN forces in Korea in tanks painted to look like tigers.

When Chinese forces followed through on their threat and entered North Korea, successfully pushing back US troops, Truman then threatened China with nuclear weapons, saying they were under “active consideration.” For his part, “MacArthur demanded the bombs… As he put it in his memoirs:

I would have dropped between thirty and fifty atomic bombs…strung across the neck of Manchuria…and spread behind us – from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea- a belt of radioactive cobalt. It has an active life of between 60 and 120 years.

Cobalt it should be noted is at least 100 times more radioactive than uranium.

He also expressed a desire for chemicals and gas.

In 1951 the U.S. initiated “Operation Strangle”, which officials estimated killed at least 3 million people on both sides of the 38th parallel, but the figure is probably closer to 4 million [“mostly civilians” and “mostly resulting from US aerial bombardments” in which civilians “were deliberately targeted” (54, 67-8), as were “schools, hospitals, and churches” (65).  Estimates for the death toll also go “much higher” than 4 million (74)].

Boggs notes US propaganda during this time period (the US was a world leader in eugenics scholarship and race-based “legal” discrimination) dehumanized Asians and facilitated targeting and mass executions of “inferior” civilians: the “US decision to target civilians … was planned and systematic, going to the top of the power structure. …no one was ever charged…”  Some in the US forces, such as General Matthew Ridgeway, claimed the war was a Christian jihad in defense of “God”.  (54-5)  Analysts at George Washington University, looking at US contingency plans from this era to wipe out much of the world’s population with nuclear weapons, determined a likely rationale for the US’s doctrine of targeting of civilians is to “reduce the morale of the enemy civilian population through fear” – the definition of terrorism.

Atwood continues:

The question of whether the U.S. carried out germ warfare has been raised but has never been fully proved or disproved. The North accused the U.S. of dropping bombs laden with cholera, anthrax, plague, and encephalitis and hemorrhagic fever, all of which turned up among soldiers and civilians in the north. Some American prisoners of war confessed to such war crimes but these were dismissed as evidence of torture by North Korea on Americans. However, none of the U.S. POWs who did confess and were later repatriated were allowed to meet the press. A number of investigations were carried out by scientists from friendly western countries. One of the most prominent concluded the charges were true.

At this time the US was engaged in top secret germ-warfare research [including non-consensual human experimentation] with captured Nazi and Japanese germ warfare experts, and also [conducting non-consensual human experimentation on tens of thousands of people, including in gas chambers and aerial bombardments, with mustard gas and other chemical weapons,] experimenting with Sarin[, later including non-consensual human experimentation], despite its ban by the Geneva Convention.

Boggs notes the US “had substantial stocks of biological weapons” and US leaders thought they might be able to keep their use “secret enough to make a plausible denial”.  They also thought that if their use was uncovered, the US could simply remind its accusers that it had never signed the 1925 Geneva Protocol on biological warfare. (135-6)

A 1952 US government film made to instruct the US armed forces on the US’s “offensive biological and chemical warfare program” says the US can “deliver a biological or chemical attack … hundreds of miles inland from any coastline” to “attack a large portion of an enemy’s population.”  The film shows US soldiers filling bio/chemical dispersal containers for “contamination” of enemy areas, and then a cartoon depiction of US bio/chem weapons agents being delivered from US ships, passing over Korea, and covering huge swathes of China.

Boggs notes “the US apparently hoped the rapid spread of deadly diseases would instill panic in Koreans and Chinese, resulting in a collapse of combat morale”. (136)

Atwood adds that as in the case of the Rhee/US mass executions of South Koreans, Washington blamed the evident use of germ warfare on “the communists”.

The US also used napalm, a fiery gel that sticks to and burns through targets,

…extensively, completely and utterly destroying the northern capital of Pyongyang. By 1953 American pilots were returning to carriers and bases claiming there were no longer any significant targets in all of North Korea to bomb. In fact a very large percentage of the northern population was by then living in tunnels dug by hand underground. A British journalist wrote that the northern population was living “a troglodyte existence.” In the Spring of 1953 US warplanes hit five of the largest dams along the Yalu river completely inundating and killing Pyongyang’s harvest of rice. Air Force documents reveal calculated premeditation saying that “Attacks in May will be most effective psychologically because it was the end of the rice-transplanting season before the roots could become completely embedded.” Flash floods scooped out hundreds of square miles of vital food producing valleys and killed untold numbers of farmers.

At Nuremberg after WWII, Nazi officers who carried out similar attacks on the dikes of Holland, creating a mass famine in 1944, were tried as criminals and some were executed for their crimes.

Atwood concludes it is “the collective memory” of the above “that animates North Korea’s policies toward the US today”.

Under no circumstances could any westerner reasonably expect … that the North Korean regime would simply submit to any ultimatums by the US, by far the worst enemy Korea ever had measured by the damage inflicted on the entirety of the Korean peninsula.

Robert J. Barsocchini is an independent researcher and reporter whose interest in propaganda and global force dynamics arose from working as a cross-cultural intermediary for large corporations in the US film and Television industry.  His work has been cited, published, or followed by numerous professors, economists, lawyers, military and intelligence veterans, and journalists.  He begins work on a Master’s Degree in American Studies in the fall.

Un tunnel rempli de déchets radioactifs s'est effondré  près d'une ancienne installation militaire d'extraction de plutonium et d'uranium sur le site de  stockage atomique de Hanford dans l'Etat de Washington aux USA.  Depuis 2008 le français Areva est l'un des intervenants impliqués dans les opérations de démantèlement/assainissement du site.

Mardi 9  mai 2017 au matin, sur le gigantesque site militaire atomique en cours de démantèlement de Hanford aux Etats-Unis (Etat de Washington à 275 km au sud-est de Seattle) le sol s'est effondré près d'une ancienne installation d'extraction de plutonium et d'uranium « Purex » (Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant). Juste au-dessus de la jonction de deux tunnels ferrés sous-terrains remplis de substances et de déchets radioactifs.

Le premier tunnel construit avec du béton et du bois à partir des  années 1950 est recouvert d'un peu plus de 2 mètres de terre. Il mesure près de 110 mètres et contient 8 wagons chargés de déchets radioactifs poussés là par une motrice lors de la « guerre froide ». 28 wagons également chargés de déchets radioactifs se trouvent dans le second tunnel de près de 200mètres. Les deux tunnels étaient scellés depuis le milieu des années 1990.

Les 5 000 travailleurs présents ont reçu l'ordre de se confiner, de fermer toutes les ventilations et de " s'abstenir de manger et de boire ".  Le survol de la zone a été interdit. En début d'après-midi, les employés " non essentiels " au fonctionnement du site ont été renvoyés chez eux.

Le département de l'Énergie des États-Unis (DoE), qui est aujourd'hui propriétaire du site, indique que l'effondrement du 9 mai 2017 aurait été découvert lors d'une inspection de routine. On ne sait donc pas depuis combien de temps les déchets radioactifs se trouvent à l’air libre. La béance mesure près de 40 m2. La direction assure qu'aucune fuite radioactive n'a été constatée et qu'aucun blessé n'est à déplorer. A voir. Un dispositif  de mesure  de  radioactivité  par télécommande à  distance est déployé à côté du tunnel. Ce qui laisse à penser que le danger de contamination radioactive est présent. De banals travaux sur une route située près du tunnel auraient pu provoquer cet effondrement.

Omerta, secret, toxicité, contaminations, rejets mortels...

Fermé en  1987, grand comme quinze fois Paris, et avant de devenir une  poubelle nucléaire le site atomique de Hanford avait été construit en 1943 pour produire, dans le cadre du « projet Manhatan », le plutonium pour la première bombe nucléaire testée lors de l'essai atomique Trinity, et pour « Fat Man », la bombe utilisée lors du bombardement de Nagasaki au Japon deux ans plus tard. Hanford abrita le premier réacteur nucléaire au monde (réacteur B) destiné à produire du plutonium de qualité militaire.

Ultra-secrète, cette production s'est poursuivie 46 ans sous le contrôle du Département de la défense, pour le compte du gouvernement fédéral des États-Unis et de l'armée. Or « le processus de fabrication du plutonium est extrêmement “inefficace” : une énorme quantité de déchets liquides et solides est générée pour une très petite quantité de plutonium produite ».

Le village de Hanford situé le long du fleuve Columbia (2) avait été évacué de force par l'armée et presque totalement détruit  pour laisser place au Complexe nucléaire. Jusqu'à près de 180 000 personnes ont collaboré à la mise au point des engins de terreur.  Par la suite, pas moins de 9  réacteurs nucléaires supplémentaires et cinq complexes de traitement du combustible usé - installations nucléaires chimiques de haut danger -  y ont été construits. Pour produire plus de plutonium, encore, destiné aux 60 000 ogives de l'arsenal nucléaire américain pointant sur l'URSS. Hanford abrite encore de nos jours la centrale nucléaire « Columbia » et plusieurs centres de recherche et développement atomiques.

Un site atomique emblématique de l'impossible assainissement du nucléaire

30 ans après sa fermeture, le site atomique de Hanford est une immense terre lunaire jonchée de cadavres d'installations radioactives et trouée de tunnels de fortune dans lesquels ont été empilés et entassés à la queue leu-leu des tonnes de matières radioactives certaines installés sur de simples wagons-plateformes.

En  1989 l'Etat et les autorités fédérales ont conclu un accord pour nettoyer le site atomique, ses 177 cuves (149 d'entre-elles ne possèdent qu'une seule coque de protection), ses installations titanesques dispersée sur plus de 1 518 km2 (surface égale à la moitié de celle du département français du Rhône), ses 200 000  mètres cubes de déchets chimiques et radioactifs.

Ce plus grand chantier de décontamination et démantèlement au monde, qui mobilise aujourd'hui environ 11 000 employés - notamment depuis 2008 du groupe français Areva (1) – n'avait jamais dépassé 50 000 ouvriers et employés durant sa phase de construction. Le coût du nettoyage du site est estimé à plus de 100  millions de dollars (92 millions d'euros) d'ici à 2060. Mais est, à l'image des chantiers atomiques de construction et de démantèlement français, en grand dépassement de coûts et de délais. De 300 à 500 milliards de dollars pour des experts indépendants. Avec menace sur la santé des travailleurs, des riverains et l'écosystème.

Depuis1996 ce plus grand site de stockage de déchets nucléaires des États-Unis (près de 220 000 m3 en 2003) recueille un tiers de tous les déchets radioactifs du pays. Mais pas uniquement car dans le sud du site, où se rejoignent le fleuve Columbia et la Yakima River, plusieurs centres de stockage de déchets et sources radioactives hors ceux gérés par le « DoE » sont aussi implantés : les déchets radioactifs proviennent de Framatome-Areva NP, Allied Technology Group Corporation et Perma Fix et PN service.

Des incidents et accidents à répétition

De nombreux incidents ont déjà émaillé la sordide histoire du site atomique militaire de Hanford. Ils sont emblématiques et de la domination sur les populations et de l'impossibilité de traiter sur le moyen et le long terme les dégueulis radioactifs. 
Depuis 1943 et jusque dans les années 1960, Hanford a relâché directement ses déchets gazeux et liquides contaminés dans la nature : plus de 3,8  millions de litres de boues radioactives ont été ainsi dispersés dans le sol (quantités reconnues par les pouvoirs publics mais nettement supérieures selon les associations antinucléaires locales).

En  1990 a été révélé qu'une terrible contamination au plutonium s'était produite à la fin des années 1940. Dans l'omerta la plus sombre des autorités et même avec leur accord afin de tester, grandeur nature, des instruments de détection. La population considérée comme cobaye humain de l'industrie nucléaire. Premier scandale parrainé par le gouvernement fédéral. Près de 13 500 habitants des districts situés sous le vent, dans les Etats de Washington et de l'Oregon, ont ainsi été contaminés volontairement par des substances radioactives supérieures à 33  rads*. Les normes sanitaires maximales étant  fixées entre 1 et 5  rads par an.

Le 22  février 2013, le gouverneur de l'Etat de Washington avouait que six réservoirs souterrains "clandestins" de liquide radioactif avaient laissé s'échapper une partie de leurs matières hautement toxiques.

En  2016, une fuite qualifiée de " catastrophique " par le personnel s'est produite sur une cuve gigantesque de déchets nucléaires. Alors que des efforts surhumains et à hauts risques se poursuivaient pour vider la cuve, le département américain de l'énergie a tenté de minimiser l'accident en cours en assurant qu'il avait été " anticipé ". Mais le site, notamment l'eau souterraine, est bel et bien contaminé par le tritium radioactif. 

Il y a dix ans, en 2007, les autorités reconnaissaient une contamination radioactive en iode 129 radioactive sur plus de 65km2 et en tritium sur plus de 120 km2. Bien au dessus des seuils de potabilité. Des concentrations élevées d'uranium se produisent aussi au droit de l'installation Areva. La concentration maximale d'uranium dans un puits Areva en 2013 a atteint 36,5 Μg/L (Rapport annuel 2013 sur les eaux souterraines Areva, Richland, Washington). Les concentrations d'uranium dans les puits de site descendants d'Areva étaient aussi problématiques en 2014. Les taux de Strontium radioactif 90Sr sont systématiquement plus importants à l’aval du site d’Hanford dans l'eau du fleuve Columbia qu'en amont.

Ce nouvel incident du 9 mai 2017 démontre la dangerosité du site » déclare l'organisation antinucléaire Beyond -Nuclear, qui dénonce aussi une " gestion des déchets radioactifs hors de contrôle ".  Il s'agit d'un " coup de semonce " pour l'ONG Hanford Challenge qui ajoute que " Le message qu'on peut en tirer est qu'une vieille installation ne rajeunit pas » et représente « un fléau pour les générations futures ". Des travailleurs ont développé des maladies respiratoires et neurologiques. Et comme les réservoirs souterrains doivent être ventilés par mesures de sécurité : les travailleurs s'en trouvent encore plus exposés. L'ONG a déposé plainte aux côté du syndicat des salariés et de l’Etat de Washington pour  «  manque   de   protection   des   travailleurs   engagés   dans   les   travaux d’assainissement et exposés à des risques d’inhalation de substances toxiques ». Sans compter la santé des habitants actuels de « Tri-Cities » (constituée des trois villes de Richland, Kennewick et Pasco) l'agglomération située en bordure nord-ouest de Hanford qui compte... 230 000 habitants.

Areva est partie prenante à Handford : http://www.hanford.gov//pageAction.cfm/Search?q=areva  et http://www.areva.com/FR/activites-1108/areva-hanford-assainissement-et-dmantlement-du-site-de-stockage-us.html  et http://www.hanford.gov/files.cfm/DOE-CX-00141.pdf et http://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/purex#PUREX1

(2) le plus grand cours d'eau de la région Nord-Ouest Pacifique de l'Amérique du Nord par sa longueur, par la taille de son bassin versant et par son débit à l'embouchure (le plus important de tous les fleuves nord-américains se jetant dans le Pacifique), ce qui le rendait intéressant pour refroidir les nombreux réacteurs et la centrale nucléaire du site, et diluer les rejets chimiques et radioactifs.

*rad : unité de mesure (remplacée en 1975 par le gray de symbole Gy, mais très utilisée aux Etats-Unis) de la dose radiative d'un rayonnement ionisant équivalente à 100 ergs d’énergie absorbés dans un gramme de matière. 1 rd = 0,01 Gy = 1 cGy = 10 mGy

Angela Merkel, in her congratulatory message to Donald Trump after his election victory, struck a reminder of the values connecting Germany and America: “democracy, freedom and respect for the law and the dignity of man.” Merkel alluded to the so-called Wertegemeinschaft, or community of values, that many politicians and citizens of Western countries frequently invoke. The term not only implies that the world has by and large converged on shared values, but also that these values are enshrined in the international political and economic system. The mainstream views the global order as a reflection of the shared values. This in turn makes it regard the international system as fundamentally just and without any real alternative. While problems such as poverty and climate change are acknowledged, solutions are to be sought primarily in better planning, implementation and cooperation.

