The Long Ecological Revolution

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“Make Ecocide An International Crime Now” sign on the tarmac at a rally against climate change. (Photo: Ivan Radic / Flickr)

Ecocide or Socialism?
Posted Jan 29, 2022 by Victor Wallis

[published in Italian translation in Menelique (www.menelique.com), No. 6, November 2021; posted here with permission.]

Ecocide–the destruction of the entire ecosystem–is a real prospect. Its possibility has been well known to scientists since the 1980s, if not earlier. Every projection of its pace has under estimated the actual rate of breakdown.

I
It has been widely known since 2015 that the petroleum companies were informed by their own scientists, in the 1970s, that the combustion of fossil fuels would lead to global warming. However, not only did they continue to expand oil production; they undertook a deliberate campaign–especially in the United States–to discredit climate science in the public imagination.

Capitalist ecocide is thus not simply a matter of negligence; it is the result of a criminal disposition–one which, true to capitalist form, consciously subordinates the wellbeing of humanity and nature to the dictates of profit.

At present, the signs of breakdown have already attained calamitous proportions. New records of high temperatures are set every year. The associated droughts and forest fires further escalate the speed at which carbon dioxide is spewed into the atmosphere and at which biodiversity is broken down. Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, oceans are warming, storms are intensifying, and marine life is now threatened not only by pollution and over-fishing, but also by suffocation from de-oxygenation of the waters (climateandcapitalism.com). Meanwhile, tropical forests are in some cases (as in Brazil) being deliberately destroyed, while in others they are subject to a “green-grabbing” process which expels the indigenous populations that have helped sustain them (www.ispionline.it).

Can private and corporate capital sponsor a solution to the crisis it has engendered? It is not even making a serious effort. That is why, as a matter of survival, we need a socialist framework informed by ecological awareness–that is, ecosocialism.

II
Perhaps the most common objection to socialism raised by those who understand the severity of the crisis, is that although a socialist framework may be desirable, we cannot afford to wait for the arrival of socialism before addressing the environmental threat.

It is true that the environmental danger requires immediate steps, and it’s true that we cannot immediately expect a socialist transformation. But it does not follow that the necessary near-term steps can be taken without being informed by an understanding that is at least implicitly socialist.

The best way this can be seen is if we observe that the proposals that are put forward within a capitalist framework invariably limit themselves to calling for “clean energy.” They do not call for reducing the total amount of energy used. Nor do they call for reducing the total amount of materials used in production, nor do they call for reducing the amount of space that is withdrawn from biodiverse ecosystems.

For example, Joe Biden has decreed that by 2030 at least half of all cars sold in the U.S. should be powered by electricity, but he has not proposed that the number of private cars should be reduced–as it could and should be–to a small fraction of its present level. Even if we suppose that the electricity to power the new cars is generated without using fossil fuels, there remains the problem that the total number of vehicles will, in the absence of restraint on “market forces,” tend to increase. This will in turn mean that more metal will have to be mined, and more green space will be paved over.

Consider also the fact that, not only for electric batteries but also for communications devices (and of course for weapons systems), there will be a continuing demand for rare metals (climateandcapitalism.com; www.conceptmanagement.co.uk), and that all additions to the total stock of needed metal (i.e., beyond what can be obtained from recycling) require mining processes that, much like fracking, are disastrous for natural water supplies–as for example in the case of gold (used in computer chips), for which toxic cyanide is driven deep into the ground to separate it from the rock in which it is found.

The assumption of a continuously rising energy demand also leads–given the limitations of solar and wind power–to advocacy of nuclear power, which, in addition to all its other costs and dangers, wastes a prodigious amount of water. (For a concise yet comprehensive analysis of nuclear power, taking into account its complete life-cycle and also the increasing risk of nuclear power plants being damaged by catastrophic climate events, see climateandcapitalism.com).

In short, it is not possible to escape the conclusion that even a limited reversal of the dangerous environmental trends requires that we drastically reduce economic activities that do not serve basic human needs.

Reducing economic activities is not part of the capitalist lexicon. To carry out such a reduction in a planned way–respecting human needs–is indeed possible only within a framework no longer driven by market-competition and accumulation. However, some of the local or immediate components of such an approach can be initiated at any time and, as they gain traction, can lay the foundations of the new culture that will have to come into being–across the whole of society–if the socialist approach is to take root.

One example of such initiatives is the planting of urban gardens. Another is the creation of farmers’ markets. Yet another is resistance to specific capitalist aggressions like the installation of oil pipelines. Community involvement requires educational steps, which can lead to radical rejection of a whole approach to defining economic priorities. A remarkable example of such a process unfolded recently in El Salvador, which, as the result of a long struggle of peasants against the destruction of their aquifers by a Canadian mining company, became “the first country of the world to ban all mining” (whowhatwhy.org).

Ultimately, it is indispensable to have a regime that dedicates itself to the protection of biodiversity. But the breadth of support mobilized by the Salvadoran peasants points to the thoroughness with which, if such a regime is to emerge, ecological awareness must already permeate the entire society, overcoming resistance that might previously have been considered insurmountable.

III
Once such a regime–grounded in ecosocialism–is in place, its strategy will depend on the particularities of any given society. But a population that has come to recognize the priority of biodiversity over expanded manufacture will be prepared to engage in the kinds of discussion that will be needed in order to determine which sectors of economic activity (including services) will need to be retained or expanded and which ones will need to diminished or phased out entirely.

The guiding principle for such deliberation will be the extent to which a given activity responds to some basic human need (whether physical or psychological), as opposed to being of service simply to advancing the interests of capital–e.g., through excess production, sales-promotion, financial speculation, environmentally harmful technologies, or, most especially, the maintenance of a vast enforcement apparatus charged with protecting the global interests of the capitalist class. (For fuller discussion, see my 2001 article “Toward Ecological Socialism” [www.researchgate.net], reprinted in my book Red-Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism [Toronto: Political Animal Press, 2018].)

A regime that can elicit and enforce this basic distinction offers the only hope for holding back the forces that threaten our common survival.

https://mronline.org/2022/01/29/ecocide-or-socialism/

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Near New Orleans, weak regulations cause oil pipeline to leak 300k gallons
Cecilia PazJanuary 29, 2022
Download PDF flyer https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... sts/101527

On Jan. 12, federal documents revealed an oil spill of more than 300,000 gallons, which was discovered just east of New Orleans on December 27, 2021.

An inspection in October revealed severe corrosion along the exact 22-foot pipeline section where the spill occurred, yet repairs were delayed in compliance with criminally negligent federal regulations. The 42-year-old pipeline that ruptured is operated by Collins Pipeline Co., which is co-owned by the Valero and PBF Energy corporations, both of which receive hundreds of millions of dollars in government subsidies yearly.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration reports that the diesel spill occurred in St. Bernard Parish near a levee along the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Canal between Chalmette and Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge.

Despite Biden’s promises of implementing the biggest climate investment in U.S. history, the state and federal government continue to serve oil companies. Bare-minimum federal regulations are responsible for this spill because they allowed the neglect of essential pipeline repairs. Nearly all oil pipelines leak; upwards of 350 oil spills occurred in Louisiana after Hurricane Ida alone.

“The recent spill in St. Bernard Parish is an abject example of Louisiana regulators’ cozy relationship with industry, defined by a desire to facilitate and promote industrial activity rather than protecting residents and the environment,” said Jack Reno Sweeney of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade — an organization which partners with and advocates for communities impacted by petrochemical pollution — to Liberation News. Sweeney emphasized the “lack of immediate communication with those most affected, local residents and workers in the seafood industry, after the spill was discovered.”

The Associated Press reports that “most” of the spill was cleaned up, yet only 50,000 gallons, one-sixth of the damage, have been recovered.

The environmental impact

Oil spills damage the productivity and trophic structure of wetland ecosystems, which provide essential ecosystem services including water filtration, reduction of floods and shoreline erosion which are breeding grounds for commercially important species, barriers from hurricanes and nutrient cycling.

More than one-third of the United States’ threatened and endangered species are found in wetlands. The high viscosity of oil clogs the respiratory systems and organs of marine and terrestrial species; recall the heartbreaking images of dying seals, birds, whales, and turtles coated in oil following the 2010 BP oil spill.

When oil leaks into soil, nutrient cycling is disrupted, plants cease to thrive, and water cycles become irreparably disrupted. Dangerous chemicals find their way into the food and water we consume, even if spills don’t directly occur in agricultural areas. The 300,000-gallon spill leaked into the Bayou Sauvage Wildlife Refuge, which already suffers from soil damage due to contamination from illegal dumping, pesticide migration, vehicle emissions, prior oil leakages, and a nearby landfill.

Human activities have caused unusual mortality rates in amphibians of this refuge and the destruction of brown pelican nesting grounds, and with this new massive spill, further degradation is inevitable.


The human cost

When Louisiana’s wetlands are damaged, the entire country suffers. Hurricanes become worse and worse when land barriers degrade; recall Hurricane Ida’s unprecedented excursion all the way to the Northeast United States, and the destruction left in its path. Furthermore, shrimp, oysters, crabs, and other species of shellfish that breed in wetlands are seriously endangered by wetland damage, disrupting our food supply.

This oil spill is another environmental catastrophe among many that have wreaked havoc upon the working class.

Other examples include the recent military-induced crisis at Red Hill in Honolulu, where oil-contaminated drinking water caused major short and long-term health consequences, the violent state-sponsored repression of indigenous DAPL protestors, and the petroleum refinery-induced cancer epidemic in Louisiana’s own Cancer Alley.

It is clear that the oil economy directly harms working and oppressed people as well as the planet.

The CEOs and bankers who continue to profit from the use of fossil fuels can afford to move to greenspace-filled neighborhoods far removed from industrial areas and environmental destruction, while ordinary people are forced to suffer the health and economic effects of their actions.

For the earth to live, capitalism must end

“The [spill] emphasizes the need to decommission all fossil fuel infrastructure —i ncluding the countless miles of active and inactive pipelines cutting across our wetlands and the Gulf — and initiate a full and just transition away from petrochemicals in the immediate future,” Sweeney concluded.

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world and has more than enough resources to transition entirely towards clean energy. Drastic change is necessary to end drilling and reverse the environmental degradation the fossil fuel industry has wrought throughout the Gulf and beyond.

It is past time to start prioritizing long-term sustainability over short-term profits. Under the capitalist system, despite occasional “green” rhetoric, capitalist politicians will remain the puppets of corporations.

A militant people’s movement can bring about the immediate policies and urgent system change necessary to stop environmental destruction. Ultimately, a socialist economic model based on centralized planning and sustainable development must replace the current system of overproduction and waste at the expense of all life.

https://www.liberationnews.org/near-new ... rationnews

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Repsol oil spill declared worst ecological disaster in Peru’s recent history



January 30, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch

Peru is in the midst of dealing with a major oil spill just 30 kilometers from the capital city Lima. On January 15th, 6,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the ocean while a tanker was unloading at the La Pampilla refinery. The facility is the largest in Peru and is owned by Spanish oil company Repsol. Repsol could stand to face up to 34 million USD in fines and Peruvian president Pedro Castillo announced that members of the company’s board will be prohibited from leaving the country.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/01/30/ ... t-history/

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The Svartsengi power plant in Iceland was the first geothermal power plant in the world to combine generation of electricity and production of hot water for district heating. (Credit: Kirill Chernyshev/Shutterstock)

Geothermal green heating part of China’s decarbonization plans
Posted Jan 28, 2022 by China Dialogue

Originally published: China Dialogue (January 27, 2022 ) |

China is adopting geothermal because geothermal district heating is by far the most economic means of heating available … It also answers China’s fundamental policy of carbon neutrality and combating air pollution.

City of Xian geothermal district heating

The city of Xian’s geothermal district heating in Shaanxi Province China serves as an example of the country’s decarbonization plans.