The defenders of the status quo divide the world into “good” and “bad” – those who play along the rules of the international system and those who don’t. The Economist is the best example of a publication that sees the global system and the liberal values as mirror images of one other. Pick up any issue of The Economist and you’ll realize that – beyond the rhetoric of shared values – it’s above all the creation of wealth and the pursuit of money that define this worldview. Progress-oriented, more-is-better thinking is so deeply entrenched within the mainstream that to doubt it is considered heresy.

I think that the system-value conflation is wrong, self-serving and harmful to peace, justice, equality and a healthy planet. I believe that the mainstream media reflect this conflation and are thus ill-equipped to uncover the structural problems of a system that in fact produces few winners and many losers. The reality as experienced by the losers – marginalized communities, people of color, unskilled workers, low-income populations, war-torn regions, economic migrants, refugees, Planet Earth etc. – is bleak. But the dominant opinion views their hopelessness and despair as isolated issues to be solved by tweaking the system a little bit.

Suddenly, after Trump and Brexit, even the mainstream is waking up to the crisis various people, communities and regions have been experiencing in different ways for decades. The predictable reaction usually includes urging the non-winners to renew their faith in the system. For the mainstream to ponder the possibility of a systematic origin of the crisis is unthinkable since they have already professed to the alternativelessness of the status quo. That the current system might not after all reflect and promote the cherished principles of liberty, freedom and equality does not occur to anybody who plays a part and has an interest in upholding the current order.

Mainstream opinion and analysis seem genuinely surprised about the current crisis. They have not seen this one coming and wonder how 70 years of growth, prosperity and peace could possibly culminate in crisis. What they fail to realize is that the post-World War II international order has for many always been a deeply flawed, unsustainable and unjust arrangement destined for collapse.

Chief among the charges critics have leveled against the global system is the obsession with growth or, more specifically, the assumption of unlimited economic growth. How exactly is the aggregate economy to grow forever in a limited ecosystem? The absence of discussion of an optimal scale of the aggregate economy is indicative of the irrational, unsustainable obsession with growth. This obsession is also reflected in the singular importance we attach to GDP, a number better thought of as a statistical deception hiding social and ecological costs and ignoring the value of unpaid work. A GDP increase does not tell us whether the people have actually become better off.

The system has failed most dramatically in sustaining the health of our planet. Environmental indicators across the board reveal the damage on the environment, the most epoch-defining, far-reaching and devastating impact being climate change. Climate change will hit poor countries in the global South hardest. This is greatly unjust for these countries have almost no responsibility for the CO2 level in the atmosphere. Worse, this injustice follows after centuries of discrimination by the West that that continues to this day.

Whereas the West locates its triumph in the ideas of the Enlightenment, non-Western countries see in the awakening of Europe the beginning of their subjugation and exploitation. Colonialism made possible the Industrial Revolution and established a global Master-Slave relationship that has not ended with the former colonies’ independence. The United States, in particular, has from the end of the Second World War to the present continually sought to exert mastery over other countries – through invasion (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq), toppling leaders (e.g. Iran, Chile), propping up its chosen man (e.g. Indonesia) or military aid (e.g. Yemen). We are told this has been necessary to uphold the liberal international order. Critics have pointed out that narrowly-defined economic interests have always been at the core of America’s wars. There is no denying that the international order and America’s economic interests are Siamese twins.

Wars, global and domestic inequalities, climate change – these are but some of the ugly faces of the global order. But if the international system has and continues to produce these terrible costs we must change the system itself. We must name the ‘alternativelessness’ as the self-serving lie that it is, abandon the neoliberal project and stop extractivism. For that to happen we need to enter into a new relationship with each other as well as nature. And, to do that, we need to really talk about spirituality, ideals and values.

The metaphysical is not optional but at the very core of positive change. Consider the example of the abolitionists. They understood, according to historian David Brion Davis, that they were tasked not only with banning an abhorrent practice, but more fundamentally with changing the deeply entrenched values that had made slavery acceptable in the first place. They realized that their ultimate task was to bring about a major transformation in moral perception. Martin Luther King, in his famous Riverside Church speech condemning the Vietnam War, but with racial inequality never far from his mind, similarly urged the nation to undergo a “radical revolution of values.” He saw the Vietnam War as a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit and called for a shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society and, more radically, an “all-embracing and unconditional love for all of mankind.”

Martin Luther King was unafraid to talk of uncompromised transcendental ideals because he understood that the ills of the world are first and foremost of spiritual origin. It is for this insight, and for the uncompromising alignment of the personal and the political, that he is recognized today, together with Gandhi, as one of the great leaders of the past century.

E.F. Schumacher, the iconoclastic and far-sighted author of Small is Beautiful, observed that, “no one is really working for peace unless they are working primarily for the restoration of wisdom.” If we confront ourselves truthfully and engage in foundational thinking about what we believe in about ourselves, our lives and the world, we will, he said, come to recognize the hollowness and unsatisfactoriness of materialism. The neglect of the spiritual, coupled with the relentless pursuit of material ends, Schumacher said, “necessarily sets man against man and nation against nation, because man’s needs are infinite and infinitude can be achieved only in the spiritual realm, never in the material.” He made these claims more than 50 years ago, well before the onslaught of neoliberalism that has further cemented greed and envy as pillars of the system.

To bring about meaningful change to the global system we first need a revolution of the spirit. Instead there seems to be a huge reluctance to engage in spiritual reflection and committing to transcendental ideals. Has moral thinking become old-fashioned and too burdensome? Are we altogether too skeptical and post-modern to find meaning in Gandhi’s dictum that Truth is the greatest religion? Fine, let there be multiple truths and yes, history shows the danger of imposing one’s truths on other people. But there is perhaps an equally great danger of shying away from seeking out what connects as beings on this earth and making this the ethical foundation for change.

Jakob Terwitte is currently doing a Master’s in China Studies at Peking University’s Yenching Academy. He holds a German passport, a BA in Political Science from Middlebury College and a MSc in Political Theory from the LSE. He’s interested in systems of oppression; critical approaches and theories that help make sense of these; the global economic system’s impact on the climate; social movements’ strategies in effecting political change; and workable alternatives to the current system.

Lately, it has become a habit of Orientalist apologists of Western imperialism to offer reductive historical and theological explanations of Sunni-Shi’a conflict in the Middle East region in order to cover up the blowback of ill-conceived Western military interventions and proxy wars that have reignited the flames of the internecine conflict in the Islamic World.

Some self-anointed “Arabists” posit that the division goes all the way back to the founding of Islam, 1400 years ago, and contend that the conflict emerged during the reign of the fourth caliph, Ali bin Abi Talib, in the seventh century A.D. I wonder what would be the American-led war on terror’s explanation of such “erudite” historians of Islam – that the cause of “the clash of civilizations” can be found in the Crusades when Richard the Lionheart and Saladin were skirmishing in the Levant and exchanging courtesies at the same time?

In modern times, the Sunni-Shi’a conflict in the Middle East region is essentially a political conflict between the Gulf Arab autocrats and Iran for regional dominance which is being presented to lay Muslims in the veneer of religiosity. Saudi Arabia which has been vying for power as the leader of Sunni bloc against the Shi’a-dominated Iran in the regional geopolitics was staunchly against the invasion of Iraq by the Bush Administration in 2003.

The Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein constituted a Sunni Arab bulwark against Iran’s meddling in the Arab World. But after Saddam was ousted from power in 2003 and subsequently when elections were held in Iraq which were swept by Shi’a-dominated parties, Iraq has now been led by a Shi’a-majority government that has become a steadfast regional ally of Iran. Consequently, Iran’s sphere of influence now extends all the way from territorially-contiguous Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and the Mediterranean coast.

Moreover, during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush Administration took advantage of ethnic and sectarian divisions in Iraq and used the Kurds and Shi’as against the Sunni-led Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. And during the occupation years, from 2003 to 2011, the once dominant Sunni minority was politically marginalized which further exacerbated the ethnic and sectarian divisions in Iraq.

The Saudi royal family was resentful of Iranian encroachment on the traditional Arab heartland. Therefore, when protests broke out against the Shi’a-dominated Assad regime in Syria in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, the Gulf Arab States along with their regional Sunni allies, Turkey and Jordan, and the Western patrons gradually militarized the protests to dismantle the Iranian axis.

According to reports, Syria’s pro-Assad militias are comprised of local militiamen as well as Shi’a foreign fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and even the Hazara Shi’as from as far away as Afghanistan and Pakistan. And similarly, Sunni jihadists from all over the region have also been flocking to the Syrian battlefield for the last six years. A full-scale Sunni-Shi’a war has been going on in Syria, Iraq and Yemen which will obviously have its repercussions all over the Islamic World where Sunni and Shi’a Muslims have coexisted in relative peace for centuries.

More to the point, the Islamic State, al-Nusra Front and the majority of Syrian militant groups are also basically anti-Shi’a sectarian outfits. Though the Islamic State has carried out a few acts of terrorism against the Western countries, such as the high profile Paris and Brussels attacks, but if we look at the pattern of its subversive activities, especially in the Middle East, it generally targets Shi’a Muslims in Syria and Iraq. A few acts of terrorism that it has carried out in the Gulf Arab States were also directed against Shi’a Muslims in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia and Shi’a mosques in Yemen and Kuwait.

Regarding the Syrian opposition, a small fraction of it has been comprised of defected Syrian soldiers who go by the name of Free Syria Army, but the vast majority has been comprised of Sunni Arab jihadists and armed tribesmen who have been generously funded, trained, armed and internationally legitimized by their regional and international patrons.

The Islamic State is nothing more than one of numerous Syrian militant outfits, others being: al Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, al-Tawhid brigade, Jaysh al Islam etc. All the Sunni Arab militant groups that are operating in Syria are just as fanatical and brutal as the Islamic State. The only feature that differentiates the Islamic State from the rest is that it is more ideological and independent-minded.

The reason why the US has turned against the Islamic State is that all other Syrian militant outfits have only local ambitions that are limited to fighting the Assad regime in Syria, while the Islamic State has established a global network of transnational terrorists that includes hundreds of Western citizens who can later become a national security risk to the Western countries.

Notwithstanding, in order to create a semblance of objectivity and fairness, the American policymakers and analysts are always willing to accept the blame for the mistakes of the distant past that have no bearing on their present policy, however, any fact that impinges on their present policy is conveniently brushed aside.

In the case of the formation of Islamic State, for instance, the US policy analysts are willing to concede that invading Iraq back in 2003 was a mistake that radicalized the Iraqi society, exacerbated sectarian divisions and gave birth to an unrelenting Sunni insurgency against the heavy handed and discriminatory policies of the Shi’a-dominated Iraqi government.

Similarly, the “war on terror” era political commentators also “generously” accept that the Cold War era policy of nurturing al-Qaeda, Taliban and myriads of other Afghan so-called “freedom fighters” against the erstwhile Soviet Union was a mistake, because all those fait accompli have no bearing on their present policy.

The mainstream media’s spin-doctors conveniently forget, however, that the formation of the Islamic State and myriads of other Sunni Arab jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq has as much to do with the unilateral invasion of Iraq back in 2003 under the Bush Administration as it has been the legacy of the Obama Administration that funded, armed, trained and internationally legitimized the Sunni militants against the Syrian regime since 2011-onward in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa region.

In fact, the proximate cause behind the rise of the Islamic State, al Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam and numerous other Sunni jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq has been the Obama Administration’s policy of intervention through proxies in Syria.

Apart from Syria and Iraq, two other flashpoints of Sunni-Shi’a conflict in the Middle East region are Bahrain and Yemen. When peaceful protests began against the Sunni monarchy in Bahrain by the Shi’a majority population in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, Saudi Arabia sent thousands of its own troops across the border to quell the demonstrations.

Similarly, when the Iran-backed Houthis, which is an offshoot of Shi’a Islam, overran Sana’a in September 2014, Saudi Arabia and UAE mounted another ill-conceived Sunni offensive against the Houthi militia. The nature of the conflict in Yemen is sectarian to an extent that recently, the Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda’s leader, Qasim al-Raymi, has claimed that al-Qaeda has been fighting hand in hand with the Saudi-led alliance against the Iran-backed rebels for the last couple of years.

The revelation does not comes as a surprise, however, because after all al-Qaeda’s official franchise in Syria, al-Nusra Front, has also been fighting hand in glove with the Syrian opposition against the Assad regime for the last six years of the Syrian civil war.

Now when the fire of inter-sectarian strife is burning on four different fronts in the Middle East and the Sunni and Shi’a communities are witnessing a merciless slaughter of their brethren in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain, then what kind of an Orientalist shill would have the time and luxury to look for the cause of the conflict in theology and history? If the Sunni and Shi’a Muslims have been so thirsty for each other’s blood since the founding of Islam, then how come they managed to survive as distinct sectarian groups for 1400 years?

Fact of the matter is that in modern times, the phenomena of Islamic radicalism, jihadism and the consequent Sunni-Shi’a conflict are only as old as the Soviet-Afghan jihad during the late seventies and eighties when the Western powers with the help of Saudi money and Pakistan’s intelligence agencies trained and armed Afghan jihadists to battle the Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

And the conflict has been further exacerbated in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 when the Western powers and their regional client states once again took advantage of the opportunity and nurtured militants against the Arab nationalist Qaddafi regime in Libya and the anti-Zionist Assad regime in Syria.

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petroimperialism.

The People’s Climate March on Saturday, April 29, 2017, flooded Washington, DC, with over 100,000 protesters. Organizers claimed 150,000, with marches in 330 other cities across the country and in three dozen solidarity events abroad. Coinciding with President Trump’s 100th day in office, the marchers also protested his anti-environmental actions.

The previous Saturday (April 22, 2017), thousands of scientists marched to protest the Trump administration’s belittling of science. The demonstrations were planned for Earth Day to signal a particular concern with the enormity of current climate policy. Across the US and in hundreds of cities across the globe, more than 600 actions on every continent including Antarctica, they excoriated the president with disparaging signs likening him to all kinds of toxins generally orange colored. When have scientists marched like this? They are clearly worried.

Contrary to the administration’s cavalier attitude, climate change is not a belief; it is a determined fact, measurable and rationally undeniable. Just about every major international scientific academy endorses it, including the US National Academy of Sciences.

The melting Arctic ice, the plight of polar bears, the pollution registered even in Arctic snow … none of it has been enough to deter this president. He asked theEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) in January to remove the climate change page from its website, which also carried links to emission data and scientific research. He wants to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, arrived at after great effort and now ratified by 144 countries out of the 197 participants. In typical Trump fashion, he later added he might stay on if the US got a better deal.

On March 28, he signed an executive order attempting to roll back the Clean Power Plan (CPP) and its restrictions on coal. He said it would bring jobs back to the coal mining communities.

While of much concern, it may not be as easy as he thinks. One might also have noticed the power companies (the main users of coal) are not rushing in to support Mr. Trump.

There is a good reason. The CPP generated discussion at all levels of society when it was proposed. The initial draft produced more than 4.3 million comments because the Environmental Protection Agency made extraordinary efforts to inform, conduct public hearings, hold joint discussions between regulators and power producers, and encourage collaborations between federal energy bodies. It was all designed to change the perspectives and motivations of stakeholders. In this, the EPA succeeded, so much so that even if the Trump administration prevails in its roll back, it is unlikely to find many takers.

At present, a full 44 percent of the US power supply is generated in coal-fired power plants. As of 2012, there were 572 such operational stations generating an average of 547 megawatts.