China’s commitment that it would strive to peak its carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 has led a wide-ranging and profound economic and social transformation.

Various levels of government are adopting low-carbon policies tailored to local conditions, and industries are exploring their own green development paths, making concerted efforts to achieve the ambitious goals. This includes green heating, green power and green logistics.

For green heating, geothermal plays a specifically important role, as highlighted by the example of Xi’an, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province. It was a freezing midwinter day in Xi’an, as Zhao Haiyan, 45, wore just a T-shirt and shorts at her home in Lintong, a suburban district of Xi’an as the temperature indoors reached 26 degrees Celsius.


The city of Xi’an’s geothermal district heating in Shaanxi Province, China , serves as an example of the country’s decarbonization plans.

Zhao lives in an affordable housing community of more than 400 households, which is equipped with Lintong’s first zero-carbon and zero-emission clean energy heating project and the first “geothermal+” new energy heating project. Residents were able to enjoy warm green winters as soon as they moved in back in 2018.

Home to the world-renowned terra-cotta warriors, Lintong and the surrounding area have rich geothermal resources. The geothermal heating technology applied in Zhao’s community has been updated to prevent any pollution of underground water reserves, said Wang Chao, director of the Lintong New Area Management Committee.

Statistics from the Shaanxi provincial government show that more than 100,000 households in its central plain area have enjoyed green and clean heating services, and the number is expected to reach at least 600,000 over the next few years, reducing the annual emission of carbon dioxide by 3.6 million tonnes than heating by burning coal.

Utilizing green energy has also brought additional financial benefits. “Based on the 70-square-km urban planning area of the Lintong New Area, comprehensive geothermal energy utilization is expected to create an annual income of about 8.7 billion yuan (about USD 1.37 billion),” said Wang.

China learns from Iceland’s expertise and experience
The geothermal district heating in the province has been developed with Icelandic support as part of Icelandic-Chinese joint venture Sinopec Green Energy Geothermal with the Icelandic partner Arctic Green Energy.

Reykjavik-based Arctic Green Energy is the leading exporter of the Icelandic success and leadership in geothermal to markets around the globe.

Learning from Iceland’s expertise and experience has helped Sinopec Green Energy Geothermal Development, become the world’s largest developer of projects that use underground geothermal energy to heat buildings.

Sinopec Green Energy Geothermal Developmentis is a joint venture between Arctic Green Energy, which owns 46 per cent, and state-owned oil and gas giant China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group), which owns the remaining 54 per cent.

Haukur Hardarson, chairman of Arctic Green Energy and vice-chairman of the joint venture is quoted by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) as saying:

China is adopting geothermal because geothermal district heating is by far the most economic means of heating available … It also answers China’s fundamental policy of carbon neutrality and combating air pollution.

– SCMP

Unlike fossil fuels, the supply of geothermal energy is highly reliable and is not exposed to volatilities of supply, fuel costs and transport capacity.

China has the world’s largest geothermal district heating network, which spans 200,000 kilometres of pipework and 9 billion square metres of floor space, according to the International Energy Agency. Low operating cost meant it was “very competitive” compared to coal-based heating in the long term.

Sources:
Thinkgeoenergy, January 11, 2022. arcticgreencorp.com
SCMP, 3 Sep, 2021. www.scmp.com

https://mronline.org/2022/01/28/geother ... ion-plans/

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THE POWER OF AGRIBUSINESS IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (2021)
Clara Sanchez

Feb 1, 2022 , 9:32 am .


The largest expansion of cultivated land is expected by 2050 in Latin America (Photo: File)

In the year 2020, the failures in the agri-food system caused by covid-19 were expected to lead to shortages and endanger the world's food security, which did not happen, and although hunger on the planet continued to increase , it was not in the predicted catastrophic proportions.

In 2021, the agricultural sector again outperformed other business sectors, this time supported by high food commodity prices. The global agri-food system did not collapse due to the threat posed by the pandemic, even with punctual negative impacts at the level of regions, countries, localities or some circuits of the system, while historical production records continued.

Production from an agri-food system based on agribusiness, dependent on hydrocarbons, which continued its course without incident, in regard to the hoarding, appropriation and control of land, water and biodiversity.

Above all, in Latin America, the region in which most basic food products are produced, the largest net exporter of food in the world, mainly from Brazil and Argentina, which occupy the second and third place with the largest hectares of transgenic crops planted, after the United States.

LARGEST EXPANSION OF CULTIVATED LAND BY 2050

Region where the greatest availability of water, land, biodiversity and abundant natural energy resources for food production are found, under the current and prevailing agricultural model which, together with Sub-Saharan Africa, is where the largest expansions of cultivated land continue to be projected, for the year 2050 .


Estimation of the area cultivated by world regions for the year 2050. Prepared with FAO data (Photo: Food and Power)

In the midst of the "accelerating depletion of land and water resources, as well as the corresponding loss of biodiversity" in the world , through factors that are exerting unprecedented pressure on them, and a clear international competition for them, highlighting the use excessive and improper, degradation, pollution and increased scarcity.

Scarcity of land, according to the FAO, driven by soil degradation, as well as lack of water, which threaten agricultural productivity in the world and, therefore, food security in the future.

And although it is repeated that "the current models of agricultural intensification are not proving sustainable", it is still the large global agribusiness companies that dominate 70% of the planet's agricultural land use.

THE AMAZON: PRESENT AND FUTURE OF LARGE AGRIBUSINESS FARMS

Large companies associated with agribusiness that control the world production of wheat, corn, and rice, which constitute 60% of the calories consumed by the world's population. While soybeans are the main source of animal feed and the second for vegetable oil.

A large-scale agriculture that grows in the region, mainly at the expense of the Amazon and increasing every year in Brazil, under the mantle of the policy of the Jair Bolsonaro Government since 2019, reflected in 2021 with the promotion of the new land regularization PL 510/2021, bringing with it the alerts for the benefit it entails for the advancement of deforestation, burning and farming in the country, and of course for the current global agribusiness model, against small producers and preservation environment in food production.

Grilagem is the grabbing of land, through illegal, irregular forms of appropriation, by force or intimidation; that once intervened, they are used for the production of basic agricultural items, destined mostly for export, at the expense of the forest, and therefore the destruction of biodiversity.
While the discussion took all of 2021, without consensus yet, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) estimated the deforestation of some 13,235 km 2 in the Legal Amazon from August 2020 to July 2021, equivalent to the largest degraded area of ​​forest Amazon in a period of 12 months for 15 years . 22% more than in the 2019-2020 period.


Deforestation in the Legal Amazon between 1998-2021 (Photo: INPE)

And although this year the areas burned in Brazil decreased considerably, coinciding with Argentina , which in the last period registered a decrease in burning from 1 million 136 thousand 534 hectares in 2020 to 331 thousand hectares in 2021, according to INPE itself, the Fires between January and September 2021 amounted to 13,015 outbreaks recorded by satellites, corresponding to 23% more compared to the same period in 2020 and, consequently, a constant increase has been recorded in the last three years . As is the case with deforestation in the Amazon.

Accordingly, the latest WWF report for 2021 highlights that between 2004 and 2017, 43 million hectares of forest were lost in the world in four regions (Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Oceania) for different reasons.

Being large-scale commercial agriculture, especially for soybean planting and cattle ranching, the main cause of deforestation in Latin America, particularly in the Amazon and the Cerrado, distinctive from all other regions. Even small-scale agriculture, although the latter applies above all to Sub-Saharan Africa.


Causes of deforestation in Latin America 2004-2017 (Photo: WWF)

However, when contrasting that 1% of the farms on the planet are large commercial operations, which control 70% of the world's agricultural land, and in contrast 84% are small units, less than 2 hectares that occupy 12 % of agricultural land, refers to a proportionality with the current large-scale agribusiness model as the largest cause of forest deforestation in the world, especially in South America.

BRAZIL OPENS THE DOORS TO THE WORLD'S FIRST TRANSGENIC WHEAT

On the other hand, as expected, Brazil closed the process opened by Argentina in 2020, when it released the transgenic HB4 wheat promoted by the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) and the national company Bioceres, and which waited for approval. of the National Technical Commission for Biosafety of Brazil (CNTBio) to start its commercialization, this giant being the main buyer of Argentine wheat.

Approval that allows the sales of transgenic wheat of the Argentine company in Joint Venture with Florimond Desprez. The latter, one of the 20 companies with the most seed sales in the world, with a French parent company and, therefore, from the European Union, which, to date, has only approved the planting of genetically modified corn in its territories, although have other authorizations for crops in food and feed use, after carrying out exhaustive evaluations of the risk of Genetically Modified Organisms .

This experiment, which has been classified as unprecedented in the world, progressed between alerts and rejections due to the incorporation of the ammonium glufosinate gene, banned in Europe since 2013 and considered a more toxic herbicide than glyphosate, widely used by agribusiness in these countries. .

However, it has been promoted as a new event that will make it possible to face the climate crisis during the "green transition" to guarantee the world's food security, particularly due to its resistance to droughts and of which, in 2021, the planting of 52 thousand 755 hectares, according to the National Seed Institute (Inase) of Argentina, barely 0.8% of the total hectares of wheat sown annually in the country .

THE GLYPHOSATE DICTATORSHIP

And associated with agribusiness, large-scale or agro-industrial crops, is the dependent use of inputs within technological packages related particularly to transgenics, through the incorporation of genes in these events in order to have "resistance", for example , to glyphosate, a massively used herbicide in the world, especially in Argentina and Brazil.

Specifically with this herbicide, while in Germany in 2021 a law was promoted that restricts the use of pesticides, particularly glyphosate until 2023; and the European Union will decide whether to renew its license, which expires at the end of 2022; In Mexico, for its part, a judicial war was unleashed against the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador after the publication of the decree that suggests the progressive and total elimination of the use of glyphosate until 2024.

In any case, large agribusiness corporations, led mainly by Bayer/Monsanto, tried to invalidate the 2020 presidential decree, achieving the partial suspension of the provision that provides for the gradual and progressive elimination of glyphosate and transgenic corn in the country.

Amparo measure that was later revoked by another court, which does not mean that the transnational sat idly by, on the contrary, it tries to go against the Mexican State making it responsible for the losses caused and, even so, in 2022 Mexico estimates a reduction in the importation of glyphosate by 50% less.

In contrast, in Brazil, one of the main players in global agribusiness and, therefore, one of the largest consumers of pesticides in the world, set a record in the release of agrotoxic products. This time, with the number of 550 commercial brands in 2021 and nothing different from what has happened consecutively in the last three years in the country.

In 2022 it will be possible to know if Bayer/Monsanto, owner of the herbicide glyphosate (Round Up), the best-selling herbicide in the world, allows partial or total regulations in the different countries where attempts are currently being made to control its use, even when its prohibition is known. in other nations and continues to be used, overriding national legislation, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean.

FINAL APPROACHES

In Argentina, for example, thanks to the power of agribusiness, agribusiness closed with a record contribution to the economy corresponding to 16% of GDP in 2021, accompanied by the rise in international prices of basic food products, occupying 67% of all the country's exports , practically the only foreign exchange offering sector in the midst of the economic crisis facing the nation due to indebtedness with the IMF, and in the midst of the consequences of the global pandemic.


Exchange balance of the Argentine Republic in 2021 (Photo: BCRA)

For its part, in Brazil, agribusiness obtained record export results in 2021, an increase of 19.8% compared to the previous year in the order of US$ 120.59 million, 43% of the national total, the best performance of the sector, even though their participation fell by 5.1 percentage points with respect to the previous year. Being the soybean complex the main group of agro-industrial exports with 39.8% of the total.

Reasons why agribusiness is considered, in the midst of the global pandemic and the economic crisis that the country is going through, the driver of the Brazilian economy, which reached 26.6% of GDP in 2020 and is estimated to reach close to 30% in 2021.