The pollution from this coal burning comes in many forms: toxic emissions, smog, soot, acid rain and global warming. To those who deny man-made CO2 as a contributor to global warming, there is an irrefutable answer. Carbon in CO2 released from the burning of fossil fuels presents a unique signature through delta13C negation. This is because plants have less of the 13C isotope of carbon than that in the atmosphere so that the burning of fossil fuels reduces the isotope in the atmosphere. It is measured as negative delta13C. The more negative the delta13C (as atmospheric CO2 increases), the higher the proportion of carbon from fossil fuels. Since 1980, delta13C has been on a consistent negative slope from -7.5 per mil to a -8.3 per mil in 2012 imputing human hands. Before the industrial revolution, it was -6.5 per mil. Put another way, our fingerprints are all over this crime scene.

The current EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, has repeatedly expressed doubts about the issue. Yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (2013) has enough detail to convince any rational skeptic.

For the Trump administration’s climate change deniers, one can only present measurable, undeniable facts. The latest Arctic Report Card released December 13, 2016, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration does exactly that. The peer-reviewed report brings together the work of 61 scientists from 11 nations, and is key to tracking changes in the Arctic.

Even Indonesian farmers are responding to the effects of climate change. Surely the American public has the right to expect public officials to be better informed than farmers, although the latter naturally observe the problems first hand.

What is happening in the Arctic is frightening.  The region has experienced record-setting surface temperatures for three years in a row accelerating the ice and snow melt.  In the past quarter-century it has lost two-thirds of the volume of sea ice as well as snow cover.  The result is increased exposure of water to sunlight and greater absorption of heat, which in turn melts more ice and snow in a vicious cycle (Martin Jeffries, James Overland and Don Perovich, Physics Today, October 2013).  Worth noting of course is that the Antarctic is not immune.

There is a disturbing photograph of the Arctic showing a large green area in the middle. Ice cover is now so thin, sunlight is able to penetrate through, enabling plankton to grow in the water below.The effect of Arctic warming on weather in the mid-latitudes is another issue. As yet the scientific community is ambivalent because mathematical computer simulations have not proved significant, at least not on a global scale. Local effects are another matter: Loss of sea ice in the Barents and Kara Seas in the Arctic have been linked to cold, stormy conditions in Eastern Asia through both simulations and field observations. It can, of course, be a harbinger of future global effects when the Arctic ice melts further.

The effect of Arctic warming on weather in the mid-latitudes is another issue. As yet the scientific community is ambivalent because mathematical computer simulations have not proved significant, at least not on a global scale. Local effects are another matter: Loss of sea ice in the Barents and Kara Seas in the Arctic have been linked to cold, stormy conditions in Eastern Asia through both simulations and field observations. It can, of course, be a harbinger of future global effects when the Arctic ice melts further.

Whether all the evidence and the logic will gather much traction among the climate change deniers of the Trump administration is another matter. That is why the People’s Climate March protesters were marching. So were the scientists. Their discipline, resilient yet based on fact, theoretical yet based on empirical evidence, bringing benefits to society as a whole, forces them to.

Author’s note:  This article appeared originally on truth-out.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 electronic media.  His work has been quoted in the U.S. Congress and published in the Congressional Record.

By the century’s end, some of Greenland’s ice will have vanished forever.

New research shows that the coastal glaciers and ice caps are melting faster than they ever have done, and they may even have already reached the point of no return two decades ago. That is because they have passed the stage at which they can refreeze their own meltwater.

These peripheral glaciers and icecaps cover an estimated 100,000 square kilometers of the island. And when they have gone, the world’s oceans will have risen by four centimeters.

Body of Greenland ice

But scientists reporting in Nature Communications journal say most of the Greenland ice – the biggest body of ice in the northern hemisphere – is still safe. Were all of its ice to melt, sea levels would rise by at least seven meters.

“Higher altitudes are colder, so the highest ice caps are still relatively healthy at the moment,” says study leader Brice Noël, a PhD student of polar glaciology and Arctic climate modeling at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

“However, we see melting occur higher and higher. That’s a big problem, because that ‘melting line’ is moving towards the altitude where most of the ice mass is.

“The main ice sheet in the interior of Greenland is much more elevated and isn’t doing too bad yet. But we can already see an increase in the altitude of the ‘melting line’ there as well.”

The coastal research concentrated on the mechanics of ice loss. Normally, glaciers and ice caps grow because summer meltwater drains through into the deeper frozen snow and freezes again. The icecap retains its mass, and even increases.

But 20 years ago, the firn, or older snow, became saturated, freezing right through, and more summer meltwater now runs to the sea. The rate of increase varies from 17% to 74%, and the icecaps each year are losing three times the mass loss measured in 1997.

Concern about Greenland ice and glaciers being in retreat is not new. In fact, glaciers in both hemispheres are observed to be in retreat, and the Geological Society of America has just published telltale imagery and an analysis based on observations of more than 5,200 glaciers in 19 regions around the world, showing that the loss of ice mass this century is without precedent.

So Greenland’s glaciers are just part of a bigger picture. But since Greenland is home to the second largest volume of ice on the planet, what happens there concerns the entire world.

Testimony to climate change

Researchers observed years ago that the rivers of Greenland ice are in spate, and rates of melting are thought likely to accelerate. The latest report is another piece of testimony to climate change in the far north.

“These peripheral glaciers and ice caps can be thought of as colonies of ice that are in rapid decline, many of which will likely disappear in the near future,” says Ian Howat, a glaciologist at Ohio State University in the US, and a co-author of the report.

“In that sense, you could say that they’re ‘doomed’. However, the ice sheet itself is still not ‘doomed’ in the same way. The vast interior ice sheet is more climatologically isolated than the surrounding glaciers and ice caps.

“Also, since this ‘tipping point’ was reached in the late 1990s before warming really took off, it indicates that these peripheral glaciers are very sensitive and, potentially, ephemeral relative to the timescales of response of the ice sheet.”

Tim Radford, a founding editor of Climate News Network, worked for The Guardian for 32 years, for most of that time as science editor. He has been covering climate change since 1988. Tim won the Association of British Science Writers award for science writer of the year four times, and a lifetime achievement award in 2005.

From a years-long drought in California to poisoned water in Flint, Michigan, the issue of access to clean water is increasingly pertinent. Climate change will only exacerbate this problem as water becomes more scarce in numerous parts of the world. As water becomes more scarce and infrastructure deteriorates, there could be more efforts to privatize water systems, which does not help the situation. 

Climate change and water scarcity

It is a fact that climate change is occurring and human activities, particularly carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, play a large role in driving it. The 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report issued dire warnings about climate change’s impact on the future of fresh water. The report said:

Climate change is projected to reduce renewable surface water and groundwater resources significantly in most dry subtropical regions…This will exacerbate competition for water among agriculture, ecosystems, settlements, industry and energy production, affecting regional water, energy and food security.

Not only will water become more scarce in dry, subtropical regions, its quality will diminish due to climate change. According to the report:

Climate change is projected to reduce raw water quality, posing risks to drinking water quality even with conventional treatment…The sources of the risks are increased temperature, increases in sediment, nutrient and pollutant loadings due to heavy rainfall, reduced dilution of pollutants during droughts, and disruption of treatment facilities during floods.

The report also projected that climate change will play a role in increasing floods “in parts of the south, southeast and northeast Asia, tropical Africa, and South America.” In other words, climate change will hurt all of humanity, but the world's poor will suffer the most.

By 2040, according to a World Resources Institute (WRI) report, 36 countries are predicted to face “extremely high” levels of water stress. This “means that more than 80 percent of the water available to agricultural, domestic, and industrial users is withdrawn annually—leaving businesses, farms, and communities vulnerable to scarcity.”

Residents, farmers and companies in these water-stressed countries are “highly dependent on limited amounts of water and vulnerable to even the slightest change in supply”—a risk heightened by the reality of climate change. These countries are located in the Caribbean, North Africa, the Middle East, South and Central Asia, and parts of the Mediterranean, including Bahrain, Barbados, Cyprus, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  

Climate change could also impact international security, laying the foundation for future conflicts as natural resources diminish. Neil Adger, a geography professor at Exeter University told the Guardian in 2014, “The things that drive conflict are sensitive to climate, particularly poverty and economic shocks. If there is a decrease in food supply or lots of people are pushed into poverty … it creates the environment where you are susceptible to conflict.”

These kinds of climate-induced conflicts would look like “food riots and unrest triggered by spiraling prices; clashes between farmers and herders of livestock over land and water; competing demands on water for irrigation or for cities,” according to the Guardian. 

The U.S. military already recognizes climate change as a security threat, particularly as a “threat multiplier” for global challenges like infectious diseases, terrorism and broader international stability. As a result, the Pentagon has made numerous plans to deal with climate change in its operations and infrastructure. 

Water privatization

As climate change increases global temperatures and causes odd weather patterns, multiple cities across the United States are experimenting with some form of water privatization. 

In February 2015, Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, signed a law green-lighting the privatization of municipal water systems. The bill, called the Water Infrastructure Protection Act (WIPA), allows municipalities to sell their water systems to private companies without a public referendum. Opponents argued it was a big giveaway to private corporations that undermines democracy. 

Wisconsin is another front for the battle over water privatization. A bill proposed by a Republican state legislator, at the behest of Pennsylvania-based water utility company Aqua America, would make it easier for private companies to buy Wisconsin’s municipal water systems. Current Wisconsin law says if a public water system is to be sold to a private company, it has to go through public referendum after all the facts are publicly known. The proposed bill would make public referendum optional instead of mandatory. 

Justin Sargent, chief of staff for Wisconsin State Senator Chris Larson (D), called it “mind-boggling.” He told AlterNet, “Instead of having an automatic referendum, you have to earn it. So you’d have to petition your neighbors. You’d have to go around and collect enough signatures to get a referendum pulled together.”

The signatures for the referendum would have to be collected before the Public Service Commission, a state oversight agency, determines all the facts of selling a public water system to a private entity. This gives the corporation an opportunity to present its side for privatizing water to the public before all the facts are available. If the public realizes they oppose it—after the PSC releases more information about the impacts of water privatization—they have no chance for a referendum against it. 

Another bill streamlines the high-capacity well approval process, eliminating state government approval requirements to replace and reconstruct high-capacity water wells. This means someone who owns a high-capacity well could make their well deeper or bigger without state approval. 

Both the municipal water sale bill and the high-capacity well bill failed to make it through the Wisconsin state legislature. Sargent told AlterNet that Sen. Larson has re-introduced a bill prohibiting the sale of municipal water systems. 

Supporters of the 2015 New Jersey bill and other advocates of water privatization argue that handing control of water systems to private companies is sometimes necessary, especially if the government does a bad job of maintaining and operating those systems. 

There is also a Shock Doctrine element, in the sense that Republicans, hell-bent on gutting any government agency or social welfare and environmental protection in their sight, will cripple the government so much on the state, local and federal levels and then argue, "See, government doesn’t work. Time for the private sector to clean this up."

Not a good look for water privatization    

The record of water privatization efforts is far from rosy. A report by the Pacific Institute, an environment, development and security research organization, points out numerous problems with water privatization. 

One is undermining public ownership of water, water rights and public monitoring of water management. When water management and ownership transfers to private actors, there is less public oversight over how water systems are managed, which is a recipe for abuse. This can also lead to a transfer of wealth out of the community and into private corporations. “In the past, revenues generated from local sales of water and services went to local agencies for reinvestment in the community,” according to the study. Under water privatization, those assets derived from water services go to corporate profits, outside parties, and other corporate entities rather local communities. 

Privatization also sometimes leads to higher water prices, since a corporation’s primary goal is to maximize profit. On top of that, private corporations have typically been reluctant to invest in poor communities’ water sectors.

According to the Pacific Institute report, “Some multinational companies balk at provisions requiring expansion of coverage to marginal communities, stating that it is unrealistic to expect universal household connections in low-income areas in the immediate future, that lack of roads hinders expansion, and that rapid, uncontrolled peri-urban growth prevents proper water planning and service provision.” 

Water privatization also fails to protect surrounding ecosystems because “Private operators have little incentive to operate reservoirs to maintain minimum downstream flows required for ecosystem health, fishing or recreational interests, and so forth.” Related to that, privatization, without clear regulation, can lessen protection of water quality. As the report says, “Private suppliers of water have few economic incentives to address long-term (chronic) health problems associated with low levels of some pollutants. In addition, private water suppliers have an incentive to understate or misrepresent to customers the size and potential impacts of problems that do occur.”  

A June 2016 report by Corporate Accountability International found that water privatization, in the form of public-private partnerships (PPPs), not only fails to solve the problem of fixing public water systems to ensure safe and clean drinking water but actually exacerbates it. One example is Flint, Michigan, which since April 2014, continues to face lead contamination in its drinking water. 

In early February 2015, the city of Flint hired Veolia North America to assess the city’s water quality and provide advice on improving it. The company was paid $40,000 for its advice. Veolia is a French multinational company that does water and waste management, public transport and energy services, and has dozens of subsidiaries around the world, including North America. 

Veolia’s report to the city did not mention lead even though it discovered water discoloration and high TTHM levels. In addition, the company maintained that Flint’s water was safe to drink, despite complaints from residents and city council members. On top of that, according to Corporate Accountability International, “Veolia then attempted to parlay its two-week consulting contract to secure a multi-year contract managing the city’s water—a deal that would have given nearly total control of the city’s water system to Veolia.”

Veolia is now named in several lawsuits by Flint residents and the NAACP over its role in prolonging the city’s water crisis.   

Another example mentioned in Corporate Accountability International’s report is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2012, the city signed a public-private partnership with Veolia granting the company important management roles at the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA), along with managing "day-to-day activities” at PWSA. Veolia's role at PWSA later changed to consulting instead of management.

In October 2016, PWSA filed a lawsuit against Veolia. In its suit, PWSA said:

“Contrary to Veolia’s claims of world-class expertise in the management of water utilities, PWSA asserts that Veolia grossly mismanaged PWSA’s operations, abused its positions of special trust and confidence, and misled and deceived PWSA as part of its efforts to maximize profits for itself to the unfair detriment of PWSA and its customers.

During Veolia’s tenure, failures included the botched procurement and implementation of a new automated water meter reading system, the improper billing of PWSA customers and the mishandled change in chemicals related to corrosion control resulting in the issuance by authorities of a notice of violation and an administrative order.” 

As climate change continues, water will become more scarce, and there may be more efforts to privatize public water systems. Water is a natural resource. Every living being needs access to clean, fresh water to survive. Clearly, it’s best to leave water in the hands of the public, rather than hand it over private corporations whose primary goal is maximizing profit.   

[Editor's note: A previous version of this article said that Veolia granted the company "senior executive, management and operations duties at the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority." This has been updated to say that Veolia granted the company "important management roles at the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority," and that "Veolia's role at PWSA later changed to consulting instead of management."]

Adam Hudson is a journalist, writer and photographer. His work has appeared in Truthout, AlterNet, teleSUR English, the Nation and other publications.  

The following excerpt is from Razmig Keucheyan's new book, Nature Is a Battlefield:Towards a Political Ecology(Polity Books, 2017)

Without doubt, ecological inequalities in general and, in particular, environmental racism, take on their most acute form in the postcolonial context. In a column published in the Washington Post in June 2007 the UN general secretary Ban Ki-Moon stated that the fighting in Darfur was linked to climatic pressures: "It is no accident," he declared, "that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought." Like all postcolonial conflicts, this war resulted from numerous intertwined factors, but Ban Ki-Moon was at least right to say that the ecology of the conflict is of decisive importance for understanding how it broke out and then went on to unfold. More precisely, we could say that political ecology provides the most adequate viewpoint for understanding the dynamic of the factors involved.