The way in which the power of agribusiness advances in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially in Brazil and Argentina, seems illogical; however, this model of large-scale agriculture, based mainly on transgenics and the detriment of the land, water and biodiversity , with profound consequences for the Amazon, has an unprecedented economic component for these countries, and the economic crises they face in times of pandemic make it clear.

Finally, if this large-scale agricultural model is the one that makes excessive, improper use, degrades, pollutes and causes scarcity of land and water, affecting biodiversity, why is it not responsible for putting the world's food security at risk in the future? future? Or life on planet? Or is it just productivity that matters?

https://misionverdad.com/investigacione ... aribe-2021

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Peru: Clean-up of Polluted Coast Continues After Oil Spill


Peru continues on the cleaning up of the contaminated beaches after the oil spill. Feb. 1, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@edmsau

Published 1 February 2022

After the oil spill in Peru, the Armed forces deployed troops as support for cleaning the beaches along the Lima coast.


Peru has around 436 troops of the Armed Forces deployed all over the Lima coast to support the cleaning up of the beaches contaminated after the oil spill last January 15 in the Ventanilla sea area.

After being provided with all the required equipment for personal protection, 100 members of the Army's First Multipurpose Brigade were sent to Hondable Beach in Santa Rosa district and to Chacra y Mar Beach in the district of Aucallama in Huaral province aimed to support the cleaning.

The Navy deployed 202 troops of the Infantry and Coast Guard units all along Pocitos Beach in the district of Ancon. To support the beach cleaning near the Peruvian Air Force's Sea Survival School (Esmar) located in Ancon, the Air Force assigned 134 troops.

The General Directorate of Captaincies and Coast Guard (Dicapi) of the Peruvian Navy is leading the coordination of removing oil waste by the military personnel deployed on the beaches, which were provided with the appropriate personal protection equipment, cleaning tools, and geomembranes for completing the task.


In Ventanilla district's sea was reported an oil spill on January 15. According to the Repsol company statements, the oils spill resulted from the strong waves recorded along the Peruvian coast following the eruption of an underwater volcano off Tonga in Oceania.

It is estimated that the spilled oil in the sea was superior to 10 000 barrels of oil.

The contamination has spread all over the Ventanilla's coast, reaching Ancon and Chancay, where a negative impact on marine flora and fauna was registered.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Per ... -0017.html

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Peru Asks the OAS to Discuss Damages from Repsol Oil Spill

Published 3 February 2022

The Spanish company acknowledged that some 10,396 barrels spread along some 50 kilometers of coastline in the north of the department of Lima.

On Wednesday, Peru's representative to the Organization of American States (OAS), Harold Forsyth, denounced before the OAS Permanent Council the environmental and economic impact caused by the oil spill that took place at a Repsol refinery on January 15.

Besides mentioning that his country is "facing an unprecedented scenario in its history", he stressed that President Pedro Castillo's administration "is evaluating a drastic sanction and has been making its greatest efforts to recover damaged ecosystems."

The Peruvian ambassador also asked the OAS Permanent Council to discuss the Repsol oil spill at its next regular session.

This oil spill occurred at the La Pampilla refinery, operated by the Spanish company in the district of Ventanilla, in the province of Callao, adjacent to Metropolitan Lima. To date, Repsol has acknowledged that some 10,396 barrels spread along some 50 kilometers of coastline, from Ventanilla to Chancay City, in the north of the department of Lima.

labournet.tv
@labournettv
"The impunity of those corporations is absolute, & that's why we need people in the global north to mobilize, - use your privilege!"
@estebanservat
about the oil spill in Peru.
February 4, 11:30am, Spanish Embassy Berlin
#RepsolHazteCargo #GlobalCoastlineRebellion
[youtube]http://twitter.com/i/status/1489149730164723714[/youtube]

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On Monday, the Castillo administration paralyzed the loading and unloading activities of oil tankers in La Pampilla, from where 40 percent of the fuels used in Peru come from.

Repsol vowed that it will make "the greatest efforts to avoid the risk of shortages of essential products for Peruvian citizens and the country's development."

According to this company, 35 percent of the spilled oil was already recovered during the last week. To speed up the work to clean up the sea and the beaches, Repsol will transport additional equipment to Peru from the United States, Finland, Brazil, Colombia and the United Arab Emirates.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Per ... -0001.html

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Oil Tanker, Trinity Spirit Explodes off Nigerian Coast


Oil production ship Trinity Spirit explodes off Nigerian coast. Feb. 3, 2022. | Photo: calabrote_blog

Published 3 February 2022 (10 hours 59 minutes ago)

Ten crewmen were aboard the Trinity Spirit, which could carry two million barrels of oil.


An explosion caused the sinking of the oil production ship Trinity Spirit in Delta State, Nigeria, in the early hours of Wednesday.

The explosion took place at the Ukpokiti oil field near the Escravos terminal off Nigeria's coast. The vessel was owned by the Shebah Exploration & Production Company Ltd (SEPCOL), which has confirmed the fateful incident.

Ikemefuna Okafor, chief executive of the company, reported that seven of the ten crew members aboard the ship are reported as missing, with three feared casualties.

Okafor expressed that investigations are in progress in order to determine what caused the explosion and that local communities and a nearby Chevron facility are helping to keep the situation under control.


Despite hasn't been yet determined the exact amount of oil spilled, experts are worried about the severe damage to local mangroves and marine life.

This is the second environmental catastrophe Nigeria faces after 20,000 barrels of oil were released per day for one month into the waterways of Nembe in Bayelsa State by a disused capped oil wellhead.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Oil ... -0019.html

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They warn that deforestation in the Amazon grew by 56.6% in three years


According to the research, the devastation began to accelerate in the second half of 2018. | Photo: @AndreteleSUR
Published 3 February 2022

In 2020 and 2021, with 18 percent deforestation in the biome, the state of Amazonas moved into second place.

Amazon deforestation has increased by 56.6 percent in the last three years, between August 2018 and July 2021, with the loss of native vegetation of 32,740 square kilometers (km²), according to the Environmental Research Institute of the Amazon (IPAM).

The study was based on data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), linked to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, and showed that there was a considerable increase in the affected territory, since in the same period of 2015 the loss was 2018.20 .911 km².

According to the investigation, the devastation began to accelerate in the second half of 2018 and, in addition, this situation had as a reference the campaign speech of President Jair Bolsonaro, in favor of the dismantling of environmental control.


"From that moment (electoral period), the political and legislative events resulted in the current fragility of the policies and institutions responsible for the environmental agenda, for command and control actions, mainly at the federal level," the research acknowledged. .

The investigation stated that Bolsonaro inaugurated a new dynamic of devastation, the weakening of oversight, the amnesty for environmental crimes and exclusionary measures in the Legislative Branch.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/brasil-e ... -0030.html

Google Translator

Capitalism is the enemy of all life on Earth.

[blindpig]

The end of growth? The capitalist economy & ecological crisis

Originally published: Janata Weekly by Conor Payne and Chris Stewart (January 30, 2022 ) | - Posted Feb 07, 2022

Many ecologists, activists and academics argue that an obsession with economic growth is the cause of our current ecological crisis and a commitment to “degrowing” the economy is the solution.

Too often, however, this discussion lacks a sufficient class or anti-capitalist content and workers are blamed for our supposedly destructive “consumption patterns”. Instead, socialists should be clear that the cause of the climate crisis is the capitalist system and its incessant drive to accumulate profits, and that the only way to solve the crisis is to struggle for a socialist world where human need, including a sustainable relation to nature, comes before private greed.

Capitalism’s “boom and bust” cycle

Under capitalism, the driving force of the economy is the pursuit of profit. The competition between companies and even different capitalist powers for markets and resources means that this drive for profit is relentless and expansive. Therefore, capitalism also involves a continuous quest for economic growth.

At the same time, these companies will seek to “externalize” the cost of their activities, to leave them to be paid by someone else. The capitalist firm doesn’t care on what basis it grows; whether its products are useful or cause harm, or if its activities are environmentally sustainable.

Capitalism is a system of contradictions. The capitalists get their profits by exploiting workers, as well as the resources extracted from nature in the labor process. The constant need to accumulate more profits means capitalism extracts more and more resources in increasingly destructive ways, ultimately leading to the depletion of soils, minerals, forests, the life in our oceans etc–which undermines the system’s own sources of wealth.

Capitalism is increasingly coming up against the ecological barrier to its unrestrained development, as seen in mounting natural disasters, the recent shutdown of the power system in Texas, and a global pandemic, all at least partly attributable to humanity’s increasing incursions into nature.

As well as this, capitalism is a system that primarily organizes investment through the chaos of the stock market, where investment is motivated only by the pursuit of profit. Today, capitalists increasingly choose to speculate with their wealth through complex financial products that have little relation to actual value in society–what Marx termed “fictitious capital”. This is because they can make more short-term profits here than they can through actual productive investment.

At the same time, the desire of the capitalists to drive down the share of wealth that goes to the working class means that workers collectively are not able to buy all the goods the capitalists put to market. This is one way that capitalist growth eventually comes up against its limits and throws the system into crisis and recession. We are now experiencing this process of crisis in Ireland and internationally for the second time in just over a decade.

When growth has been rooted in productive investment, it has often led also to increases in working class living standards, although workers’ gains are usually dwarfed by those of corporations and the rich. Periods of economic growth, for example in the decades following World War 2, were also sometimes used by capitalist governments to grant social reforms in the interests of working people, such as pensions, public health and education services, welfare protections etc. This was done not out of any innate kindness but as a mechanism to stave off potential revolutionary challenges to the system from the working class.

However, in the preceding decades of neo-liberal capitalism, the basis for growth has been precisely the reduction of the share of wealth going to the working class. Capitalism has suppressed wages, gutted public services, eroded economic security. Inequality has exploded as the gains of economic growth congealed at the top. At the same time, the capitalists have promoted more and more consumption fueled in significant measure by debt. This means that today capitalist economic growth often means little real gain for working class people.

The recovery from the great recession of ’08 was largely a joyless one. This was illustrated graphically here in Ireland in the 2020 election when the establishment did not benefit from any “feel good” factor whatsoever–in fact suffering a historic defeat. This was despite nominally impressive growth rates in the preceding years. The recovery did not alter the reality of low pay, precarity and housing distress. In Britain, the Office of National Statistics found that, despite a decade of “growth”, real wages only recovered to the level of 2008 at the end of 2019–just in time for the next crisis! At the same time, the numbers on zero hours contracts were the highest on record, at just under a million workers.[1]

Meanwhile, the mounting burden of ecological breakdown will not be shared equally; as those with wealth move to insulate themselves from the consequences of the economic system they have profited from. As unprecedentedly low temperatures drove catastrophic power outages in Texas, working-class, poor and minority neighborhoods bore the brunt of the power cuts while empty skyscrapers lit up the city skyline.

Karl Marx said that under capitalism: “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole.”[2] This sums up the capitalist economy today. At the same time, of course, workers are still liable to pay the price when the system goes into recession. The reality is that at no stage in its cycle of boom and bust, does the capitalist economy operate in the interests of the working class.

An economy for need, not greed

While economic growth undoubtedly drives carbon emissions and all forms of environmental destruction, contraction on a capitalist basis does not deliver an equivalent let up in environmental intensity. According to one study, examining 150 countries over the period of 1960-2008, a 1% increase in GDP meant on average a 0.73% increase in carbon emissions, while a 1% decline in GDP meant only a 0.4% decrease in carbon emissions.[3] This is because the environmentally inefficient goods and infrastructure created during a boom generally continue in use during a downturn. Less consumption in itself can never deliver the necessary reduction in carbon emissions. Instead we need a fundamental change in how we produce.

This means that without a planned transition to a sustainable means of life the tendency will be for ever increasing emissions. So the debate about growth and degrowth is useless unless linked to the need to bring an end to the chaos of the capitalist market.

The purpose of the capitalist economy is to deliver increased profit for the bosses. The purpose of the economy under socialism would be to fulfill human need in a sustainable way. This means taking the key sectors of the economy out of the hands of big business and bringing them into public ownership, under democratic control. This means we can reorganize the energy industry, transport, agribusiness and production overall on a planned basis, in the interests of both people and the planet.

Socialists want a better life for the vast majority on this earth. We know many, even in the richer countries, are in poverty or barely keeping their heads above water, do not have access to decent housing or healthcare, or have no economic security for the future. We believe this to be completely unjustifiable in a world of incredible abundance. For this reason, we reject attacks on working-class living standards, even those that are introduced with an environmental veneer, e.g. water charges, or carbon taxes.

The vast majority of the world’s population is responsible for very little in terms of carbon emissions. A recent UN report shows that globally the top 1% of earners are responsible for a yearly per capita average of 74 tons of C02 per year. Meanwhile for the bottom 50% of earners the figure is 0.7 tons.[4] In much of the world a socialist system would need to increase production on a sustainable basis and redistribute wealth. Even in the wealthier capitalist countries many sectors that are not prioritized for capitalist investment would need to be expanded under a socialist system, not reduced–healthcare, housing, renewable energy for a start.

A world of waste

At the same time, capitalist production involves enormous waste. We should not underestimate the extent of this:

*690 million people around the world went hungry in 2019, with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation projecting that the impact of the pandemic could add a further 132 million people to that number.[5] Yet, during the pandemic, the closure of restaurants and other disruptions cause the widespread dumping of perfectly good produce. Even in “normal” times, while the world already produces enough food to feed everyone, a minimum of one third of this food is lost or wasted. Many things cause this but the status of food as a commodity to be sold for profit is at the centre of the problem. Agribusiness leaves food to rot in the fields to keep prices high, supermarkets throw out edible food they don’t think they can sell, good food is even discarded because its size or shape makes it “unmarketable”.[6]

*In 2020, approximately $569 billion was spent on advertising, projected to grow to $612 billion this year.[7] You can add to this, the resources spent on sales promotion, public relations, “direct marketing” and other forms of corporate self-promotion. The vast bulk of this money is wasted, spent not to inform us but to convince us to buy as much as possible or to buy one identical brand of a product over another, often preying on our anxieties and insecurities in order to create false needs in our minds that can be “solved” through consumption.

*Because capitalism doesn’t produce for need but for profit, advertising and marketing become bound up with the process of production itself. The packaging industry is now the third largest on earth and much packaging is not mainly functional but a form of product promotion. Packaging costs amount to somewhere between 10% and 40% of total product cost.[8]

*Planned obsolescence means that products are consciously not built to be durable and must be frequently replaced by consumers. This includes fast fashion made from low quality material and electronics with batteries that can’t be replaced, contributing to 500 million tonnes of E-waste in 2019.[9]

*There are a plethora of other industries and products of no use to working-class people: from the armaments industry producing weapons of death, to luxury goods like private jets–an industry which has benefitted from a raft of new, wealthy customers seeking to avoid commercial flights during the pandemic. As a result of yet another capitalist speculative bubble, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin now consumes more energy than all of Argentina, a country of 45 million people.

*Competition between firms means that research and development efforts are often duplicated.

As we can see, the mountains of waste produced under capitalism are not a product mainly of the demands of consumers, but instead serve the needs of capitalist profiteering. The structure of capitalist society itself also partly conditions our consumer needs. Those who don’t live near reliable public transport “need” to buy cars, people on low incomes will “choose” to buy fast fashion etc.

To create more and more products that aren’t needed or will be sent rapidly to landfill, or to generate more and more artificial demand is all “growth” in capitalist terms, but it isn’t human progress. A democratic, planned economy could do “more with less” as part of a planned ecological transition–retooling useless or destructive industries, eliminating duplication, overproduction and planned obsolescence, focusing on fulfilling needs not generating artificial wants and transforming agriculture, transport and energy production on a sustainable basis. In such a system whole industries, communities and cities would be planned democratically and on a completely different basis, putting an end to capitalist overproduction and waste and allowing for a more rational allocation of resources.

Sustainable future means socialist planning

Some argue that a simple transition to renewable energy will solve the ecological problems we face. This transition is both necessary and possible, but won’t be done under capitalism that will extract every source of fossil fuels down to the last, so long as there is profit to be made from them.

But even if this were achieved, we would still face a range of looming ecological catastrophes. The fact is that capitalism is already exceeding a number of planetary boundaries for safeguarding a safe environment for human civilization on earth.

These include species extinction, soil degradation and deforestation, to name only a few. Their common source is the increasing scale and intensity of humanity’s incursions into nature, which are now undermining the basis of our own existence on the planet.

Nor will technological changes alone solve the problem of a sustainable relationship with nature. Under capitalism, the opposite is the case: while technological changes result in the more efficient use of energy, this then creates the basis for further expansion and so paradoxically technological development often results in a net increase in the amount of energy used.[10]

While technology may alter to some degree what the limits are, we have to accept the reality that “you can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet”. Capitalism means an increasingly destructive and frantic search for resources that can be extracted and land which can be developed, with the benefits of this activity more and more concentrated in the hands of the few.

Socialist planning can ensure the rational development of the quality of our lives without increasing environmental intensity. Only on this basis can we restructure our society around need, not profit, creating countless socially necessary jobs in pursuit of building a sustainable system.

Socialists stand for massive investment in low carbon jobs and sustainable infrastructure, as well as the introduction of a four-day work-week with no loss of pay. This would not only solve the problem of permanent unemployment under capitalism by distributing work to all those who need it, but would also free workers up to participate in political and economic decision-making, and would achieve a better balance between work, our social lives and leisure.

This will still pose complex questions about how products, industries and practices can be maintained, but these are best resolved on the basis of democratic discussion in a society founded on equality and solidarity.

Conor Payne and Chris Stewart are with Irish section of the Socialist Party. Article courtesy: Socialist Alternative, a U.S. socialist organization organising people in workplaces, communities, and campuses against the exploitation and injustices people face every day.

Notes:
1.Richard Partington, Feb 18, 2020 “Average Wages Top Pre-Financial Crisis Levels”, The Guardian, www.theguardian.com
2.Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1, www.marxists.org
3.Richard York, Oct 7, 2012, “Asymmetric effects of economic growth and decline on CO2 emissions”, Nature Climate Change, www.nature.com
4.UN Environment Program “Emissions Gap Report 2020”, Dec 9, 2020
5.UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, July 13, 2020, “As more go hungry and malnutrition persists, achieving Zero Hunger by 2030 in doubt, UN report warns”, www.fao.org
6.Andrew Smolski, Mar 29, 2017, “Capital’s Hunger in Abundance”, Jacobin, jacobinmag.com
7.Brad Adgate, Dec 14, 2020, “Ad Agency Forecast: Expect The Advertising Market To Rebound In 2021”, Forbes, www.forbes.com
8.John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark, 2020, The Robbery of Nature: Capitalism and the Ecological Rift, Monthly Review Press, p. 364
9.John Harris, Apr 15, 2020, “Planned obsolescence: the outrage of our electronic waste mountain”, The Guardian, www.theguardian.com
10.Foster and Clark, 2020, p.352-3.

https://mronline.org/2022/02/07/the-end-of-growth/

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| Look up Australia How capitalism and climate change are turning our food bowl to dust

Originally published: Red Flag by Jamiel Deeb (February 2, 2022 ) | - Posted Feb 07, 2022

Quentin Beresford’s book Wounded Country: The Murray-Darling Basin—a contested history, published in September 2021, is a warning. State officials, politicians and agribusinesses risk turning Australia’s premier food bowl—the Murray-Darling Basin, which covers 14 percent of the Australian mainland—into desert.

The book is an environmental history of the once thriving basin, which evolved over millions of years to accommodate and retain water during the cycle of floods and droughts. It’s the story of how this immense river system and the ecosystems that depend on it are being slowly killed for profit.

Beresford details how, following the invasion and colonisation of this continent by the British, anything that got in the way of profit-driven agricultural expansion—from Indigenous people to native ecosystems to wildlife—faced campaigns of “annihilation”. The Australian state has been the key cultural and economic driver of this (ongoing) destruction, and its goal from the start has been to foster an agriculture sector that can compete in the global capitalist market.

Within decades of the British invasion, tens of millions of sheep roamed the landscape, devouring the native grasses. These grasses have deep roots adapted to soak up occasional heavy rainfall into the spongy soil. In their place, squatters planted shallow-rooted grass, which was more subject to damage by summer heat and storms. Furthermore, the spongy soil was pounded down by the heavy-hoofed sheep and cattle, leading to soil erosion and reduced soil fertility.

Cleared land has always been seen as more profitable in the short term. Fewer trees mean more crops and cattle. This logic was promoted by state and federal governments. Until the 1980s, Beresford explains, farmers could obtain a tax deduction for spending on the destruction and removal of timber, scrub or undergrowth. The result was wholesale annihilation of forests along the basin’s network of rivers. By 1995, the CSIRO estimated, between 12 and 15 billion trees had been removed in the region, and the logging has continued to this day.

Vast areas of irrigated crops along the Murray River were once shady oases of river red gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis). The trees, Beresford writes, were “found for hundreds of kilometres along the Murray, stretching from 5-13 kilometres back from the river”. They are “perfectly attuned to the periodic flood conditions”, and played a role in managing water flow and retention along the river. Today their numbers are much reduced.

Land clearing, combined with declines in water flow, has also contributed to a salinity crisis along the Murray—harming native ecosystems and agriculture alike, as well as impacting Adelaide’s drinking water. The river red gums and other trees act as pumps, keeping ancient salts dissolved in groundwater. As “farmers—backed by government schemes—removed the trees”, writes Beresford, it resulted “in a rising water table bringing salt deposits to the surface, which killed plant life”. By the 1970s, a tonne of salt was carried annually down the Murray River from the irrigation drainage system.

Beresford also writes about the state-funded war targeting many native animal species—seen as
“pests” that get in the way of productive harvests. The basin was once teeming with dingoes, wallabies, kangaroos, wombats, platypuses, koalas and emus. Each species was slaughtered in the millions. Some—like the kangaroo and wallabies—were able to adapt and survive. Most, however, have disappeared from agricultural land and continue to have their last remaining habitats threatened.

The campaign of destruction began in earnest in the late 1880s, by which time all state governments covering the basin had adopted some form of “pest” control act. “The acts”, Beresford explains, “gave the government the power to enter and inspect any property and, if vermin were found, order the owners to destroy the pests under threat of a fine. Inspectors could order the laying of poisons and the erection of new fences”. The drive to annihilate native species went beyond those deemed agricultural “pests”. Species like the platypus and koala were also slaughtered to supply the global fur and feather trade.

Beresford recounts two largely forgotten droughts as a warning of what may lie ahead without radical change. Both the Federation Drought of 1895-1903and the Australian “dust bowl” of the 1930s and 40s turned much of the rural landscape of the eastern states—centred in the Murray-Darling Basin—to dust.

The Mallee region, an agricultural area surrounding the north-western Victorian town of Mildura, was particularly badly impacted. During the Federation Drought, Beresford writes, “drifts of sand in this and other areas filled houses knee-deep, blocked front doors, clogged water tanks and engulfed fences and vegetation”. Many settlers left the region, and those who remained were “on the verge of starvation”. This story was repeated across the Murray-Darling Basin from Victoria, through NSW, to southern Queensland.

The drought, Beresford recounts, had a death toll in the thousands “from the effects of heat, bushfires, disease and malnutrition”. And its impacts weren’t limited to rural areas. “The dairying, meat export and wheat industries were paralysed”, creating food shortages in the major cities.