In recent years, the war in Darfur has been the object of a public awareness campaign such as few African conflicts have previously enjoyed. An international coalition called Save Darfur, bringing together dozens of churches and other organizations, has since 2004 campaigned for an end to the ‘genocide’ and for intervention by the international community. Co-founded by public figures like Elie Wiesel  and the ineffable George Clooney, the coalition’s French branch includes supporters such as Bernard-Henri Lévy, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor and Bernard Kouchner. This conflict is usually presented as one opposing ‘Arabs’ to ‘Africans,’ with the former portrayed as Muslims having come from the North or from outside the country who commit the bulk of the abuses, as against the ‘Africans’ native to this region of Western Sudan covering approximately one-fifth of the country’s territory. The dividing line between the two groups is therefore essentially perceived as being ethnic and religious in character.

The reality could hardly be more different from this media representation. In fact most of the protagonists in this conflict are Muslims and all have the same skin colour. To put that more pointedly, it is impossible to distinguish between two ‘ethnic groups’ on the basis of these criteria. Even just twenty years ago the very idea of ‘Arabs’ and ‘Africans’ would have been incomprehensible to the inhabitants of Darfur. The perception of this war in Western countries since it broke out in 2003—or more accurately, since it became more aggravated; in fact there had already been conflicts before this date, particularly in 1987-89—is very much over-determined by the ‘global war on terror’ that has been underway since the 11 September 2001 attacks. The war on terror has imposed a certain interpretative framework on all conflicts in the region, founded on categories like ‘Muslims,’ ‘Arabs,’ ‘Islamists,’ ‘terrorists’ and so on. In this global war, the Khartoum government—held responsible for this situation—is a designated enemy of Washington; and President Omar al-Bashir does evidently bear some responsibility for the massacres and, in particular, for arming the Janjawid militias. Yet the conflict resists these interpretative assumptions: and in any case, not all the Janjawid are ‘Arabs’ and it is far from the case that all the ‘Arabs’ belong to these militias.

Darfur is made up of different clans. Some of them are nomads while others are settled, and this distinction is crucial for understanding the social structure of this region. For a long time the coexistence of these two groups took place without major clashes, with the settled farmers of the Fur clan (Darfur means ‘House of the Fur’ in Arabic, with the Fur being the region’s main ethnic group) allowing the nomads and, in particular, the Baggara  tribe, to graze livestock on their land. However, starting in the 1970s, a series of extreme climatic phenomena upset the existing arrangements. The Sahel now fell victim to terrible droughts, in particular between 1982 and 1985. Deforestation accelerated, with 600,000 hectares of forest lost each year between 1990 and 2000. Desertification, the erosion of the soil and sharply declining rainfall led to reduced agricultural production. At the same time as water became more scarce, the population of Darfur increased, from 1.1 million inhabitants in 1956 to 7.5 million in 2008.

These climatic phenomena are forcing the groups on the ground to adapt, in a context in which resources are becoming increasingly scarce. The forests and pasture-lands accessible to the nomads are shrinking; all the more so given that the farmers, who are themselves under pressure, are now hostile to giving them access to their properties. This in turn drives the nomads to take up permanent abodes. The tensions over ever-less productive land multiply. And we can understand what follows from this.

Extra-environmental factors have also radicalized the con- flict. Like the east and south of Sudan, Darfur is a historically poor region that has long been denied a share in the country’s power and wealth, which are principally concentrated around Khartoum. Add to this the fact that numerous conflicts during the Cold War made weapons readily available in Africa, thus allowing the warring forces to arm themselves. Moreover, Darfur shares a border with Chad, a country that has been in an almost constant state of civil war since the 1960s and which also fought a foreign war with Gaddafi’s Libya. Indeed, Gaddafi initially trained and armed the Janjawid militias.

The result was a conflict that led to between 300,000 and 500,000 deaths, as well as 2.5 million refugees. Some estimates set the number of fatalities lower, at around 150,000. Whatever the case may be, military violence proper is responsible for only 25 percent of these deaths, with the illness and malnutrition resulting from population displacements and the current living conditions accounting for the remainder of the total.

These numbers do not alone explain the attention that this war has garnered in Western countries. By comparison, the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo claimed some five million victims from 1990 onward (all different causes of death included), without this stirring George Clooney to action. Women particularly fell victim to the violence in Darfur—as is often the case in the context of the ‘new wars’ that we discuss in Chapter 3. In the sexual division of labour that currently exists in the region, women are responsible for procuring water; but with desertification and declining rain- fall, they have to travel ever greater distances to get to it, which makes them all the more exposed to violence from men.46 It is very often the case that men cannot leave the refugee camps, for fear of being considered combatants and killed—and as such, women are effectively compelled to take on an increasing share of these responsibilities.

The people whom the Western media call ‘Arabs’ are most often former nomads, while ‘Africans’ refers to the settled tribes. The Muslim presence in the region goes back to the eighth century—that is, the very first decades of Islam’s expansion. The idea that the Darfur conflict is the result of outsider Muslim Arabs’ intrusion into a region that had up till then remained ethno-religiously ‘pure’ is therefore a false one.

Of course, there could be no question of arguing that the ‘ethnic’ dimension of the conflict is purely a media invention. Ethnic groups certainly do exist in Darfur, and for a simple reason: the British colonizers invented them. There was a sultanate in Darfur from the mid seventeenth century onward, but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the British took possession of the region, with the colonial period in Sudan lasting from 1916 to 1956. The incoming British established a system of land property rights, attributing por- tions of land to certain ethnicities and not others. On the one hand, this system allowed them to control the local populations, after the tribes of Darfur had determinedly opposed British conquest. Moreover, it allowed the British to profit from the region economically, particularly by way of taxation. An early crystallization of these ‘ethnic groups’ took place on the basis of landed property (and, therefore, on a class basis), as British colonialism gave rise to an opposition between the settlers and the nomads, with those who were attributed land henceforth being opposed to the others. The current conflict is the ultimate result of this property system. Such approaches were commonplace among imperialists at the time, in what Mahmood Mamdani has called the strategy of ‘re-define and rule.’ Indeed, the opposition between the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda has a similar genealogy.

The sociologist Harald Welzer has said that Darfur is one of those ‘conflicts that have ecological causes’ and yet ‘are perceived as ethnic conflicts.’ As we have seen, this was also Ban Ki-moon’s view, expressed in his Washington Post column in 2007. Given what we have observed thus far, we can say that they are simultaneously both correct and mistaken. They are wrong because ethnic groups are the object of a long history in Darfur, going back to the colonial period; and over time, this has made them into a reality. Their mode of existence is historical, and we have to understand this history if we are to grasp the current conflict. At the same time, however, they are also correct, insofar as over the last half-century this colonial and postcolonial history has collided with extreme climatic phenomena, which has led to an intensifying crystallization of ethnic identities.

Razmig Keucheyan teaches sociology at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne.

The following excerpt is from Diane Tuft's new book The Arctic Melt: Images of a Disappearing Landscape(Assouline, 2017). Scroll down to view selected photographs from the book.

My attachment to frozen water began with my first photographic series, Distillations in 1998. Snow and ice became the palette that I would use for the next eighteen years to visually record atmospheric effects on the Earth’s landscape. Each snowflake and ice crystal is unique. When combined with another, they form an ever-changing palette. While exploring the Arctic this past year, I was transfixed by the panoramic vistas, with shapes and patterns that appeared as sculptures formed naturally by wind, air, temperature, moisture, and atmospheric conditions. As the sun changes its position, the colors of the ultraviolet, infrared, and visible-light spectrum are reflected, refracted, and absorbed within these ice sculptures.

The Arctic is melting faster than any other place in the world. I felt compelled to photograph its splendor before the effects of global warming cause this landscape to disappear. In order to get a comprehensive picture of the fragility of the Arctic, I traveled to the mountain glaciers of Svalbard, Norway, the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice, and the icebergs and ice sheet of Greenland.

I began my Arctic exploration on June 4, 2015, at 78 degrees North in Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean located halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Most of Svalbard’s twenty-three thousand square miles remain untouched by civilization, and the majority of its twenty-six hundred inhabitants live in Longyearbyen, the world’s northernmost settlement. After great difficulty arranging to rent the only helicopter in Svalbard, I was able to access the region’s mountain glaciers and surrounding waters.

Circling the Konglomeratfjellet, a mountain in Wedel Jarlsberg Land that towers above the almost ten-mile Recherchebreen glacier, I became mesmerized by the strong ultraviolet shadows cast by the low sun. Through my camera lens, the glacier’s pristine snowdrifts became soft gentle forms. The turquoise-blue meltwater ponds of the archipelago’s Nathorstbreen and Wahlenbergbreen glaciers became otherworldly shapes. Viewed from above, remnants of snow on the Wordiekammen, a geological formation made of limestone rocks, appeared to outline the area, defining it from the surrounding blue-green of the Isfjorden inlet. Ice floes in Isfjorden created patterns of cracked ice resembling abstract paintings. Terracotta rivers of ancient Devonian sandstone branched throughout the valleys of the Abrahamsenbreen glacier.

Beyond the beauty of Svalbard, I was also aware that it is home to the Arctic’s only international science research center, Ny-Ålesund. On a previous photographic journey to Antarctica, I had spoken with climate change scientists at the U.S. scientific research center, McMurdo. I was now interested in discussing the effects of climate change on the Arctic.

Because accessing Ny-Ålesund is restricted to the scientific community, I had to secure a letter of invitation from a scientist whose research would coincide with my visit. After several months, Vittorio Pasquali from the National Research Council of Italy wrote a letter on my behalf to the Norwegian government. Vittorio was studying the effects of light on the behavior of the Lepidurus arcticus—a small crustacean that only lives in Arctic ponds. This letter gave me access to interview the other research scientists who were stationed there.

These scientists were studying a range of subjects including: the effect of climate change on the ocean’s kelp population and on Arctic greenhouse gases, pollution’s effect on the DNA of Arctic birds, and the effect of increased radiation on phytoplankton.

While at Ny-Ålesund, I was fortunate to spend an afternoon in the Kongsfjorden inlet, boating through small icebergs while watching thousands of Arctic birds, including glaucous gulls and fulmars, nesting on steep rocks jutting out of the water. In the background I could hear the thunder of calving glaciers releasing chunks of ice into the sea.

I knew that the majesty of Svalbard would change, but I wondered if its mountain glaciers would exist by the end of the century.

I continued my journey on June 16 by traveling through the Arctic Ocean to the North Pole, where I would be able to experience the Arctic’s sea ice. In order to reach the North Pole, I had to travel on a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker leaving from Murmansk, Russia.

Once again, I was mesmerized by the Arctic’s splendor. The vast frozen fields were absolutely breathtaking. My senses were stimulated as I watched, listened, and felt the ship break its way through the endless white expanse. Large blue-green blocks of ice lifted out of the ocean and fell back on themselves. Signs of melt were everywhere. Areas of open water were studded with ice paddies that would be used as stepping-stones for the occasional polar bear. When I embarked on my journey, I thought that I would see several polar bears, but during my two-week trip, I encountered only three adults and three cubs.

The sporadic snow paddies were a clue to the difficulty the bears have in living and navigating the Arctic waters.

For thousands of years, the sea ice during the Arctic winters through the month of June was always too thick for surface vessels to access the North Pole. But now, because of climate change, our vessel was the third earliest to ever reach the Pole, and the only vessel to arrive during summer solstice. With a balmy temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the ice at the North Pole was too thin to disembark. It took several hours to find an ice floe that could support the weight of our group.

While this was an amazing experience, it disturbed me to know that my trip through the Arctic Ocean was only possible because of the Arctic melt

In 2007, I had photographed icebergs, glaciers, and the ice sheet in Ilulissat, Greenland. Nearly a decade later, I decided to return so that I could visually record the difference in the land- scape and document the impact climate change has had on the area. I was also afforded the opportunity to visit the northern part of Greenland’s ice sheet and observe ice-core drilling.

During my first visit to Ilulissat, the temperature was 30 degrees Fahrenheit, and Disko Bay was spotted with colossal snow-covered icebergs that had calved from the Jakobshavn and surrounding glaciers. The ice sheet was blanketed with fluffy snow studded with cryoconite holes—cylindrical depressions caused by solar radiation being absorbed by sediment that has landed on the ice surface. When I returned to Ilulissat in 2016, the Jakobshavn glacier was calving at such a rapid rate that the entire inlet was filled with small icebergs that continually emptied into Disko Bay. They were in a constant state of melt: waterfalls tumbling from their tops and rivulets raining from their interiors. Icebergs cracked, split, and fell into the bay daily.

The majestic Eqi glacier, which I had photographed in 2007, had retreated so much that it was now almost entirely on bedrock. The constant calving no longer produced icebergs; instead, it released small sediment-colored pieces of snow. Taking the same aerial flight over the ice sheet that I took in 2007, I now saw rough peaks of snow and silt that were studded with hundreds of meltwater ponds, some so large that they could be considered lakes. The meltwater ponds would eventually empty into deep moulins, which became streams that drained into the waters surrounding Greenland.

The temperature in Ilulissat just nine years later was a temperate 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

Since 1955, Greenland’s ice sheet has served as a unique research database with the introduction of ice-core drilling. Scientists analyze the data derived from ice-core segments to determine what the atmospheric conditions, temperature, and sea level were during a specific time period. This information is used to predict future climates under similar past atmospheric conditions.

Alan Stoga, the chairman of the Tällberg Foundation, invited me to watch the first ice cores being drilled at the East Greenland Ice Core Project (EGRIP), located at 76 degrees North. Tällberg’s mission is to encourage global conversation about issues critical to the evolution of our societies, including climate change.

Our seven-member delegation met on July 16 in the town of Kangerlussuaq and flew in an LC-130 Hercules plane to the campsite, located directly over the North-East Greenland Ice Stream.

The Greenland ice sheet stretches for miles, providing an endless white vista with hints of ultraviolet blue. The horizon undulates in conjunction with the levels of underground streams. For four days we camped at EGRIP, learning the importance of the data that will eventually come from ice-core research. It would take three years to extract cores from the final depth of twenty-six hundred meters, equivalent to one hundred thousand years ago.

Scientists predict that the sea level could rise three to six feet or more by the end of the century, inundating coastal area world-wide and displacing tens of millions of people. The melting of mountain glaciers and Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheet will be significant factors to sea level rise.

Will the Arctic ice become a “new wonder” of the world—a natural phenomenon that existed for a short period of time and then finally disappeared?

I think about the different forms of ice within the Arctic Ocean. I think about the soft, subtle folds in the snow within the Svalbard glaciers.

I think about the towering icebergs that I saw in 2007 that are now half the size.

I think about the glistening blue meltwater ponds now studding the glaciers.

This book is a visual testimony to the fragile and shifting landscape of the Arctic, which is now melting at an unprecedented rate. The photographs that follow serve as documentation of the expansive beauty of the Arctic now and the dire situation that it continues to face if we do not provide a sustainable environment for the future of our planet.

Reaching Out, De Quervain Havn, Greenland. © Diane Tuft

Themes and Variations, Arctic Ocean, 84 Degrees N. © Diane Tuft

Diane Tuft is a mixed-media artist who has focused primarily on photography since 1998. She earned a degree in mathematics at the University of Connecticut before continuing her studies in art at the Pratt Institute, New York. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art; the International Center of Photography, in New York City; the Parrish Art Museum, in Water Mill, New York; as well as numerous private collections. She lives and works in New York City.

I bet you think of climate change as an environmental issue. It’s mainly about the atmosphere and polar bears and carbon, right? Well, not really. I mean yes, it is about those things, but mainly it’s about human rights and politics. If that doesn’t make immediate sense to you, then this post is for you. Here are three reasons climate change is about human rights:

1. Responsibility for climate change, its impacts and the capacity to adapt to it are unequal
2. Climate change deepens every existing social inequality
3. Climate action has huge potential to enhance equality and human rights

Let’s explore each of those points.