The “dust bowl” of the 1930s and ’40s caused similar levels of hardship. “In terms of the area affected by erosion and the length of time over which dust storms erupted”, Beresford argues, “Australia’s dust bowl was greater than America’s”. Agricultural industries were crippled once again, topsoil from vast areas of farmland was blown out to sea, and permanent gangs of workers were required to keep railways free of sand drifts.

The Murray-Darling Basin was in a state of collapse during these two prolonged periods of drought. This collapse was just as much a product of human activities as it was of the natural variability of weather patterns and rainfall. According to research on the Federation Drought published by the CSIRO in 2019, the cause was an El Niño event exacerbated by “land clearing, degradation of native grasses, overstocking and overcropping, and the introduction of feral species”.

These conclusions were little different from those drawn by scientists at the time. As early as 1885, the NSW Royal Commission on the Conservation of Water concluded that the wholesale clearing of forests had reduced rainfall “by up to 50 per cent in some districts”. But despite the impact of the droughts and the warnings of scientists over many decades of the need for change, the kind of environmental vandalism that contributed to the devastation has never ceased.


Illustration by Sofia Sabbagh (Instagram: @sofia.sabbagh)

Given what we know about the likely impacts of climate change on Australia, it’s certain that we’ll face more, and more severe, droughts in the years ahead. Scientists predict that the kind of extreme El Niño events that triggered previous severe droughts will increase in frequency in a warmer world. And already, a long-term decline in water flows into the basin is evident. A 2018 CSIRO study found that “the average inflow to the Murray River during the past 20 years was almost half the 20th century average”.

Governments have heralded irrigation as the solution to drought. But it’s a “solution” only for those big irrigators farming cattle or growing water-intensive crops like cotton, who can invest in the machinery and water storage infrastructure required to hoard all the water they need. For local ecosystems and communities in the basin, it’s making things worse.

The ABC’s Four Corners episodes “Pumped” (2017) and “Cash Splash” (2019) exposed the large-scale, unregulated over-irrigation occurring across the Basin, covertly backed by our corrupt political establishment and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. The consequences of this ecological vandalism have been devastating. The basin ecosystem is dependent on periodic floods, which fill a network of wetlands and lakes that keep the river system and surrounding landscape hydrated during periods of drought. Today, however, due to the vast amounts of water being pumped out by big irrigators, even the wettest seasons aren’t enough to replenish fully the Basin’s natural reserves.

In early 2021, residents of the western NSW town of Menindee were in uproar. Their water supply turned green and stank. Beresford records, “The townspeople claim that water from the drought-breaking rains of early 2020 wasn’t flowing to them”. This created the conditions for an algal bloom. The last time the Darling River was in the same poor shape was in 2018, when another algal bloom killed an estimated one million fish. Widespread heavy rain across NSW and Queensland in the second half of 2021 has improved the situation, but without fundamental change, the shortage of natural flows through the system will become the “new normal”.

Beresford’s book captures one relatively local aspect of a global crisis. His message is clear: if we fail to change course, Australia’s food bowl will again turn to dust. And this time, due to the combined pressure of climate change and continuing ecological destruction, the damage may be fatal. And when we expand our view from the Murray-Darling Basin to encompass the entire Earth, we get a terrifyingly clear picture of the suicidal trajectory that capitalism’s drive to short-term profit has put us on.

We need not, however, resign ourselves to a future battle for survival against ever-encroaching desert sands. Scientific knowledge gives society the capacity to be stewards of a sustainable food system across the Basin and our entire planet. We have the capacity to transform agriculture into a system that is capable of feeding Earth’s current population and more: one that is a carbon sink rather than a major emitter; one that safeguards key ecological functions such as water flow and soil health; and one that integrates corridors for wildlife, wetlands and native forest systems for moisture feedback, nutrient sinks and biodiversity.

The profit-driven system of capitalism has failed. To save the Murray-Darling Basin and our habitable planet at large, we need nothing short of far-reaching system change.

https://mronline.org/2022/02/07/look-up-australia/

[blindpig]

Climate change is suffocating fish
February 9, 2022
The ocean’s middle depths started losing oxygen at unnatural rates in 2021


Nick Hopgood/Wikimedia Commons

(American Geophysical Union, February 1, 2022) By 2080, around 70% of the world’s oceans could be suffocating from a lack of oxygen as a result of climate change, potentially impacting marine ecosystems worldwide, according to a new study. The new models find mid-ocean depths that support many fisheries worldwide are already losing oxygen at unnatural rates and passed a critical threshold of oxygen loss in 2021.

Oceans carry dissolved oxygen as a gas, and just like land animals, aquatic animals need that oxygen to breathe. But as the oceans warm due to climate change, their water can hold less oxygen. Scientists have been tracking the oceans’ steady decline in oxygen for years, but the new study provides new, pressing reasons to be concerned sooner rather than later.

The new study is the first to use climate models to predict how and when deoxygenation, which is the reduction of dissolved oxygen content in water, will occur throughout the world’s oceans outside its natural variability.

It finds that significant, potentially irreversible deoxygenation of the ocean’s middle depths that support much of the world’s fished species began occurring in 2021, likely affecting fisheries worldwide. The new models predict that deoxygenation is expected to begin affecting all zones of the ocean by 2080.

The results were published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, which publishes high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences.

The ocean’s middle depths (from about 200 to 1,000 meters deep), called mesopelagic zones, will be the first zones to lose significant amounts of oxygen due to climate change, the new study finds. Globally, the mesopelagic zone is home to many of the world’s commercially fished species, making the new finding a potential harbinger of economic hardship, seafood shortages and environmental disruption.

Rising temperatures lead to warmer waters that can hold less dissolved oxygen, which creates less circulation between the ocean’s layers. The middle layer of the ocean is particularly vulnerable to deoxygenation because it is not enriched with oxygen by the atmosphere and photosynthesis like the top layer, and the most decomposition of algae — a process that consumes oxygen — occurs in this layer.

“This zone is actually very important to us because a lot of commercial fish live in this zone,” says Yuntao Zhou, an oceanographer at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and lead study author. “Deoxygenation affects other marine resources as well, but fisheries [are] maybe most related to our daily life.”

The new findings are deeply concerning and add to the urgency of engaging meaningfully in mitigating climate change, says Matthew Long, an oceanographer at NCAR who was not involved in the study.

“Humanity is currently changing the metabolic state of the largest ecosystem on the planet, with really unknown consequences for marine ecosystems,” he said. “That may manifest in significant impacts on the ocean’s ability to sustain important fisheries.”

Evaluating vulnerability

The researchers identified the beginning of the deoxygenation process in three ocean depth zones — shallow, middle and deep — by modeling when the loss of oxygen from the water exceeds natural fluctuations in oxygen levels. The study predicted when deoxygenation would occur in global ocean basins using data from two climate model simulations: one representing a high emissions scenario and the other representing a low emissions scenario.

In both simulations, the mesopelagic zone lost oxygen at the fastest rate and across the largest area of the global oceans, although the process begins about 20 years later in the low emissions scenario. This indicates that lowering carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions could help delay the degradation of global marine environments.

The researchers also found that oceans closer to the poles, like the west and north Pacific and the southern oceans, are particularly vulnerable to deoxygenation. They’re not yet sure why, although accelerated warming could be the culprit. Areas in the tropics known for having low levels of dissolved oxygen, called oxygen minimum zones, also seem to be spreading, according to Zhou.

“The oxygen minimum zones actually are spreading into high latitude areas, both to the north and the south. That’s something we need to pay more attention to,” she says. Even if global warming were to reverse, allowing concentrations of dissolved oxygen to increase, “whether dissolved oxygen would return to pre-industrial levels remains unknown.”

“Plain Language Summary” of Emerging Global Ocean Deoxygenation Across the 21st Century
by Hongjing Gong, Chao Li, & Yuntao Zhou
Geophysical Research Letters, November 19, 2021
Decreasing dissolved oxygen concentrations in the ocean, which degrade the marine environment and biology, have been observed in recent decades.

To understand the changes in oceanic oxygen concentrations, we calculated the time at which the signal of oxygen change will exceed its natural variations using climate model simulations.

The low- and high-emission simulations showed that the emergence of deoxygenation signal would occur earlier and that its spatial coverage ratio would be larger in the mesopelagic (200–1,000 m) zone than in the epipelagic (0–200 m) and bathypelagic (>1,000 m) zones.

Moreover, the high-emission simulations suggest that the time at which the deoxygenation signal will exceed the internal variability is projected to be before 2080 in more than 72% of the ocean globally.

By 2080, deoxygenation signals would emerge below the epipelagic zones of the western North Pacific, North Atlantic, and Southern Oceans. The trend of rapidly declining oxygen concentrations with ongoing global warming can greatly affect fisheries and other marine resources.

https://climateandcapitalism.com/2022/0 ... ting-fish/

[blindpig]

END OF THE BOOM IN SIGHT FOR US FRACKING
Feb 5, 2022 , 12:48 p.m.


Shale drilling well in Midland, Texas (Photo: EFE)

The meager inventory of profitable shale wells in the United States shows that the days when American fracking companies could quickly supply the world with oil are fading and market forces are shifting to other producers, many of them overseas. .

This is reported by the Wall Street Journal in an article where it points out that thousands of shale wells were extracting less oil and gas than the companies had anticipated. Many companies keep track of how many wells they have left to drill.

US oil production, now at around 11.5 million barrels per day, is still well below its early 2020 peak of around 13 million barrels per day. The Energy Information Administration expects US production to grow about 5.4% through the end of 2022.

The Permian Basin, between New Mexico and Texas, is the largest oil-producing basin in the United States. During the fracking boom years, Pioneer, the best performing company in this basin, increased its production between 19 and 27 percent annually. Now, their long-term projections are for growth of 5% per year or less.

And so with the rest of the fracking companies in the most productive states in the US. Companies like EOG Resources, Devon Energy, Diamondback Energy, Continental Resources and Marathon Oil only have about a decade of profitable well sites left, at the current rate of production. If withdrawals increased by 15 percent per year, the term would be shortened to six years.

Pioneer's director says that even if oil reaches the price of $100 per barrel, oil production will grow between 2% and 3% per year.

Almost since the beginning of the fracking industry , its energetic, ecological and economic disadvantages have been pointed out: production declines very quickly and an unconventional gas well produces 80% of all the gas of its useful life in one year ; for every dollar obtained from the sale of this hydrocarbon, 1.5 dollars will have been invested in its drilling and extraction; It involves abundant water consumption, groundwater contamination and can favor the displacement of land masses and cause earthquakes.

https://misionverdad.com/fin-del-auge-l ... ng-en-eeuu

Google Translator

Well, good riddance, but an immense amount of damage has already been done. When will the managers and stockholders of these enterprises be held accountable for their wreckage of people's lives and our environment? Don't hold your breath...
Interestingly, an oil site that I visited said that the lack of response to boom times by the frackers actually represents fiscal responsibility on the part of the industry. Right, as though that has ever actually been a priority of the capitalist in play. But ya gotta tell the shareholders something, they can be flighty but are easily satisfied by any self-serving gibberish.

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U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
By Leah Douglas


An ethanol plant with its giant corn silos next to a cornfield in Windsor, Colorado July 7, 2006.

Feb 14 (Reuters) - Corn-based ethanol, which for years has been mixed in huge quantities into gasoline sold at U.S. pumps, is likely a much bigger contributor to global warming than straight gasoline, according to a study published Monday.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, contradicts previous research commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) showing ethanol and other biofuels to be relatively green.

President Joe Biden's administration is reviewing policies on biofuels as part of a broader effort to decarbonize the U.S. economy by 2050 to fight climate change.

“Corn ethanol is not a climate-friendly fuel,” said Dr. Tyler Lark, assistant scientist at University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment and lead author of the study.

The research, which was funded in part by the National Wildlife Federation and U.S. Department of Energy, found that ethanol is likely at least 24% more carbon-intensive than gasoline due to emissions resulting from land use changes to grow corn, along with processing and combustion.

Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, the ethanol trade lobby, called the study "completely fictional and erroneous," arguing the authors used "worst-case assumptions [and] cherry-picked data."

Under the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a law enacted in 2005, the nation's oil refiners are required to mix some 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol into the nation's gasoline annually. The policy was intended to reduce emissions, support farmers, and cut U.S. dependence on energy imports.

As a result of the mandate, corn cultivation grew 8.7% and expanded into 6.9 million additional acres of land between 2008 and 2016, the study found. That led to widespread changes in land use, including the tilling of cropland that would otherwise have been retired or enrolled in conservation programs and the planting of existing cropland with more corn, the study found.

Tilling fields releases carbon stored in soil, while other farming activities, like applying nitrogen fertilizers, also produce emissions.

A 2019 study from the USDA, which has been broadly cited by the biofuel industry, found that ethanol’s carbon intensity was 39% lower than gasoline, in part because of carbon sequestration associated with planting new cropland.

But that research underestimated the emissions impact of land conversion, Lark said.

USDA did not respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which administers the nation's biofuel policy, is considering changes to the program. Under the RFS, Congress set blending requirements through 2022, but not beyond, giving the EPA authority to impose reforms. EPA plans to propose 2023 requirements in May.

https://www.reuters.com/business/enviro ... 022-02-14/

Besides which it is an obscenity to be using food as fuel. And other crops which may not be so 'needy' as maize are displaced. It is perhaps trivial but still notable that every time additional 'support' is given to ethanol the price of sunflower seeds goes way up. (Most of the sunflower crop is grown for oil, feeding the flying reptiles is a vastly secondary market.)

[blindpig]

A typical shanty town (Photo: Resilience)

To eradicate global poverty and cut global carbon emissions, rich nations must change their consumption patterns
Originally published: China Environment News by Ayesha Tandon (February 20, 2022 ) - Posted Feb 23, 2022

Sometimes the aching injustice of human-caused climate change hits you square between the eyes. A new fact rears up that is potent, emotive and incontrovertible.

That is how Carbon Brief introduced an article this week on the massive global inequality in Green House Gas emissions between people in rich and poor countries–an issue that China Environment since its beginning has emphasized as central to tackling global environmental crises. We share Carbon Brief’s report below.

We often hear from Western commentators that actions taken by Europe or the U.S. are meaningless when compared to the industrial emissions of China, or the effects of rapid population growth in Africa. New research exposes these claims as wilfully ignorant, at best.

Eradicating ‘extreme poverty’ would raise global emissions by less than 1%

A new study has found that the average carbon footprint of the top 1% of emitters on the planet was more than 75-times higher than that in the bottom 50%.

Benedikt Bruckner from the University of Groningen, who led the study, said “The inequality is just insane. If we want to reduce our carbon emissions, we really need to do something about the consumption patterns of the super-rich.”

The central finding was equally stark. Namely, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of “extreme poverty”–where they live on less than U.S.$1.90 per day–would drive a global increase in emissions of less than 1%.

Emissions inequality

Humans release tens of billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. However, the distribution of these emissions is unequal – as they are disproportionately produced by people in wealthier countries who typically live more carbon-intensive lifestyles.

The new study uses what it calls “outstandingly detailed” global expenditure data from the World Bank Consumption Dataset to assess the carbon footprints of people in different countries, and with different consumption levels.

Dr Klaus Hubacek is a professor of science, technology and society at the University of Groningen and an author on the study. He tells Carbon Brief what is included in consumption figures:

“Driving the model with the consumption patterns calculates the carbon emissions not only directly through expenditure for heating and cooling, but the embodied carbon emissions in the products they buy. So it’s taking account of the entire global supply chains to calculate those carbon emissions.”

Dr Yuli Shan – a faculty research fellow in climate change economics at the University of Groningen – is also an author on the study. He explains that using consumption data ensures that carbon emissions are linked to the countries that use goods and services, rather than the countries that produce them. This is important, because “poor countries emit large quantities of CO2 due to the behaviour of people in developed countries”, he adds.

The map below shows the average carbon footprints of residents of the 116 countries included in the study. The shading indicates the size of the carbon footprint, for low (blue) to high (red). Note the exponential scale on the colour bar.

National average carbon footprints for 116 countries



The authors find that Luxembourg has the highest average national per capita carbon footprint in the study, at 30tCO2 per person, followed by the U.S. with 14.5tCO2. It is worth noting that a number of countries with high per-capita emissions are not included in the study, such as Australia, Canada,** Japan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, as these are not included in the dataset. [** CEN note: Australia and Canada have per capita figures to the USA.]

In contrast, Madagascar, Malawi, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda all have average carbon footprints of less than 0.2tCO2.

Dr Shoibal Chakravarty is a visiting professor at the Divecha Centre for Climate Change and was also not involved in the research. He tells Carbon Brief that the study “significantly improves on previous attempts” to measure per-capita emissions, and is “more rigorous that past efforts”.

The rich and the ‘super-rich’

Within each country, the authors also split the population into groups based on how much they spend, on average. Benedikt Bruckner–the lead author on the study, also from the University of Groningen –tells Carbon Brief that while previous studies typically used four or five groups, this study uses more than 200.

The high number of “expenditure bins” allows for “more precise, more detailed [and] more accurate” analysis, Hubacek says.

When including bins, the spread of carbon footprints ranges from less than 0.01 tCO2 for more than a million people in sub-Saharan countries to hundreds of tonnes of CO2 for about 500,000 individuals at the top of the “global expenditure spectrum”, the authors find.

Global population share of carbon emissions & average carbon footprints



The authors then split the global population into the top 1%, next 9%, next 40% and bottom 50% of emitters. Their share of global emissions (left) and average carbon footprint (right) are shown in red, yellow, light blue and dark blue below, respectively.

The study finds that the average carbon footprint in the top 1% of emitters is more than 75-times higher than that in the bottom 50%.

This gap is “astonishing”, Dr Wiliam Lamb – a researcher at the Mercator Research Institute who was not involved in the study–tells Carbon Brief. He adds that responsibility for global emissions lies with the “super-rich”:

“In the public conversation on climate change, we often hear that actions taken in Europe or the U.S. are meaningless when compared to the industrial emissions of China, or the effects of rapid population growth in Africa. This paper exposes these claims as wilfully ignorant, at best. By far the worst polluters are the super-rich, most of whom live in high income countries.”

Lamb notes that the expenditure of the “super-rich” may be even higher than suggested by this analysis, because “their earnings may be derived from investments, while their expenditures can be shrouded in secrecy.

Dr Bruckner also highlights this underestimation, noting that while the highest carbon footprints in this study go up to hundreds of tonnes of CO2 per year, past studies into the super-rich have produced carbon footprint estimates of more than 1,000 tonnes per year. “The inequality is just insane,” he tells Carbon Brief. He adds:

“If we want to reduce our carbon emissions, we really need to do something about the consumption patterns of the super-rich.”

Eradicating poverty

In 2015, the United Nations set a series of Sustainable Development Goals – the first of which is to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere”. The goal focuses on eradicating “extreme poverty”–defined as living on less than U.S.$1.90 per day–as well as halving poverty as defined by national poverty lines.

The map below shows the proportion of people in the 119 countries mapped are living in extreme poverty, from a low level (blue) to high (red).

National population share living below extreme poverty line



More than a billion people were living below the extreme poverty line of U.S.$1.90 per day in 2014, according to the study. The authors find that “extreme poverty” is mostly concentrated in Africa and south Asia–where per capita CO2 emissions are generally the lowest.

“Carbon inequality is a mirror to extreme income and wealth inequality experienced at a national and global level today,” the study says.

To investigate how poverty alleviation would impact global carbon emissions, the authors devised a range of possible “poverty alleviation and eradication scenarios”.

These scenarios assume no changes in population or energy balance. Instead, they shift people living in poverty into an expenditure group above the poverty line–and assume that their consumption patterns and carbon footprints change accordingly given present-day consumption habits in their country.

The authors find that eradicating “extreme poverty”–by raising everyone above the U.S.$1.90 per day threshold–would drive up global carbon emissions by less than 1%.

Countries in Africa and south Asia would see the greatest increase in emissions, the authors find. For example, they find that emissions in low and lower-middle income countries in sub-Saharan Africa–such as Madagascar–would double if everyone were lifted out of extreme poverty.

Meanwhile, the study finds that lifting 3.6 billion people over the poverty line of U.S.$5.50 per day would drive an 18% increase in global emissions.

The study shows that “eradicating extreme poverty is not a concern for climate mitigation”, says Dr Narasimha Rao – an associate professor of energy systems at the Yale School of Environment, who was not involved in the study.

Warming targets

To meet the targets outlined in the Paris Agreement – of limiting global warming to 1.5C or “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels – humanity has a limited “carbon budget” left to emit.

The study investigates how the average carbon footprints of different countries line up with the Paris warming targets.

The graphic below shows average carbon footprints in a range of countries and regions, including the U.S., Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) and sub-Saharan Africa. The colour of each column indicates the region’s average expenditure per person, measured using “purchasing power parity” to account for the different costs of living between different countries.

Regional average carbon footprints for countries and regions
The authors find that according to existing literature, humanity needs to reach an average carbon footprint of 1.6-2.8tCO2 in the coming decade to limit warming to 1.5C or 2C above preindustrial levels.

In this chart, the U.S. exceeds this amount the most dramatically. Meanwhile, individuals in sub-Saharan Africa are well below the global target range–emitting only 0.6tCO2 per year on average.

“From a climate justice perspective, the clear focus of climate policy should be on high emitters,” Lamb tells Carbon Brief. He adds:

We have a moral imperative to reduce emissions as fast as possible in order to avoid climate impacts where they will land the worst–in the Global South–as well as to ease the burden of the transition on vulnerable populations.

Dr Shonali Pachauri is a researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, and was not involved in the study. She tells Carbon Brief that this analysis “shin[es] a light on the level of inequality in carbon emissions evident across the world today”. She adds:

[The analysis] is critical to setting equitable and just targets for climate mitigation, such that those who contribute the most to current emissions mitigate the most in alignment with the UNFCCC’s common but differentiated responsibility and polluter pays principle.

https://mronline.org/2022/02/23/to-erad ... -patterns/

Without naming names I can think of one rich country whose economy is utterly dependent upon domestic consumption...

Back in the 60s I recall hearing this said, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

Damn straight. Funny how what goes around comes around

Socialism or Barbarism.

[blindpig]

Climate change turns landscapes into tinderboxes
February 23, 2022

UN Report: 30% more extreme wildfires by 2150, 50% more by 2200



A report published this week by the UN Environment Program says climate change and land-use change will increase the number of extreme wildfires by up to 14 per cent by 2030, 30 per cent by the end of 2050 and 50 per cent by the end of the century.


httphttps://www.unep.org/resources/report/spreading ... cape-fires://

Spreading like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires finds an elevated risk even for the Arctic and other regions previously unaffected by wildfires.

Wildfires disproportionately affect the world’s poorest nations. With an impact that extends for days, weeks and even years after the flames subside, they deepen social inequality and degrade environments.

The report calls on governments to adopt a new Fire Ready Formula, with two-thirds of spending devoted to planning, prevention, preparedness, and recovery, with one third left for response. Currently, direct responses to wildfires typically receive over half of related expenditures, while planning receives less than one per cent.

UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen:

“Current government responses to wildfires are often putting money in the wrong place. Those emergency service workers and firefighters on the frontlines who are risking their lives to fight forest wildfires need to be supported. We have to minimize the risk of extreme wildfires by being better prepared: invest more in fire risk reduction, work with local communities, and strengthen global commitment to fight climate change”.