1. Responsibility, impacts and capacity are uneven.

Responsibility for climate change

The roots of climate change go back to the drawn of the Industrial Revolution, which kicked off in the U.K. in the late 1700s and quickly spread around North Western Europe and then the world. The discovery of coal, and later oil and gas, changed everything.

These three fossil fuels are fossilised organic matter from millions of years ago, hugely energy-dense, which release their pent up energy when burned. Being made from ancient dead plants and animals, they are full of carbon, and when burnt, that carbon goes into the atmosphere. The extra carbon acts like an insulating blanket, blocking heat from radiating out to space, making the Earth warmer. This is known as the “greenhouse effect” and is vital to life. Without it we’d be absolutely freezing, like a planet sized fridge-freezer. But when it comes to blankets, it’s not just ‘the more the better’ is it? You get too hot. And that’s what’s happening now.

Europe and later the other rich nations were blazing it up for decades before poorer countries came on the fossil-burning scene, and by the time industrialization took off in the rest of the world (which is still ongoing) we had already chucked enough carbon into the sky to start changing the Earth’s entire climate. Until the 1960s the top emitters were all rich industrialized nations (with the UK at the top of that list for roughly a century after kicking off the Industrial Revolution). In the mid 20th century China and Russia joined the big boys of carbon pollution. Today China is the biggest emitter, but it’s important to remember that 1) it has well over a billion people, roughly one seventh of the world’s population; and 2) China manufactures a large proportion of the world’s goods.

If you put it in per person terms instead, the biggest emitters are all rich countries, with Australia and the USA topping the list.

Watch this 49-second visualization of historical emissions around the world to get a sense of it (and check out this epic interactive version on Carbon Brief):

The point is, over the last 200-odd years, the vast bulk of the carbon emissions have come from the rich countries: Europe, North America, Australia, Japan. Apart from Japan, they happen to be Western and white.

Impacts of climate change

The impacts of climate change are also uneven across the globe, and across each country. The most severe climate impacts are expected across tropical regions – which happen to be in Africa, Asia and South America – as they are already hot and stormy. The more arid parts of Australia and USA will also be seriously affected by heatwaves, droughts, storms and wildfires. Low-lying and coastal areas will be worst hit by rising sea levels – there are small low-lying island states which are literally already disappearing under the sea. Most of the countries hit first and worst by climate change are poor, and all the poorest regions of the world are expected to have very severe impacts.

Map of the Day | Impact of global warming on crop yields | UN Climate Change report released http://t.co/Lxq42nrrsI pic.twitter.com/R8EPZ3taPw

— Dr Steve Millington (@DrSDMillington) March 31, 2014

It’s worth noting that even at the catastrophic 4 degrees of warming that sees most of the world turn into a desert or a floodplain, the UK remains “habitable.” That doesn’t mean we’d get off scott-free, it would still see floods, droughts, sea level rise, water shortages and food prices rocketing. (And those impacts would be mostly borne by the British poor – who else?) But it would be an oasis of liveability compared to the rest of the world.

It’s also worth noting that even 2 degrees of warming, which politicians have agreed as the line in the sand, would still be an absolute disaster for Africa. Yeah, looks like the West is screwing over Africa yet again. Shameful.

Triggering a global transformation of our energy systems as required by the Paris Agreement does not take the whole world; it can be started by just a small group of countries, according to a new Climate Action Tracker report.

The global rise of renewable energy, which accounted for over half of all new electricity installations in 2015, was a result of strong actions by just a few countries, according to “Faster & Cleaner 2: kickstarting global decarbonization,” released April 20 by the Climate Action Tracker and the ClimateWorks Foundation.

The report based its investigation on the fact that to meet the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature limit, the global energy system must completely decarbonize by midcentury.

The Climate Action Tracker examined the trends driving decarbonization in three key sectors of the global energy system—power, transportation and buildings—and looked at what can drive rapid transitions in these areas.

“Germany, Denmark and Spain introduced strong policy packages to encourage renewable energy, providing signals to investors and developers to invest in the new technologies. Next came the U.K. and Italy, and then China, whose bulk manufacture—especially in solar technology—provided economies of scale,” said Markus Hagemann, of NewClimate Institute and lead author of the report.

Between 2006 and 2015, installed wind power capacity increased by 600 percent, and solar energy capacity increased by 3500 percent. By 2030, solar PV is projected to become the cheapest energy generation source in most countries. “There is still a long way to go toward total decarbonisation, but the power sector has picked up huge momentum,” said Hagemann.

“The policy packages of early movers included strong financial support schemes such as feed-in tariffs as well as mid- to long-term renewable energy targets. These gave certainty to investors and triggered the massive growth and price drops we see today. This initiated the wide spread application of such instruments where, by 2015, 146 countries had implemented such support schemes,” said Andrzej Ancygier, of Climate Analytics.

The report finds a similar trend is beginning in the transport sector, with the production of electric drive vehicles, which exceeded one million sales in 2016. New sales continue to exceed prior projections from only a few years ago.

“The same formula can be applied to electric cars—while they have further to go than renewable energy, all the signs are there for the decarbonisation of this sector to take off. Again, we find this change was started by just a few key players, this time Norway, the Netherlands, California and, more recently, China,” said Sebastian Sterl, of NewClimate Institute.

The type of successful policy packages that kick-started the sector often include a focus on targets for takeup, campaigns on behavioural change, infrastructure investment—especially important for electric vehicles—and research and development.

The final sector studied in the report is buildings, which is lagging behind the other two sectors.

“With the building sector, there are proven technological solutions that can result in new, zero-carbon buildings. Innovative financial mechanisms to increase the rate of retrofitting buildings, as well as good examples of building codes for new builds, would drive adoption of these technologies,” said Yvonne Deng of Ecofys, an energy consultancy.

The report makes a number of recommendations as to how decarbonization in those sectors can meet the Paris Agreement challenge, such as increasing flexibility in power systems to integrate larger shares of renewable energy, and more countries adopting policies in the electric vehicle market and on building standards.

Download the executive summary and the full report.

Cindy Baxter is a communications specialist at the Climate Action Tracker, a consortium of three research organizations that measures government climate action.

Marchers take part in the Global Climate March in Washington, DC on November 29, 2015, the eve of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.
Photo Credit: Rena Schild/Shutterstock

Not since World War II have more human beings been at risk from disease and starvation than at this very moment. On March 10th, Stephen O’Brien, under secretary-general of the United Nations for humanitarian affairs, informed the Security Council that 20 million people in three African countries -- Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan -- as well as in Yemen were likely to die if not provided with emergency food and medical aid. “We are at a critical point in history,” he declared. “Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the U.N.”  Without coordinated international action, he added, “people will simply starve to death [or] suffer and die from disease.”

Major famines have, of course, occurred before, but never in memory on such a scale in four places simultaneously. According to O’Brien, 7.3 million people are at risk in Yemen, 5.1 million in the Lake Chad area of northeastern Nigeria, 5 million in South Sudan, and 2.9 million in Somalia. In each of these countries, some lethal combination of war, persistent drought, and political instability is causing drastic cuts in essential food and water supplies. Of those 20 million people at risk of death, an estimated 1.4 million are young children.

Despite the potential severity of the crisis, U.N. officials remain confident that many of those at risk can be saved if sufficient food and medical assistance is provided in time and the warring parties allow humanitarian aid workers to reach those in the greatest need. “We have strategic, coordinated, and prioritized plans in every country,” O’Brien said. “With sufficient and timely financial support, humanitarians can still help to prevent the worst-case scenario.”

All in all, the cost of such an intervention is not great: an estimated $4.4 billion to implement that U.N. action plan and save most of those 20 million lives. 

The international response? Essentially, a giant shrug of indifference.

To have time to deliver sufficient supplies, U.N. officials indicated that the money would need to be in pocket by the end of March. It’s now April and international donors have given only a paltry $423 million -- less than a tenth of what’s needed. While, for instance, President Donald Trump sought Congressional approval for a $54 billion increase in U.S. military spending (bringing total defense expenditures in the coming year to $603 billion) and launched $89 million worth of Tomahawk missiles against a single Syrian air base, the U.S. has offered precious little to allay the coming disaster in three countries in which it has taken military actions in recent years. As if to add insult to injury, on February 15th Trump told Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari that he was inclined to sell his country 12 Super-Tucano light-strike aircraft, potentially depleting Nigeria of $600 million it desperately needs for famine relief.    

Moreover, just as those U.N. officials were pleading fruitlessly for increased humanitarian funding and an end to the fierce and complex set of conflicts in South Sudan and Yemen (so that they could facilitate the safe delivery of emergency food supplies to those countries), the Trump administration was announcing plans to reduce American contributions to the United Nations by 40%.  It was also preparing to send additional weaponry to Saudi Arabia, the country most responsible for devastating air strikes on Yemen’s food and water infrastructure. This goes beyond indifference.  This is complicity in mass extermination.

Like many people around the world, President Trump was horrified by images of young children suffocating from the nerve gas used by Syrian government forces in an April 4th raid on the rebel-held village of Khan Sheikhoun. “That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me -- big impact,” he told reporters. “That was a horrible, horrible thing. And I’ve been watching it and seeing it, and it doesn’t get any worse than that.” In reaction to those images, he ordered a barrage of cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base the following day. But Trump does not seem to have seen -- or has ignored -- equally heart-rending images of young children dying from the spreading famines in Africa and Yemen. Those children evidently don’t merit White House sympathy.

Who knows why not just Donald Trump but the world is proving so indifferent to the famines of 2017?  It could simply be donor fatigue or a media focused on the daily psychodrama that is now Washington, or growing fears about the unprecedented global refugee crisis and, of course, terrorism.  It’s a question worth a piece in itself, but I want to explore another one entirely.

Here’s the question I think we all should be asking: Is this what a world battered by climate change will be like -- one in which tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of people perish from disease, starvation, and heat prostration while the rest of us, living in less exposed areas, essentially do nothing to prevent their annihilation?

Famine, Drought, and Climate Change

First, though, let’s consider whether the famines of 2017 are even a valid indicator of what a climate-changed planet might look like. After all, severe famines accompanied by widespread starvation have occurred throughout human history. In addition, the brutal armed conflicts now underway in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen are at least in part responsible for the spreading famines. In all four countries, there are forces -- Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in Somalia, assorted militias and the government in South Sudan, and Saudi-backed forces in Yemen -- interfering with the delivery of aid supplies. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that pervasive water scarcity and prolonged drought (expected consequences of global warming) are contributing significantly to the disastrous conditions in most of them. The likelihood that droughts this severe would be occurring simultaneously in the absence of climate change is vanishingly small.

In fact, scientists generally agree that global warming will ensure diminished rainfall and ever more frequent droughts over much of Africa and the Middle East. This, in turn, will heighten conflicts of every sort and endanger basic survival in a myriad of ways. In their most recent 2014 assessment of global trends, the scientists of the prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that “agriculture in Africa will face significant challenges in adapting to climate changes projected to occur by mid-century, as negative effects of high temperatures become increasingly prominent.” Even in 2014, as that report suggested, climate change was already contributing to water scarcity and persistent drought conditions in large parts of Africa and the Middle East. Scientific studies had, for instance, revealed an “overall expansion of desert and contraction of vegetated areas” on that continent.  With arable land in retreat and water supplies falling, crop yields were already in decline in many areas, while malnutrition rates were rising -- precisely the conditions witnessed in more extreme forms in the famine-affected areas today.

It’s seldom possible to attribute any specific weather-induced event, including droughts or storms, to global warming with absolute certainty.  Such things happen with or without climate change.  Nonetheless, scientists are becoming even more confident that severe storms and droughts (especially when occurring in tandem or in several parts of the world at once) are best explained as climate-change related. If, for instance, a type of storm that might normally occur only once every hundred years occurs twice in one decade and four times in the next, you can be reasonably confident that you’re in a new climate era.

It will undoubtedly take more time for scientists to determine to what extent the current famines in Africa and Yemen are mainly climate-change-induced and to what extent they are the product of political and military mayhem and disarray. But doesn’t this already offer us a sense of just what kind of world we are now entering?

History and social science research indicate that, as environmental conditions deteriorate, people will naturally compete over access to vital materials and the opportunists in any society -- warlords, militia leaders, demagogues, government officials, and the like -- will exploit such clashes for their personal advantage.  “The data suggests a definite link between food insecurity and conflict,” points out Ertharin Cousin, head of the U.N.’s World Food Program.  “Climate is an added stress factor.” In this sense, the current famines in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen provide us with a perfect template for our future, one in which resource wars and climate mayhem team up as temperatures continue their steady rise.

The Selective Impact of Climate Change

In some popular accounts of the future depredations of climate change, there is a tendency to suggest that its effects will be felt more or less democratically around the globe -- that we will all suffer to some degree, if not equally, from the bad things that happen as temperatures rise. And it’s certainly true that everyone on this planet will feel the effects of global warming in some fashion, but don’t for a second imagine that the harshest effects will be distributed anything but deeply inequitably.  It won’t even be a complicated equation.  As with so much else, those at the bottom rungs of society -- the poor, the marginalized, and those in countries already at or near the edge -- will suffer so much more (and so much earlier) than those at the top and in the most developed, wealthiest countries.

As a start, the geophysical dynamics of climate change dictate that, when it comes to soaring temperatures and reduced rainfall, the most severe effects are likely to be felt first and worst in the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America -- home to hundreds of millions of people who depend on rain-fed agriculture to sustain themselves and their families. Research conducted by scientists in New Zealand, Switzerland, and Great Britain found that the rise in the number of extremely hot days is already more intense in tropical latitudes and disproportionately affects poor farmers.

Living at subsistence levels, such farmers and their communities are especially vulnerable to drought and desertification.  In a future in which climate-change disasters are commonplace, they will undoubtedly be forced to choose ever more frequently between the unpalatable alternatives of starvation or flight.  In other words, if you thought the global refugee crisis was bad today, just wait a few decades. 

Climate change is also intensifying the dangers faced by the poor and marginalized in another way.  As interior croplands turn to dust, ever more farmers are migrating to cities, especially coastal ones.  If you want a historical analogy, think of the great Dust Bowl migration of the “Okies” from the interior of the U.S. to the California coast in the 1930s. In today’s climate-change era, the only available housing such migrants are likely to find will be in vast and expanding shantytowns (or “informal settlements,” as they’re euphemistically called), often located in floodplains and low-lying coastal areas exposed to storm surges and sea-level rise. As global warming advances, the victims of water scarcity and desertification will be afflicted anew.  Those storm surges will destroy the most exposed parts of the coastal mega-cities in which they will be clustered. In other words, for the uprooted and desperate, there will be no escaping climate change.  As the latest IPCC report noted, “Poor people living in urban informal settlements, of which there are [already] about one billion worldwide, are particularly vulnerable to weather and climate effects.”

The scientific literature on climate change indicates that the lives of the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed will be the first to be turned upside down by the effects of global warming. “The socially and economically disadvantaged and the marginalized are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change and extreme events,” the IPCC indicated in 2014. “Vulnerability is often high among indigenous peoples, women, children, the elderly, and disabled people who experience multiple deprivations that inhibit them from managing daily risks and shocks.” It should go without saying that these are also the people least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming in the first place (something no less true of the countries most of them live in).

Inaction Equals Annihilation

In this context, consider the moral consequences of inaction on climate change. Once it seemed that the process of global warming would occur slowly enough to allow societies to adapt to higher temperatures without excessive disruption, and that the entire human family would somehow make this transition more or less simultaneously. That now looks more and more like a fairy tale. Climate change is occurring far too swiftly for all human societies to adapt to it successfully.  Only the richest are likely to succeed in even the most tenuous way. Unless colossal efforts are undertaken now to halt the emission of greenhouse gases, those living in less affluent societies can expect to suffer from extremes of flooding, drought, starvation, disease, and death in potentially staggering numbers.