Wildfires and climate change are mutually exacerbating. Wildfires are made worse by climate change through increased drought, high air temperatures, low relative humidity, lightning, and strong winds resulting in hotter, drier, and longer fire seasons. At the same time, climate change is made worse by wildfires, mostly by ravaging sensitive and carbon-rich ecosystems like peatlands and rainforests. This turns landscapes into tinderboxes, making it harder to halt rising temperatures.

Wildlife and its natural habitats are rarely spared from wildfires, pushing some animal and plant species closer to extinction. A recent example is the Australian 2020 bushfires, which are estimated to have wiped out billions of domesticated and wild animals.

The restoration of ecosystems is an important avenue to mitigate the risk of wildfires before they occur and to build back better in their aftermath. Wetlands restoration and the reintroduction of species such as beavers, peatlands restoration, building at a distance from vegetation and preserving open space buffers are some examples of the essential investments into prevention, preparedness and recovery.

The report concludes with a call for stronger international standards for the safety and health of firefighters and for minimizing the risks that they face before, during and after operations. This includes raising awareness of the risks of smoke inhalation, minimizing the potential for life-threatening entrapments, and providing firefighters with access to adequate hydration, nutrition, rest, and recovery between shifts.

TURNING LANDSCAPES INTO TINDERBOXES
(An excerpt from Spreading Like Wildfire)

Fire is changing because we are changing the conditions in which it occurs. Not all fires are harmful, and not all fires need to be extinguished as they serve important ecological purpose. However, wildfires that burn for weeks and that may affect millions of people over thousands of square kilometers present a challenge that, right now, we are not prepared for. Lightning strikes and human carelessness have always — and will always — spark uncontrolled blazes, but anthropogenic climate change, land-use change, and poor land and forest management mean wildfires are more often encountering the fuel and weather conditions conducive to becoming destructive. Wildfires are burning longer and hotter in places they have always occurred, and are flaring up in unexpected places too, in drying peatlands and on thawing permafrost.

The costs in human lives and livelihoods can be counted in the number who perish in the flames, or contract respiratory diseases from the toxic smoke, or in the number of towns, homes, businesses, and communities affected by fire. A recent study published in The Lancet indicates that annual exposure to wildfire smoke results in more than 30,000 deaths across the 43 countries included in the study. Other species also pay the price: besides a devastating loss of habitat, the smoldering swathes of land left behind in a wildfire’s wake are scattered with the charred remains of animals and plants possibly fast-tracking extinctions.

Last year, fires that got out of control in the Pantanal, the World’s largest tropical wetland in Latin America, destroyed almost a third of one of the world’s greatest biodiversity hotspots and there are now genuine concerns that this wetland will never fully recover. Not only can wildfires reduce biodiversity, but they contribute to a climate change feedback loop by emitting huge quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, spurring more warming, more drying, and more burning.

The heating of the planet is turning landscapes into tinderboxes, while more extreme weather means stronger, hotter, drier winds to fan the flames. Too often, our response is tardy, costly, and after the fact, with many countries suffering from a chronic lack of investment in planning and prevention. This report makes it clear that the true cost of wildfires — financial, social, and environmental — extends for days, weeks, and even years after the flames subside. To better prepare ourselves and limit the widespread damage done by wildfires, we need to take heed of the clear warnings and recommendations for future action outlined in this report. We must work with nature, communities, harness local knowledge, and invest money and political capital in reducing the likelihood of wildfires starting in the first place and the risk of damage and loss that comes when they do.

https://climateandcapitalism.com/2022/0 ... nderboxes/

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MANN OVERBOARD – Review of Michael Mann’s ‘The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet’
Originally published: Global Ecosocialist Network by Owen McCormack (February 20, 2022 ) | - Posted Feb 23, 2022

Defense of markets and capitalism means taking aim at the wrong targets.

Michael Mann is one of the world’s leading climate scientists, who has played a pivotal role in establishing what is happening to our climate and the forces driving that change. Mann’s work on the history of climate in the Northern hemisphere over the last couple of thousand years, proved pivotal in shifting the debate around climate change. The famous “hockey stick graph” showed just how dramatic recent temperature rises and CO2 concentrations were. This work on past climate was also to prove central to showing how dramatic and abrupt climate change had happened in the past and how this affected and was driven by the various earth systems. Due to the work of Mann and many other scientists we know what is driving climate change, we also know that massive shifts in climate can happen rapidly and that we are living in such a time.

The “hockey stick graph” used by Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth” has, despite claims over the past decade by deniers, been proven absolutely correct. Its central message that recent climate change is unprecedented in the paleo record and can only be attributed to human industry and fossil fuel usage is now beyond any real debate. For his work he has been targeted mercilessly by the fossil fuel industry and its paid commentators, whether on Fox news or in the U.S. Republican party. In short, for anyone who has been concerned about climate change over the last 20 years, and I count myself very much as one of those,Mann is a verifiable if unlikely hero.

Any book or article by Mann should be taken seriously by the wider climate movement. This is why this book is so important. It is also why it is so dangerously flawed. It will be used by many, such as the Irish Greens to shore up a central argument around market mechanisms and the role of free markets and capitalism in combating climate change. It will be used to brow beat the left in the climate movement into silence and reliance on corporate action to tackle the climate crisis.

That said, there is much here that we can agree with and that is worth knowing; such as the history of the “machinery of denial” employed by capitalist interests in the past and the funding of the pathetic rag bag of “scientists” for hire by the fossil fuel and other industries.Similarly his points on nuclear energy, carbon capture and geo engineering are excellent

Mann sees the central aim of the book as being to counter “doomism”; the idea that catastrophic climate change is inevitable, that rises in temperature of over 2 degrees are already effectively baked in and that there is nothing much we can do. Mann is right to take aim at this. I think he correctly labels it as the other side of denial; both disarm and inculcate a mood of despair and inaction; it’s too late, all we can do now is grieve for the loss of life on the planet. Mann rubbishes this argument, and as a leading climate scientist he is well placed to do so. Things are bad enough, he reiterates, and yes, on current projections we are heading toward an extinction event that will see life and civilization threatened. But there is still time to avert the worst outcomes. There may indeed be a cohort of academics, activists and writers who succumb to “doomism”. The problem is that Mann labels nearly ALL work and ALL warnings of catastrophic climate change as “doomist” when it is very evident that much of the research and warnings do not come from the view of trying to derail action or the need for urgent change.

Mann seems content to place highly respected scientists and commentators such as Kevin Anderson in the same bracket as twitter trolls or defeatist “doomists” Indeed many of his examples are not from people saying it’s too late but from fellow academics and activists like Anderson and Will Steffen. Their work is not aimed at engendering defeatism but at galvanising the movement and pointing out the limits of the present market and neoliberal economic system in trying to grapple with this crisis

Mann takes a scatter gun to all such work suggesting that they have given up the fight today and effectively cleared the way for the very catastrophic disaster they predict.

The book is absolutely correct in taking aim at any emphasis on personal or lifestyle behaviours as a remedy, although it is odd that he should again criticise those scientists and campaigners who now refuse air travel or have stopped meat eating. It’s perfectly fine to make such changes provided you don’t then pretend that such lifestyle changes are a panacea for the planet and for everyone. That would indeed be letting the fossil fuel corporations off the hook. Anderson for example won’t fly but is clear he doesn’t wish to force such personal actions on ordinary people as any kind of solution for systemic causes of the crisis.

The problem with Mann’s book is that he doesn’t differentiate between outright deniers, stooges of corporate greed and those on the left who have critiqued market mechanisms and capitalism’s reaction to the crisis in general. For Mann ANY criticism of the Democratic Party for example, of ‘enlightened’ capitalists, or of their neoliberal variant is lumped together with dubious doomers and deniers.

Mann’s claim about how market mechanisms “solved” the crisis of acid rain in the 90s is greatly overstated and not really the full story. Even taken at face value it took two decades for the U.S. and Europe to respond to the issue and the destruction of life in dead lakes and forests. The cap and trade system introduced to deal with it was fought by vested industrial interests and similar arguments of denial now used with climate were employed. While sulphur emissions were eventually reduced and life returned to damaged ecosystems in North America and Europe the lesson is hardly that market mechanisms are a panacea for all environmental crisis. The forces in the fossil fuel industry are much more entrenched and deeply embedded in capitalism than the ones that produced sulphur dioxide. The technical steps taken did not require a rupture which would threaten the world’s most powerful and richest corporations. And the actual issue hasn’t been solved as developing countries grapple with the same pollution as geographies of production move across the globe. Its deeply ironic that George Bush Sn becomes a hero for Mann for passing a Clean Air Act that tackled the emissions of sulphur and nitrous oxides. Mann seems to have forgotten that he also waged the first Gulf War in Kuwait on behalf of oil companies. The relatively localised nature and possible ameliorating steps in dealing with acid rain pale into comparison with the steps needed in climate crisis. A cap and trade system for climate has been tried and has and is failing

Mann’s faith in the ability of mainstream U.S. politicians like Biden, Obama and Clinton to tackle the crisis is married to a belief that free markets can be an ally to climate action and that seeking alternatives or pointing out flaws is a waste of time which ultimately plays into the hands of climate deniers and the fossil fuel industry. Already this argument has been used to attack any opposition to carbon pricing (carbon taxes). Ultimately there is a profound and central debate here; can capitalism address the crisis? Can markets be the magic bullet given the crisis and the time frame for irreversible climate disruption?

If Mann is right in this, then much of the progressive opposition to carbon taxes and even advocating for climate justice and a just transition should be jettisoned as it could get in the way of markets and capital achieving the energy transition needed.

He sees protest and mass movements as useful only if they aid leaders like Obama in pushing through reforms. Heaven forbid such movements should be critical of the sell outs and failures of such world leaders. The role of such movements is really to aid those corporations that are switching from fossil fuel use to renewables, to ensure the market is rigged in favour of one class of capitalists over fossil fuel ones

Similar blindness sees Mann give Obama a pass on climate failures and the actions of the U.S. at the Copenhagen COP talks. Only Russia and Saudi Arabia come in for any criticism here, Obama and the Democrats are simply “undermined” by fossil fuel interests. This is comic and juvenile stuff and unbecoming any serious analysis of what happened in Copenhagen or indeed what has been happening over the past 20 years of climate obfuscation and failure.

Mann sees Putin, online trolls, petro- states and deniers behind every criticism of the Democratic party or resistance to taxes linked to climate action. Hence the Yellow Vests in France are a phenomenon caused by Russian machinations, while trolls and petro- states are behind all criticisms of carbon taxes. In fact, the sharpest criticism of carbon taxes has come from the left because they will fail utterly to achieve the reductions in emission we need and because the deflect from the causes and corporations responsible, while puttingthe burden on working people.

In a deeply ironic passage Mann rubbishes comments from Will Steffen and any attempt to link neoliberalism since the 80s with the massive acceleration of CO2 and other pollutants driving climate change. Steffen, he says is “ no doubt an expert in environmental science but his statements on economics and policy here are ill informed” For the record Steffen is indeed an expert in environmental science, being a driving force along with Paul Crutzen of the concept of the Anthropocene, and whose work as a editor of the Global Change and the Earth system series was of vital importance to our understanding of the effect of human society on the wider earth systems. Similarly, his work on developing the concept of safe operating spaces for humanity is of immense importance for anyone concerned with the impact capitalism is having on the very habitability of the planet. He is indeed an “expert”. Steffen’s sin, like Anderson and Naomi Klein, is to stray out of the science lab and look at what is driving the processes of climate change, the acidification of our oceans and the collapse in biodiversity. Like the others he sees the hand of capitalism and neoliberalism specifically and a need to reign in how it works. Therefore Mann includes him in a scattergun attack with fossil fuel lobbyists denialists, doomists, Russian trolls and petro- states. It’s quite an astonishing swipe and points to a wider problem within the climate movement that will face socialists in the coming years.