And you don’t need a Ph.D. in climatology to arrive at this conclusion either. The overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists agree that any increase in average world temperatures that exceeds 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial era -- some opt for a rise of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius -- will alter the global climate system drastically.  In such a situation, a number of societies will simply disintegrate in the fashion of South Sudan today, producing staggering chaos and misery. So far, the world has heated up by at least one of those two degrees, and unless we stop burning fossil fuels in quantity soon, the 1.5 degree level will probably be reached in the not-too-distant future.

Worse yet, on our present trajectory, it seems highly unlikely that the warming process will stop at 2 or even 3 degrees Celsius, meaning that laterin this century many of the worst-case climate-change scenarios -- the inundation of coastal cities, the desertification of vast interior regions, and the collapse of rain-fed agriculture in many areas -- will become everyday reality.

In other words, think of the developments in those three African lands and Yemen as previews of what far larger parts of our world could look like in another quarter-century or so: a world in which hundreds of millions of people are at risk of annihilation from disease or starvation, or are on the march or at sea, crossing borders, heading for the shantytowns of major cities, looking for refugee camps or other places where survival appears even minimally possible.  If the world’s response to the current famine catastrophe and the escalating fears of refugees in wealthy countries are any indication, people will die in vast numbers without hope of help.

In other words, failing to halt the advance of climate change -- to the extent that halting it, at this point, remains within our power -- means complicity with mass human annihilation. We know, or at this point should know, that such scenarios are already on the horizon.  We still retain the power, if not to stop them, then to radically ameliorate what they will look like, so our failure to do all we can means that we become complicit in what -- not to mince words -- is clearly going to be a process of climate genocide. How can those of us in countries responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions escape such a verdict?

And if such a conclusion is indeed inescapable, then each of us must do whatever we can to reduce our individual, community, and institutional contributions to global warming. Even if we are already doing a lot -- as many of us are -- more is needed.  Unfortunately, we Americans are living not only in a time of climate crisis, but in the era of President Trump, which means the federal government and its partners in the fossil fuel industry will be wielding their immense powers to obstruct all imaginable progress on limiting global warming. They will be the true perpetrators of climate genocide. As a result, the rest of us bear a moral responsibility not just to do what we can at the local level to slow the pace of climate change, but also to engage in political struggle to counteract or neutralize the acts of Trump and company. Only dramatic and concerted action on multiple fronts can prevent the human disasters now unfolding in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen from becoming the global norm.

Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of The Race for What’s Left. A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1.

Endless economic growth, long the rallying cry of the conventional paradigm, endangers our future. Ecological economist Tim Jackson, author of Prosperity Without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow, explores the need to envision a post-growth economy with Allen White, Senior Fellow at the Tellus Institute.

Allen White: You are widely recognized as a leader in the field of post-growth economics, yet you started your career in in mathematics and philosophy. What drew you to your current focus?

Tim Jackson: Physics in the mid-1980s in the UK was a difficult and unfulfilling place. I found no joy in the academy, which was not interested in the ideas to which I was drawn. At that time, I also had a passion for playwriting, and the BBC picked up some of my work. After completing my PhD, I moved to London to make a living as a playwright.

It seemed like a good idea, at least until I received my first few paychecks. I was doing odd jobs to supplement my meager income when, in April 1986, the fourth reactor in Chernobyl melted down. That event galvanized my interest in the nexus of economics, technology, and the environment, and inspired me to make a visit to Greenpeace, where I expressed my skepticism of nuclear technologies and my desire to help develop and promote alternatives. I started working as a volunteer and then as a freelancer, analyzing the economics of renewable energy technologies. Before I knew it, without intention or design, I was an ecological economist. The world told me what it wanted me to do. And I haven’t looked back. After thirty years, I still write plays. But the visit to Greenpeace remains pivotal to my trajectory.

AW: Has your playwriting affected your ecological ethos, and vice versa?

TJ: Yes, it has, and in interesting ways. In 1999, I wrote a 30-episode series that the BBC marketed as an environmental thriller. It explored the tension between economic development and ecological resilience. I used playwriting partly to give voice to the unspoken dimensions of my internal dialogue. In academia, evidence and rationality are paramount in drawing conclusions and advancing new theses about how the world works. It is a logical but heartless process, leaving no voice for emotion or instinct. Playwriting gave me a wonderful outlet for that.

One of my plays featured a hard-nosed, survival-of-the-fittest advocate of development at all costs. She was probably one of my most vivid characters, and served as my alter ego in an environmental drama informed by my academic training. This and other plays allowed me to use different characters to explore both sides of the economy-ecology nexus as well as issues such as the social psychology of consumption and the tension between altruism and selfishness. My plays and my professional endeavors have been mutually enriching and therapeutic, a marriage of heart and mind.

AW: In your acclaimed book Prosperity Without Growth, you debunk the widely held belief that prosperity and economic growth are inseparable. Why is the conventional wisdom so wrong and so widespread?

TJ: When the UK Sustainable Development Commission, on which I served, first launched an inquiry into the relationship between prosperity and growth, we pitched it as “redefining prosperity.” I talked about how the potential conflict between a growth-based economy and a finite planet was a timely, indeed essential, issue for the government to address. This, however, was not warmly received. A Treasury official at one of the early meetings responded, “Now I see what sustainability means. It means going back to live in caves. And that’s what you’re all about, isn’t it?”

This exchange, coming early in the inquiry, exposed an almost visceral fear underlying the political response to any questioning of growth. In the course of our deliberations, I learned to accept the legitimacy of such fears. The economy as currently organized relies on growth to produce jobs and ensure financial stability. At the same time, our financial system, coupled with government spending and control of money, collectively serves as a lubricant to help achieve these goals.

The hegemony of the growth-based model often prevents people from questioning its core assumptions. In a very simplistic sense, the conventional wisdom argues that all we have depends on this growth-based system, so why would we want to rock the boat and set ourselves on a path back to cave-dwelling? However, as I argued early in the Commission’s inquiry, we need to openly acknowledge the dilemma in which we are trapped: If endless growth is essential to prosperity and, at the same time, leads to ecological destruction, what should we do? Working with the Commission reminded me of playwriting in some ways, like a drama in which the protagonists were basically saying, “Don’t touch growth; it’s sacrosanct. Keep your dirty mitts off it.”

The structural, possibly psychological, maybe even religious affinity for growth impedes our ability to think clearly about our situation. Throughout the inquiry, I sought to open a space—creative, intellectual, and political—to explore this dilemma whereby growth both drives prosperity and erodes the very preconditions for its sustainability. Revealing the contradiction between relentless expansion of income and throughput, on one hand, and ecological survival, on the other, lay at the center of my work.

AW: Do you attribute the growth imperative to the global capitalist system?

TJ: Up to a point, yes. Take the example of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the work of countless individuals and meetings that concluded with the adoption of 17 goals and 169 specific targets. The eighth SDG links “decent work” and “economic growth,” a mirror of the conventional wisdom that dominates political discourse. Of course, the logic is understandable, as is the fear of a post-growth economy. Without growth, the argument goes, job creation will falter, leading to high unemployment and social instability, a recipe for ending the career of any politician.

Still, the durability of the argument is puzzling. The complex relationship between growth and jobs is mediated by labor productivity and technological advances. Nonetheless, politicians are mentally locked into a growth-jobs-prosperity trifecta, a mindset which itself is hostage to the dynamics of modern capitalism.

In order to get beyond this trap, we need to question the fundamental assumptions guiding modern capitalist societies. Addressing the inequalities that capitalism produces, the common argument goes, requires more of the very thing that gives rise to inequality in the first place. Let unbridled growth continue in order to raise all boats. Without it, the poor will not be lifted, and the government will have no money to spend. Capitalism is sacrosanct; it is the best way to achieve growth. This logic resides at the center of learned journals as well as mainstream policy solutions to avoid economic stagnation as measured by conventional metrics. It is a sociological phenomenon as much as an economic one.

AW: You have criticized technological optimists who believe that we can achieve sustainability via deep cuts in emissions and resource use without rethinking economics. Why are such technical solutions insufficient?

TJ: I am fascinated by technological optimism, in part because, thirty years ago, I myself was somewhat of a technological optimist. I was looking at the damage of nuclear fission and saying, “Actually, we have better options than that. We have renewable technologies, there are efficiencies that we can create, and we have more resource-productive avenues for technological development. Why not pursue those?”

For my students, it is a very tempting perspective. In a recent cross-faculty undergraduate course, I paraphrased Ronald Reagan’s response to the classic Limits to Growth: “There are no limits to growth, because there are no limits to human ingenuity and creativity.” The students found this idea of the boundlessness of human creativity very attractive. I showed them a graph depicting the relationship between carbon intensity and economic growth and what it will take to achieve major strides in decarbonization. Their response? “Surely we have the technologies to meet our targets within a few short decades.” Indeed, this response was the same as mine many decades ago. But the difficulty then, as it is now, is that such a dramatic transition, even if economically and technologically plausible, cannot occur in a society in which the entrenched forces of free market capitalism and the inertia of dominant institutions are committed to obstructing the change required.

In my work on the Sustainable Development Commission, I came to realize that the relentless appetite of human beings for consumption coupled with the relentless appetite of capitalists for accumulation, is fueling the planetary emergency. Despite technological progress, the unholy alliance between human nature and institutional structure creates a dangerous lock-in that diminishes prospects for a livable future.

AW: In your book, you identify four pillars of a post-growth economy—enterprise as service, work as participation, investment as commitment, and money as a social good. Explain what you mean by these factors and how they can help us envision a new economy.

TJ: These pillars flow in part from the so-called impossibility theorem, which posits that structures in the existing system coupled with certain aspects of human nature make a post-growth world implausible. So we are compelled to ask, where is the solution space? Can we imagine an economy in which enterprise provides outputs that enable people to flourish without destroying ecosystems; where work offers respect, motivation, and fulfillment to all; where investment is prudential in terms of securing long-term prosperity for all humanity; and where systems of borrowing, lending, and creating money are firmly rooted in long-term social value creation rather than in trading and speculation?

Two of those pillars have been present in responses to the environmental crisis for more than two decades, namely enterprise as service and the concept of green or clean investment. In the first case, “servicization” is the idea that the value of materials—chemicals, energy, forests—is not intrinsic to the materials themselves, but rather arises from the services they offer, e.g., cleaning, heating/lighting, and packaging/shelter. Reframing value in this way opens a broad array of pathways toward dematerialization. I was exposed to this concept very early on through the concept of energy services when I was working for the Stockholm Environment Institute and Friends of the Earth. I have always found it profoundly transformational, and the deeper I got into it, the more I realized that you could apply that concept to all sorts of things, including nutrition, health, and housing. I have watched the idea appear in product responsibility legislation, including take-back and product leasing. I use servicization to illustrate how a seemingly intractable lock-in (limitless growth in material throughput to satisfy consumption demands) can be overcome by reimagining fundamental assumptions about the economy and human behavior.

In the case of investment, clean technology is an obvious and urgent example. Here the core concept is that finance capital must be a servant to a higher purpose than maximizing returns on investment. During the financial crisis, when I was writing the original Sustainable Development Commission report, the concept of a Green New Deal emerged. The UK Prime Minister at the time, Gordon Brown, took the idea to Davos with the centerpiece being a massive investment in a low-carbon transition.

These two examples demonstrate ways to overcome seemingly intractable environmental problems associated with a growth-driven economics. They open new possibilities for developing alternative forms of enterprise, based on novel ownership structures and work practices, and for dismantling the notion that money is an end itself instead of a means of exchange for building prosperous societies. And from there, new forms of economic activity can be conceptualized in ways that refashion human activities to operate in harmony, rather than in conflict, with nature.

The building blocks of a new economy are within reach. While current trends may well be cause for despair, history is replete with structural changes that redefine economic relations—for better or for worse. My goal for the Commission and my work since has been to bring new thinking to the fore, to illuminate possibilities for decoupling growth and prosperity. This kind of re-envisioning can point to a coherent whole, thereby opening doors to structural change.

AW: You have noted the alignment of the Andean concept of “Buen Vivir” with the tenets of post-growth economics. What is “Buen Vivir,” and what can we learn from it?

TJ: Rooted in indigenous beliefs, the concept of “Buen Vivir” promotes a way of living based on a mutually respectful, interdependent coexistence between humans and nature. It speaks to the key question of how we define well-being, a question I explored as part of my Commission work under the aegis of the Whitehall Well-Being Working Group. The premise of that group was that if you had a different goal, such as well-being rather than growth per se, you would see the measurement of prosperity and policies to achieve it in a different light. This concept emerged in the UK about at the same time as Buen Vivir became a national political project in Ecuador, although I was not aware of this concurrence.

Years of well-being research have provided important insights into the web of relationships between income and factors such as well-being, education, and life expectancy. This body of work has identified a kind of “sweet spot” that is almost exclusively occupied by Latin American nations, where countries have achieved high levels of well-being at relatively low income levels. Some mix of cultural, social, and political conditions has enabled these countries—many of them small- and middle-income—to decouple prosperity from growth. Chile, Costa Rica, and Cuba in particular come to mind. At this point, I see these examples as a fascinating experiment, but not necessarily replicable in larger countries and in other regions.

AW: You have written that “the moment it stops being permissible to question the fundamental assumptions of an economic system that is patently dysfunctional is the moment political freedom ends and cultural repression begins.” Do you see signs of such repression in today’s political climate?

TJ: Yes, I do. What is going on today is largely attributable to the failure of growth-based capitalism. It is perverse to think that we can rescue ourselves from it by a return to a turbo-charged version of the same system, with a little bit of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, and populism added to the mix. I see this as deriving from a systems failure, the same failure I sought to articulate almost a decade ago.

There was a left-wing manifestation of populism in movements such as Occupy that emerged in response to the blatant reward of the architects of the financial crisis with bailout packages while social investments benefitting the poor were cut. Austerity was gradually ripping away the social infrastructure essential to the basic well-being of the poor and middle class, who had been economically and socially left behind. Health care, education, and job security all suffered, and people were forced to look for answers to their dispossession. Unfortunately, some of these people have turned to a right-wing manifestation of populism. In the US, such disillusioned individuals turned to a disingenuous, elitist billionaire. It is paradoxical in the extreme, but culpability lies in a failure to address the structural deficiencies in the existing system. We still struggle to open up debates and minds to the nature of the system, to question the political influences seeking to turbo-charge a failed capitalism that continues to spawn growing inequality. That, to me, is cultural repression—and we should fight against it. In some ways, it comes back to my primary purpose in fostering a post-growth dialogue: to create the political space for this conversation which I believe is one of the most important of our time.

AW:How do you see the link between post-growth economics and what we call a Great Transition, a societal transformation rooted in well-being, solidarity, and ecological resilience?

TJ: I see the two as closely connected and mutually enriching. The Great Transition Initiative was created to provide a safe space for exploring global futures, an increasingly important exercise that needs protection during a period wherein hope and imagination are in short supply. As I have watched the evolution of Great Transition writing and dialogue, I am full of admiration for the safe space it has created. However, we must recognize that while this enclave of clear thinking might be very comforting and essential to us as a community, we must avoid too much comfort. We must explore unsafe spaces as well as convene within safe ones. We must bring our conversation well beyond the boundaries of our comfort zone, a challenge that takes hard work and commitment. But without such expansiveness, we will fail to deliver to the world what it most needs—a narrative of change that is powerful, persuasive, and plausible.

Allen White is vice-president and senior fellow at the Tellus Institute, where he directs the institute’s Program on Corporate Redesign. He co-founded the Global Reporting Initiative and Corporation 2020, and founded the Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings. 

The rapid mobilization that’s necessary to stop a greenhouse meltdown won’t be happening in the near future, given that in Washington attitudes toward effective climate action span a spectrum from open hostility to timid torpor. In the meanwhile activism, exemplified by the April 29 People’s Climate March, is keeping hope alive, or at least on life support, while the more technical struggle to figure out the transition to a world free of greenhouse gases continues.

But even if we can achieve system change in time to rein in climate change, the years ahead will be no gluten-free cakewalk in the park. Whichever way this struggle goes, America faces some tough times ahead. With many households already living through tough times, it’s going to be the affluent who'll have to make the big sacrifices.

Dozens of scenarios have been published in the past decade purporting to demonstrate how large regions (in some studies, the entire world) can supply all of their energy needs from non-fossil-fuel sources. But some recent comprehensive reviews have found all such scenarios to be inadequate.

To make these scenarios work, it is typically necessary to make two assumptions: on the supply side an impossibly fast and extensive buildup of generation capacity, storage, and transmission, and on the demand side an unprecedented slowing of growth, or even a decline, in primary energy consumption. Attempts to satisfy current or increased demand with 100 percent renewable energy will run up against hard physical limits; the same fate awaits attempts to reduce demand only through efficiency improvements and market mechanisms. Those limits will defeat all attempts to hold atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations down to a safe level on an emergency timeline, unless there is an explicit, strictly enforced ceiling on fossil-fuel extraction and consumption, with no offsets or other escape routes. And the ceiling will have to decline steeply year by year.

The 33 percent

Renewable energy generation and the infrastructure to support it cannot keep up with the rapid abandonment of fossil fuels that will be required. Meanwhile, many regions of the world are still struggling to achieve a level of energy consumption—a “floor”—that permits a decent quality of life; no cutbacks are possible there. Those realities dictate that all reductions in energy use must happen in wealthy nations and among affluent, high-consuming classes and communities in developing nations.

Here in the United States, under any effective policy to prevent catastrophic global warming, virtually everyone will be affected by efforts to reduce emissions, but those in the upper part of the income and wealth scales will have to bear the brunt of the resulting economic disruption.

I predict that if we ever manage to achieve a fair, effective climate-emergency policy, it’s the 33 percent of American households with highest incomes who are going to bear the greatest economic burden. This does not mean that policies should explicitly target 33 percent of the population, but rather that the kinds of efforts that will be most effective in reducing emissions and ensuring good quality of life for everyone are going to require a much greater economic sacrifice from the 33 percent than from lower-income Americans. And within that top one-third, the higher a household’s income, the greater the sacrifice has to be.

With the response to the climate emergency following two necessary tracks—a legally imposed contraction of the fossil energy supply and a rapid global conversion to renewable energy—the economic onus will inevitably fall on our 33 percenters. First, there is the initial conversion to green energy capacity and infrastructure, the costs of which have been optimistically estimated at $15 trillion for the United States and $100 trillion globally (and the latter will require a large U.S. contribution.) The conversion has to happen over years rather than decades and will have to be heavily subsidized, with the money coming from taxation of higher incomes and slashing of military appropriations and other wasteful spending. And it will have to be regulated so that it provides plenty of employment but no profiteering.

Meanwhile, the tightening of fossil-fuel availability and the consequent cutbacks in production will cut deeply into the profits of industries not involved in green conversion. Stock prices of companies not working on the conversion will fall. Owners, investors, and upper managers, the great majority of whom belong to the 33 percent, will take a big hit from all of the above economic forces. And if the economy stagnates or if shortages and inflation strike, then price controls, subsidies, and other assistance will have to be directed at vulnerable households and regions. That will require even greater shifts of income and wealth from the 33 to the 67 percent.

This is just how things add up. It’s nothing personal against the 33 percenters. I like most of those whom I know. And of course, it may be the 25 or 30 or 40 percent. Furthermore, the top one-third are not a homogeneous group. Most probably think of themselves as middle class, while up there at the high end are found those seven-, eight- and nine-figure incomes.

For purposes of funding the transition, the fattest target will be the infamous 1 percent at the peak of the pyramid. Nevertheless, rich as they are, all of the 1-percenters roped together wouldn’t have enough income to fund and sustain such a conversion. Those 1.2 million households at the summit are now bringing in about $1.8 trillion a year, Uncle Sam is already raking $600 billion of that back in taxes, and what’s left will dwindle rapidly in a climate-ready economy. Under a climate emergency, the 1 percent’s brobdingnagian wealth can be mostly taxed away, and the proceeds can be put to much higher uses; even so, a windfall of that size won’t be enough to spare the other 32 percent from feeling the pain.

But put the 1 percent and the 32 percent together and now we have a population of close to 100 million people, numerous and affluent enough to shoulder the economic burden of the climate emergency. Who are these 33 percenters? Currently, they are households with incomes that exceed about $90,000 per year. Together, this one-third of U.S. households receives two-thirds of the U.S. population’s total income. The 33 percent own 94 percent of stocks by value. Their incomes are higher now than before the Great Recession hit in 2007, while the other 67 percent’s incomes are still lower. They have an average household net worth of approximately $700,000, in contrast to another 40 percent of households whose average net worth is negative, at -$22,000. The U.S. 33 percent are the global 4 percent, with higher incomes than 96 percent of the world’s people.

And 33 percent doesn’t add up to 33 for everyone. Only 18 percent of Hispanic and 15 percent of black households are members of the American top third.

Affluence versus survival

An economy in which production is aimed at protecting the Earth and meeting human needs rather than maximizing profit could make long strides toward eliminating both great wealth and deep poverty. And, research shows, economic and ecological fairness form a positive feedback loop: if climate mobilization helps shrink inequality, it will drive greenhouse emissions even lower.

Increases in inequality of wealth and income are consistently linked with higher emissions. In explaining this, researchers note that the affluent have the most to gain from climate-disrupting activities and at the same time are able to shield themselves from the worst impacts of climate disruption. Then there is the longstanding observation that the opulent lifestyles of the wealthier classes influence the less wealthy, driving wasteful production and consumption at all income levels—the so-called “Veblen effect.”

But because economists love wealth, they also love to argue that increases in wealth tend to increase efficiency—efficiency, that is, according to the economist’s definition: the dollar value of gross domestic product generated per ton of fossil carbon emitted. But that mathematically rigged metric is useless to anyone concerned about climate justice. So researchers like Boston College sociologist Andrew Jorgenson have been using a much more apt ratio: the degree of human well-being per ton of carbon emitted. And, he finds, as inequality grows in prosperous nations, the emissions required to improve overall well-being increase. Therefore, notes Jorgenson, “Reducing inequality in nations throughout the world could enhance both climate change mitigation efforts and human quality of life.”

The problem with inequality is not just that too many people are poor; it’s also that too many are rich, and the rich are too rich. (That distortion is going to get much, much worse if anything resembling President Trump's proposed tax cut for the most wealthy Americans is passed into law.) It was once believed that affluence could not only increase efficiency but that, despite encouraging greater consumption, it could even drive down total greenhouse emissions. That belief in the so-called Environmental Kuznets Curve has been debunked. In recent research, whether it’s comparing nations, states, or localities within a given time span or it’s tracking a society over time, greater affluence actually leads to higher greenhouse emissions. Wealthier regions may seem to be polluting less, but that’s just because they export emissions by shutting down their local manufacturing industries and buying more climate-damaging goods from poorer countries.

The economist Thomas Piketty's 2014 book Capital in the Twenty-First Century brought the explosive growth of destructive wealth and outrageous inequality to the long-overdue attention of the corporate media and political elites. But discussing his book in Monthly Review, John Bellamy Foster and Michael Yates noted that while Piketty expertly and exhaustively documented the concentration of income and wealth into fewer and fewer hands (and even put the word "capital" in the title of his book), he did not adequately link increasing inequality to the gross imbalances of power that exist in a mature capitalist society—the imbalances between those for whom wages and salaries are the means of subsistence and those to whom they are an expense to be minimized. Foster and Yates endorsed Piketty’s proposal to address inequality—a wealth tax—but went on to write that simply calling for a tax is not enough, that “this would require in turn a reorganization and revitalization of the class/social struggle, and in every corner of the globe.”

That goes for the global ecological crisis as well. The powerful individuals, corporations, and institutions at the peak of the pyramid who have reaped the benefits of the atmospheric carbon buildup will continue to stand in the way of climate justice, because to act otherwise would cost them too much. It will fall to the 67 percent, along with millions of allies in the 33 percent, to upend the pyramid and tackle the climate emergency head-on.

Stan Cox is research coordinator at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, and an editor at Green Social Thought. He is author of Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing (The New Press, 2013) and, with Paul Cox, of How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path, From the Caribbean to Siberia (The New Press, 2016). Follow him on Twitter @CoxStan.

When rising waters from superstorms like Katrina or Sandy inundate heavily populated coastal communities, vast numbers of people will abandon their destroyed homes and flee for safety and shelter elsewhere.

Where will they go — and how will their destination cities cope with them?

That’s the focus of a new study that projects as many as 13.1 million Americans could become climate refugees by the end of this century, an influx of people that could stress inland cities, particularly those already grappling with population growth, urban development, traffic congestion and water management.

“We typically think about sea-level rise as a coastal issue, but if people are forced to move because their houses become inundated, the migration could affect many landlocked communities as well,” said Mathew Hauer, a demographer at the University of Georgia and author of the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change. “For many inland areas, incorporating climate change scenarios into their strategic long-range planning would be an appropriate strategy.”

While other research has assessed sea-level rise with the goal of planning critical infrastructure to protect fragile populated coastlines, this study is believed to be the first to model the destinations of millions of displaced coastal migrants.

Net changes in population by state due to migration from sea-level rise. Source: Nature Climate Change

“[This is] fascinating,” said Richard Alley, professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the study. “The global equivalent of this paper may be even more important. Climate refugees may become common if we continue to drive rapid climate change. Looking at where those refugees might go, as well as where they will come from, will provide better information for planners and voters considering adaptation and mitigation.”

The study predicts that Atlanta, Houston and Phoenix will be among the most likely destinations for climate refugees, whether for the short or long term.

Net changes in population by metropolitan area due to migration from sea-level rise. Source: Nature Climate Change

“We know that people tend to migrate short distances or to areas with embedded social networks and family ties,” Hauer said. “Atlanta, Phoenix, Dallas, Orlando, and Austin are all major cities located near coastal areas. Naturally, they would be the top destinations.”

The study estimates both the number and destinations of potential sea-level rise migrations in the United States during the coming century.

“I used IRS county-to-county migration data to project future migration patterns using a time series model,” Hauer explained. “The projected migration patterns are sort of like pipes in a plumbing system. They tell you where water could go, but not how much water.” The “water” in this analogy comes is the estimated number of Americans at risk from sea-level rise.

Projected migration linked to sea-level rise by state. Florida is expected to produce the largest number of migrants. Source: Nature Climate Change

After Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, as many as 400,000 residents evacuated, some temporarily, some permanently, many to live with friends and family, others to places unknown. No comprehensive records exist of their destinations. Many people did come back to the city, although not necessarily to their former homes. African-Americans in particular returned at a much slower pace than their white counterparts, because their homes had been in neighborhoods more severely damaged by flooding.

Income levels also play a role. The new study estimates that coastal residents with an annual incomes of more than $100,000 might be better able to invest in protective measures against sea-level rise and, as a result, less likely to migrate.

Kevin Trenberth, a noted climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who was not involved in the study, said that numerous factors influence and complicate migration trends following a flood.

“Sea-level rise from climate change occurs slowly and gradually, but its effects are profound and manifested when three things or more come together — a storm surge on top of a high tide on top of sea-level rise — so it affects people not as a gradual process, but rather as an episodic, catastrophic one,” he said. “Hurricane Katrina or Superstorm Sandy are likely poster children for this.”

Source: National Center of Atmospheric Research

“The questions that arise are whether an area is abandoned and rebuilt elsewhere, or maybe just abandoned, or whether it is rebuilt where it was,” he added. “Often there are other things in play, [such as] insurance or if the state decides to condemn certain areas for building.”

“Where are these people likely to go?” he asked. “And what does it mean when they compete with native inhabitants for the same water, food and land? This is really where the rubber hits the road when it comes to climate change and water, food and land security.”

Marlene Cimons writes for Nexus Media, a syndicated newswire covering climate, energy, policy, art and culture.

If there was one simple decision you could make to help reverse climate change and ecological threats on Earth, while also improving your health and well-being, and preventing the egregious suffering of billions of animals, would you consider it?

We each have the opportunity to make a difference. And it’s simple; we can do it today. All it takes is making better, healthier food choices. 

In the United States we grow up with habits that cause immense harm to ourselves and others without realizing it. We are unwitting accomplices in our own demise as we suffer from preventable and fatal illnesses, and undermine our future on earth. But it doesn’t have to be this way, and we can each be part of the solution.

So many personal and planetary problems can be solved by making more mindful food choices. It has been estimated that we could save 70 percent on health care costs in the U.S. by shifting to eating a whole-foods, plant-based diet. Our nation’s leading killers, including heart disease, can be prevented or reversed through better food choices.

Additionally, the United Nations warns that animal agriculture is among the top contributors to our planet’s most significant ecological threats. Vast swaths of rainforest and other natural ecosystems have been destroyed and used for grazing or to grow crops to feed and fatten farm animals.

Billions of pigs, chickens, cattle and other sentient beings endure intolerable cruelty and violent deaths so that we can eat meat, milk and eggs.

Human beings have the capacity to behave rationally, but we are also adept at rationalizing irrational behavior, or looking the other way, which is often our inclination when we fear change.

But, ask yourself: Does it make sense to eat food that makes us sick; to support a food system that is destroying the planet? Does it make sense to kill other animals when we can obtain everything we need nutritionally from the plant kingdom? If we can live well without causing unnecessary harm, why wouldn’t we?

The good news is we empower ourselves to live healthier lives by choosing to eat plants instead of animals. The number of vegans in the U.S. is increasing, but even people who aren’t vegan can make a positive difference by reducing their consumption of animal foods.

Each step, no matter how small, makes a difference, and these often lead to more steps. By changing our food, we can change the world.

Gene Baur is president and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, America’s leading farm animal protection organization. He is author of two national bestselling books: Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food, and Living the Farm Sanctuary Life: The Ultimate Guide to Eating Mindfully, Living Longer, and Feeling Better Every Day.

“Sell by.” “Use by.” “Best by.” These terms and their many variations have probably caused you to toss perfectly good food just because the date on the label has passed. Nearly 85 percent of consumers have thrown out food based on these designations, contributing to a widespread food waste problem in the United States. A recent report from ReFED, a coalition of businesses, NGOs and other organizations fighting food waste, calculated that date labels alone cost American consumers almost $30 billion annually.

Not only is this rampant food waste appalling in a nation where 42.2 million people live in food-insecure households, the USDA notes that food waste has far-reaching impacts on resource conservation and climate change.

Food waste is the largest component of U.S. municipal solid waste. As uneaten food rots in landfills, it releases the potent greenhouse gas, methane, which is a cause of global warming. That’s not to mention the sheer amount of labor and precious resources such as water, land and fuel that goes towards cultivating, packaging, transporting and processing food that’s ultimately never consumed.

The problem with date labels is the lack of an official guideline. Besides baby formula, product dating is not generally required by federal law. Under the current open dating system, some food manufacturers or retailers stamp a date onto a product based on an estimation of peak freshness, not if it’s safe to eat.

The sell-by date is actually an approximation that manufacturers advise to retailers on how long they should keep items on shelves. Eggs, for instance, are usually safe to consume at least three to five weeks after the sell-by date, food safety experts advise. “Use by” or “Best by” is the date when you should eat or freeze a product for ideal quality. For example, crackers or potato chips may not be as crispy after the indicated date.

All this means is that food that has gone past its expiration date has not necessarily gone bad.

“Foodborne illness comes from contamination, not from the natural process of decay,” according to Dana Gunders, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Unfortunately, many consumers do not realize how uneaten eggs or chips can affect the well-being of the planet.

“People haven’t quite made the link between food waste and the environmental consequences of food waste,” said Brian Roe, an Ohio State University professor and co-author of a PLOS ONE study that found less than 60 percent of Americans understand that wasting food is bad for the environment.

So how exactly did food date labeling become a thing? As the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and the Natural Resources Defense Council detailed in a joint study, back in the 1970s (when people started to buy foods from the grocery stores instead of growing their own), they also started to demand accessible indicators of product freshness and quality. In response, supermarkets adopted the open dating system.

"Items at the grocery store are stamped with a jumble of arbitrary food date labels that are not based on safety or science," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who introduced a bill last year to create a standard federal date labeling system. "This dizzying patchwork confuses consumers, results in food waste, and prevents good food from being donated to those who need it most."

The hodgepodge of food dating labels we see today is something 37 percent of Americans apparently treat as law. A 2016 Food and Health Survey found that the expiration date is the most important consideration for food purchases for 7 in 10 consumers.

Even the food industry—which ostensibly profits off of misleading expiration labels—admits standardizing food dating is necessary. This past February, the highly influential Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Food Marketing Institute advised its members, some of the biggest food and beverage giants in the industry, to streamline date labels to just two standard phrases: “Best If Used By” (to describe product quality), and “Use By” (to describe products that should be consumed by the date listed on the package and disposed of after that date).

ReFED determined in its report that standardization could prevent 8 million pounds of food from getting thrown out prematurely.  

Meanwhile, there are scores of online guides that can help you determine if an “expired” food is still safe to eat, as well as tips on how to extend a product’s shelf life. While you should consume at your own risk, use your eyes, nose and taste buds to determine whether a food item is still fresh. So if it looks fuzzy, smells funny or tastes weird, you should toss it.

Infographic created by uniPoint.

Lorraine Chow is a freelance writer and reporter based in South Carolina.

Sunita Narain, Director of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a New Delhi-based research and advocacy group, recently released First Food: Culture of Taste at Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India. It is the second book in the series published by CSE after First Food: Taste of India’s Biodiversity was published in 2013. This series is an attempt at preserving and spreading awareness about the wealth of traditional food habits already existing in India.

Narain is a writer and an environmentalist with experience in water resource management, food and water safety, climate change, and advocating for local participatory democracy. In 2013, she was a member of the Committee set up by Delhi High Court, entrusted to design regulatory framework for junk food availability and distribution targeted at children in India.

The First Food series was conceptualized by Vibha Varshney, Associate Editor of CSE’s fortnightly magazine, Down to Earth. Varshney has worked in the areas of health and science for the last sixteen years, is a biologist by training, and holds a PhD in Botany.

Food Tank had the opportunity to speak with Sunita Narain and Vibha Varshney about the new book, the need for reclaiming traditional culinary knowledge, and food habits in the changing dietary landscape of India.

Food Tank (FT): What was the main intention of putting together First Food: Culture of Taste?

Sunita Narain and Vibha Varshney (SN&VV): India is eating badly and we have a high incidence of obesity and undernutrition. However, we have an opportunity to be different from developed countries in its food journey. We do not have to first eat badly and then rediscover healthy and medicinal food that is not filled with toxins.

We have a living tradition of healthy foods that are still consumed in our homes. But knowledge of this diversity is disappearing because we are losing the holders of that knowledge—our grandmothers and mothers who manage our food. It is also getting lost because we do not value their knowledge.

First Food series is an effort to value this knowledge. We feel also that promoting local and seasonal foods would help protect India’s rich biodiversity. India is one of the world’s most biodiverse regions but this wealth is under threat from industry, development projects and climate change. We would be able to protect this biodiversity only when we value it on our plate. Fox nut (Euryale ferox) grows in wetlands that have steadily been encroached upon. However, as the seed became a popular food product, even private industries are trying to protect the ponds.

FT: How is this book different from First Food: A Taste of India’s Biodiversity?

SN&VV:  One book is not enough to showcase the biodiversity in our country. We plan to continue this series. In Culture of Taste, we have tried to highlight how communities make the optimum use of the biodiversity around them by using leaves, flowers, fruits, vegetables and seeds when nature provides them. It also provides information on how communities ensure that food is available in the lean periods too by using preservation technologies. We have also highlighted the nature−nutrition−livelihood link in this book as healthy food would continue to be promoted and protected only if it provides livelihood opportunities to the people

FT: Why is it important for us to reclaim India’s traditional culinary knowledge and food habits?

SN&VV: Traditional, biodiversity-rich foods are healthy and many of these foods have medicinal value. It was a cultural norm to consume these foods at least once during the season to ensure yearlong health. We need to promote the knowledge that is the essence of food that delights our palates and nourishes our bodies. Each region of India has its own recipes; it cooks with different ingredients and, it eats differently. If biodiversity disappears we will lose the food wealth on our plates.

Promoting traditional foods is important to counter the increasing popularity of junk food in the country. We need to ensure that food does not become a sterile package designed for universal size and taste. This is what is happening today as we eat packaged food from plastic boxes.

FT: Who are your food heroes (individuals and organizations) that inspire you?

SN&VV: You need to visit remote areas and see how communities use the local ingredients to cook healthy and tasty food. These people are the real food heroes. The women in the family who still make an effort to include this rich biodiversity in the meal need to be felicitated. We also find that chefs have embraced new ingredients and are happy to experiment with them. They too are important in popularizing local foods.

FT: In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge the Indian food system is facing today?

SN&VV: The popularity of junk food is truly challenging. In the United States, home cooking was destroyed in just around a decade through marketing gimmicks used by the food industry. They used the rising feminist movements just like tobacco companies did to promote packaged foods as convenient food. Both industries capitalized by promoting “liberation” of smoking and not cooking. India has to avoid this trap at all costs and India has a variety of traditional foods that is equally convenient. For example, roasted fox nuts are as convenient as corn flakes for breakfast. Flowers of harsingar (Nyctanthes arbortristis) can be used as a healthy alternative to food colors. Mustard oil is healthier than olive oil. People need to be made aware of these choices and these products need to be made available to them.

FT: The Government of India has focused on the production of pulses; the State Government of Karnataka is working to popularize millet production—an indigenous crop; and restaurants and chefs are promoting seasonal, local, and regional food produce. How do you see these trends contributing in bringing back the food-nutrition-nature-culture connection?

SN&VV: Yes, there is an increased interest in biodiversity-rich food. We now see food festivals all year long. But so far, only a limited variety of foods are showcased in these. We need to create awareness about many more foods. We need to inform people that these are not just novelty foods but need to be part of the daily diet. Steps need to be taken to promote these foods over the junk food through campaigns that surpass the advertising by junk food companies.

FT: What more would you like to see the Government of India, state governments, and public research work towards in addressing issues related to food, agriculture, environment, nutrition, and India’s culinary tradition?

SN&VV: World over, there are efforts to mainstream biodiversity based foods. Such diet provides a variety of nutrients that are more healthful. One way to promote these foods is to strengthen nutrition labeling in the country. This would help promote the healthier traditional foods over processed foods that currently flood the market by helping people choose healthier options. Efforts should be there that local foods are part of government programs such as public distribution system, the mid-day meal scheme and also provided as food in anganwadis (day care centers) and to pregnant women.

Mainstreaming biodiversity would lead to procurement from local producers, and markets for local foods would be created. Communities should be trained to process the local food to ensure higher incomes from this produce. Markets need to be created. We also need to ensure that communities have access to the food that grows in the wild. For example, in Maharashtra, communities face restrictions when they try to collect lotus stems from water bodies. Such restrictions need to be removed.

FT: How can readers, in India and abroad, contribute to building a better food system?

SN&VV: Each one of us needs to embrace local and seasonal foods. We need to provide a market to these foods so that they do not get lost. This would also ensure that the people in rural areas, who no longer consume these foods believing them to be inferior to staples like wheat and rice, go back to healthier options that are more suited to the environment they live in.

 Swathi Chaganty completed her Master’s in Agroecology from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Skåne, Sweden. She also holds Master’s and Bachelor’s Integrated degree in Biotechnology from Dr. D. Y. Patil University, Navi Mumbai, India. Studying and working on the current agriculture and food system, focusing on food security and food sovereignty under the larger context of environmental sustainability and social justice for farmers is her passion.

Two things happened on April 28. One positive ... and one unprecedented. Senate Democrats led by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced legislation to strengthen protections for the Arctic Ocean and show opposition to any future risky drilling in our oceans. Similar legislation was introduced by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) in March on the House side.

But on the very same day, President Donald Trump announced that his administration would work to roll back protections of Arctic and Atlantic Oceans put into place by President Barack Obama. No other president prior to that announcement has ever attempted to dismantle or challenge another president’s permanent action to protect our nation’s oceans. Trump’s action sets a dangerous precedent, which will only undermine the powers of the office of the president to protect our nation’s natural history.

Ice covers the surface of the Arctic Ocean. (NASA)

We have seen acts of bravado like this before related to the Arctic Ocean. Take Shell Oil Company’s failed attempts at drilling in the Arctic. In 2015, Shell Oil CEO Ben van Beurden said he was aware of the risks of drilling in a “fragile” environment, but claimed the reservoir Shell was exploring would be “relatively easy” from a technical perspective. Yet in 2013, Shell’s massive drilling rig, the Kulluk, broke free from its tugs and ran aground in Alaska, ended its drilling season high and dry and dismantled in Asia. Shell’s other ship, the Noble Discoverer, became stuck and unable to leave Alaska on its own power. Learning nothing from its past mistakes, Shell returned in 2015 only to abandon drilling for the “foreseeable future” when the oil giant failed to find enough oil to warrant continued exploration. Shell, ConocoPhillips and others ultimately relinquished $2.5 billion plus millions of acres in leases in the Arctic.

Shell’s Kulluk drill rig runs aground in 2012. (U.S. Coast Guard)

This is proof that no oil company should drill in the Arctic. Drilling in the Arctic is risky and reckless. As we have seen time and time again, it is not a question of whether we will spill, but when. The Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez environmental disasters proved that there is no such thing as effective clean up; once oil has been spilled, the battle has been lost. The government—by its own estimate—has said that there is up to a 75 percent risk of a major spill if drilling were to move forward in the Chukchi Sea in Alaska.

Our Arctic champions in the House and Senate have chosen the right path to protect the Arctic and have introduced legislation that would prohibit oil and gas leasing in the Arctic Ocean Planning Areas of the Outer Continental Shelf. The Arctic Ocean is a vulnerable region, home to polar bears, walrus and bowhead whales, and it is facing the dual threats of climate change and development. This legislation would help solidify historic action by the Obama administration to protect our oceans. After listening to the call of Arctic communities, scientists, and the large majority of Americans who recognize that Arctic drilling is too risky and too dirty to allow, President Obama withdrew 125 million acres of the Arctic Ocean from future oil and gas leasing throughout the course of his administration.

A polar bear patrols the shores of the Beaufort Sea. (Alex Berger)

Saturday, April 29, marked the 100th day of the Trump administration, and millions of people across the planet joined forces at the People’s Climate March and its sister marches to show the world and its leaders our unity on the need to find solutions to the climate crisis. Climate change is real, and it is up to us to act before it is too late. One way we can do that is to oppose all efforts to initiate new drilling off of our Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and tell our elected officials across the country to do the same.

Thank you to our Arctic champions who continue to work to protect the Arctic. President Obama’s decision to preserve and protect 98% of our publicly owned Arctic Ocean and key portions of the Atlantic from the hazards and harms of offshore oil drilling was a victory for our oceans, coastal residents, children’s health and climate. President Trump and his administration might want to undo these protections, but we will continue to work hard to make sure that Big Oil stays out of the Arctic – for the sake of Arctic communities, wildlife and for future generations. It only takes a quick look at the not-so-distant past to see that drilling in the Arctic is not the right answer. Shell Oil’s story tells us that taking these risks with our nation’s precious waters is irresponsible.

Sign this petition to let your senators know you want them to support bills that protect our oceans from oil drilling.

Kristen Miller is the Interim Executive Director at Alaska Wilderness League.

Operations at more than a dozen JPMorgan Chase bank branches were disrupted by climate activists in Seattle Monday in response to their role in funding pipeline projects such as the Keystone and Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain. 

The protest was organized by 350 Seattle, as well as Native American activists who participated in the year-long Standing Rock action against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Twenty-six protesters had been arrested by Monday afternoon, but the groups vow to continue putting pressure on big banks.

“If we can make these projects as politically toxic as they are for the environment, maybe they will get cold feet," explained Emily Johnston, communications manager for 350 Seattle.

On Tuesday, "Young Turks" co-hosts Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian praised the effort.

"I think that activists are realizing that it is one thing to go after those who are constructing the pipeline or the companies behind the pipeline; it's also very effective to go after the banks that are funding the construction of these pipelines," Kasparian opened.

Should fossil fuel corporations like Exxon Mobil have access to the U.N. climate talks?

That question is at the center of a new report released this week that offers new analysis on the ways the fossil fuel industry has undermined the U.N. climate negotiations through trade associations that do its bidding.

How does the fossil fuel industry influence U.N. climate talks?

The fossil fuel industry influences the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in a variety of ways. One is by wining and dining government delegates behind closed doors. Another is through its many trade associations, which are admitted to the UNFCCC as observer organizations. With that accreditation in hand, these groups—commonly referred to as Business/Industry Non-Governmental Organizations (or BINGOs)—are free to walk the halls, lobby governments, and influence the negotiations.

The report peels back the curtain on just six of the more than 270 of these business industry groups currently admitted to the climate talks: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Mining Association, Business Roundtable, FuelsEurope, Business Council of Australia, and the International Chamber of Commerce.

How much influence and access do the fossil fuel industry trade associations have?

In a nutshell: Significant influence.

These trade associations do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry inside the halls of the U.N. negotiations. They are funded by and represent some of the world’s biggest polluters, including Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Peabody Energy, Duke Energy and Marathon Oil Company.

In fact, Corporate Accountability International exposed many of these groups for their fossil fuel industry connections prior to the Marrakech climate talks in 2016. Not only do these BINGOs have deep connections to the fossil fuel industry, many also actively weaken, slow, or block climate policy themselves. Currently, there are no policies in place to protect against organizations intent on derailing the UNFCCC process.

As Tamar Lawrence-Samuel, international policy director at Corporate Accountability International has said, “Right now, hundreds of business trade associations have access to the climate talks, and many of them are funded by some of the world’s biggest polluters and climate change deniers. With so many arsonists in the fire department, it’s no wonder we’ve failed to put the fire out.”

Governments are taking a stand

Next week, governments will convene in Bonn, Germany to continue the UNFCCC negotiations. At these meetings, governments will, for the first time in history, officially discuss conflicts of interest—the issue at the heart of the question of whether the fossil fuel industry or its trade associations should have access to the U.N. talks.

Governments are looking to the precedent set in the global tobacco treaty. The tobacco treaty’s key provision, called Article 5.3, and the guidelines for implementing Article 5.3, protect against classic industry interference tactics by barring partnerships, financial relationships, revolving door cases, and industry participation in the policymaking process. These provisions have been recognized by World Health Organization director-general Margaret Chan as the single largest catalyst of progress in a treaty that could save 200 million lives by 2050 when fully implemented.

The talks build on existing momentum: Last May, governments representing nearly 70 percent of the world’s population called for the UNFCCC to address conflicts of interest.

Want to take action?

The report and discussion in Bonn build on the Kick Big Polluters Out campaign—a years-long movement of civil society groups and hundreds of thousands of people across the world demanding climate policy be protected from fossil fuel industry interference.

The campaign has recommended common-sense solutions, such as for governments to define a conflict of interest and to create a stringent, transparent process for admitting observer organizations into the UNFCCC.

Want to join the campaign?

Jesse Bragg is the media director at Corporate Accountability International.