Mann, like most of the middle class dominated NGOs , environmental groups and Green parties across the globe, has comfortably accommodated himself to the very economic system driving the climate change that they are so very genuinely alarmed by. A call to put aside demands that will scare off the investors, conservatives and board room directors of “good” capitalist enterprises is in reality a call to disarm the movement and will lead us inevitably to catastrophic and irreversible damage to our world. For Mann, AOC’s Green New Deal, while worthy, would saddle the climate movement with a long list of other social programs and conservatives. This is why this book is both profoundly disappointing and dangerous. The future hope for real climate action does not lie in corporate boardrooms but in working class communities, in the organised working class and in the oppressed peoples of the Global South including and especially indigenous peoples. The policy advocated by Mann and others will ensure utter failure to deal with the driving forces behind global environmental chaos

Markets and capitalist entrepreneurial drive will not abate the crisis, it will speed it up. In every area from the roll out of renewables, the reliance on technology and carbon capture, to the dominance of big private companies and their investment decisions the steps we need to take are not aided but impeded as time speeds away from us and the crisis becomes worse. The inability to see capitalism as the cause of the destruction is becoming more unforgivable as it will demand more attacks on the very sector of society capable of fighting the very system driving the crisis–the global working classes and oppressed. Supporting the implementation of carbon taxes on ordinary people, replacing well paid unionised jobs with precarious minimum wage ones in the new industries and many other trends will alienate the very forces capable of challenging the systemic causes behind the crisis. It will also open the door to the return of denialism, backed by the fossil fuel industry, with the risk of them winning over powerful sections of ordinary people alienated by a unfolding transition from fossil fuels that is clearly hypocritical, unjust and not even working in its central aim of limiting emissions. We see a glimpse of this in the rhetoric of the far right on farmers’ protests and in feigning concern for the plight of the poor faced with rising energy costs. Mann (or for that matter pro-capitalist Greens) are powerless to counter this given their embeddedness in the system that is immiserating workers and the poor. This book is a reminder to the left in the climate movement that our role has never been more vital and the need to counter such profoundly wrong views never more urgent.

https://mronline.org/2022/02/23/review- ... ur-planet/

[blindpig]

Oil and gas lobbyists are using Ukraine to push for a drilling free-for-all in the US
Raúl M Grijalva

Fossil-fuel firms want to turn violence and bloodshed into an oil and gas propaganda-generating scheme. The goal: a drilling bonanza


Oil rigs in the Cook Inlet oil field of Alaska. ‘Doubling down on fossil fuels is a false solution that only perpetuates the problem.’ Photograph: PA Lawrence/Alamy
Fri 4 Mar 2022 06.06 EST

Last week, we all watched in horror as Vladimir Putin launched a deadly, catastrophic attack on Ukraine, violating international treaties across the board. Most of us swiftly condemned his actions and pledged support for the Ukrainian people whose country, homes and lives are under attack.

International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol speaks at a news conference on the sidelines of G20 Energy Ministers Meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, October 2, 2015.

But the fossil-fuel industry had a different take. They saw an opportunity – and a shameless one at that – to turn violence and bloodshed into an oil and gas propaganda-generating scheme. Within hours, industry-led talking points were oozing into press releases, social media and opinion pieces, telling us the key to ending this crisis is to immediately hand US public lands and waters over to fossil-fuel companies and quickly loosen the regulatory strings.

Our top priority must be ending Putin’s hostilities, but as chair of the US House committee on natural resources, I feel duty-bound to set the record straight. We can’t let the fossil-fuel industry scare us into a domestic drilling free-for-all that is neither economically warranted nor environmentally sound.

Despite industry’s claims to the contrary, President Biden has not hobbled US oil and gas development. In fact, much to my deep disappointment and protest, this administration actually approved more US drilling permits per month in 2021 than President Trump did during each of the first three years of his presidency. Before the pandemic, oil and gas production from public lands and waters reached an all-time high, and the current administration has done little to change that trajectory over the last 13 months.

Fossil-fuel companies and their backers in Congress also profess that more drilling on public lands and waters would lower gas prices for Americans. But if that’s true, why hasn’t record oil extraction from both federal and non-federal lands over the last decade done anything to consistently lower, or at least stabilize, prices at the pump?

The fact is that crude oil is a volatile global commodity. Worldwide supply, demand, and unpredictable events – like wars – influence the price of gas, not the current administration’s decision to approve a few new leases or permits.

Even if we take industry’s claims at face value, nothing is keeping fossil-fuel companies from more drilling on public lands right now. The oil industry already controls at least 26m acres of public land and is sitting on more than 9,000 approved drilling permits they’re not using.

They have a similarly gratuitous surplus offshore, where nearly 75% of their active federal oil and gas leases, covering over 8m acres, have yet to produce a single drop. Any new leases issued today wouldn’t produce anything of value for years, or even decades in some cases.

With the facts laid bare, we see the fossil-fuel industry’s crocodile tears for what they are
If industry did start to ramp up production from federal leases, the overall increase to the total US supply would likely be marginal. In 2020, public lands and waters only accounted for 22% and 11% of oil and gas production, respectively. The vast majority of oil and gas resources are beneath state and private lands – not public lands or federal waters.

With the facts laid bare, we see the fossil-fuel industry’s crocodile tears for what they are – the same old demands for cheaper leases and looser regulations they’ve been peddling for decades. These pleas have nothing to do with countering Putin’s invasion or stabilizing gas prices, and everything to do with making oil and gas development as easy and profitable as possible.

The US is the world’s top oil and gas producer. Doubling down on fossil fuels is a false solution that only perpetuates the problems that got us here in the first place.

And quite frankly, we can’t afford to maintain the status quo. In its newest report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its most dire warning yet on the rapidly accelerating climate crisis. If we fail to enact major mitigation efforts, like curbing fossil-fuel development, both quickly and substantially, we will “miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all”.

Fortunately, there is a path forward that simultaneously cuts the lifeline to fossil-fuel despots like Putin, stabilizes energy prices here at home, and creates a safer, more sustainable planet. We must wean ourselves off our oil and gas dependence and make transformational investments in cleaner renewable energy technologies, like those in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Build Back Better Act and the Competes Act, and we must do it now.

The fossil-fuel industry has had hold of the microphone for far too long. It’s time we let the facts speak for themselves.

Raúl M Grijalva chairs the House committee on natural resources. He has represented southern Arizona in Congress since 2003

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-drilling

It's always something...they'll never give it up as long as there's money to be made. Expropriation is the only thing we can do to stop these maniacs.

[blindpig]

Impacts of warming faster and more severe than expected says IPCC
Originally published: International Viewpoint by Daniel Tanuro (March 3, 2022 ) | - Posted Mar 08, 2022

The report of the IPCC’s Working Group II (WG II) on Impacts and Adaptation to Climate Change sends out a strident cry of alarm: the disaster is more serious than projected by the models, its effects are manifesting themselves more quickly and all the risks are increasing. The poor, indigenous peoples, women, children and the elderly are increasingly at risk, especially in countries of the Global South. The policies followed to limit the damage are inadequate, run counter to sustainability and deepen social inequalities. The authors call for an inclusive approach to transform society at all levels.

The findings

Ecosystems everywhere are altered by climate change. For some of them, the limits of adaptation are exceeded (especially in polar and equatorial regions) – they will not be able to regenerate naturally. Some extreme events exceed the averages projected for the end of the century. Species are already disappearing due to global warming.

The human consequences are worrying. Forest and peatland fires, drainage of wetlands and deforestation result in some carbon sinks becoming sources (the Amazon rainforest, in particular). The productivity of agriculture, forestry and fisheries is declining, posing a threat to food security. The verdict of the scientists is categorical: the global food system is failing to meet the challenge of food insecurity and malnutrition in a sustainable way.

Water issues are particularly worrying. While half of the world’s population experiences severe water scarcity at least one month a year, half a billion people live in areas where average annual rainfall is now at a level that previously only occurred every six years. Melting mountain glaciers cause flooding or shortages downstream, and water-borne diseases affect millions more people in Asia, Africa and Central America.

In general, the health consequences of global warming are serious and increase inequalities. In countries highly vulnerable to global warming (where 3.3 billion people live), mortality due to floods, droughts and storms is fifteen times higher than elsewhere on Earth. Some regions of the globe are approaching or already experiencing a level of heat stress incompatible with work. Several phenomena related to global warming (heat, cold, dust, tropospheric ozone, fine particles, allergens) promote chronic diseases of the respiratory tract. The destruction of natural habitats and the migration of species promote zoonotic diseases.

Climate change has become a major driver of migration and displacement of human populations. Since 2008, twenty million people have been forced to move every year due to extreme weather events (especially storms and floods). These human tragedies mainly affect South and Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and small island states. Other populations are unable to leave regions that have become inhospitable because they lack the means or for other reasons.

Large urban concentrations in the Global South are particularly exposed to the combined impacts of climate change and the social determinants of vulnerability. This is especially the case in the informal urban peripheries – without water supply or sewers, often established on slopes exposed to landslides (where women and children are in the majority). In sub-Saharan Africa, 60% of the urban population lives in the informal extensions of cities: 529 million Asians live in the same precarious conditions.

The Projections

The projections are even more worrying than the findings and can be summed up in a few words: escalation of threats.

According to the authors, any additional short-term warming increases the risks to ecosystems in all regions: “In terrestrial ecosystems, 3 to 14% of species assessed will likely face a very high risk of extinction at global warming levels of 1.5°C, increasing up to 3 to 18% at 2°C, 3 to 29% at 3°C….” Extreme weather events and other stressors will increase in magnitude and frequency, accelerating ecosystem degradation and loss of ecosystem services. At 4°C of warming, the frequency of fires will increase, for example, by 50-70%. Changes in ocean water stratification will reduce nutrient fluxes. Time lags in the development of phytoplankton may reduce fish resources.

Extra warming will also increase pressure on the food system and on food security. The negative impacts of global warming will become prevalent for all food systems and regional inequalities in food security will increase, researchers say. Depending on the scenarios, the global biomass of the oceans will decrease by 5.7% to 15.5% in 2080-2099 relative to 1995-2014, and the number of undernourished humans will increase by tens of millions by 2050.

The water issue will become acute in terms of sustainability. Under the median scenarios, by 2100, high mountain glaciers will disappear by 50% in Asia. At 1.6°C warming, the number of people displaced in Africa by floods will increase by 200% (and by 600% at 2.6°C). At 2°C of warming, extreme agricultural droughts will increase in frequency by 150-200% in the Mediterranean basin, western China and high latitudes of North America and Eurasia. At 2.5°C, 55% to 68% of commercially exploited freshwater fish species in Africa will be at risk of extinction.

Rising sea levels will become increasingly threatening: risks in coastal regions will increase particularly beyond 2050 and will continue to increase thereafter, even if warming stops. The risk will increase by 20% for a rise of 15cm, will double for a rise of 75cm and will triple for a rise of 1.4 meters (NB: such a rise is likely during this century). Africa is also very threatened here: from 108 to 116 million people affected by 2030, and up to 245 million in 2060. Developed countries are not immune: the risk will be multiplied by ten in Europe. 2100, and even faster and more with a constant policy.

The consequences for health of course follow the same trends, sharpened by “the degradation and destruction of health systems”. A high emissions scenario would increase the annual number of climate deaths by 9 million in 2100. In a medium scenario, this number would increase by 250,000/year in 2050. The ranks of victims of malnutrition will swell, especially in Africa, South Asia and Central America. In all scenarios, parts of the globe that are densely populated today will become unsafe or uninhabitable.

If inegalitarian policies continue, the number of people living in extreme poverty will increase from 700 million to one billion by 2030. The authors refer to this as crossing “social tipping points”.

Major Concerns

As in previous reports, the WGII identifies five “major Reasons for Concern” (RFC): unique ecosystems under threat, such as coral reefs and mountain environments (RFC1); extreme weather events (RFC2); social distribution of impacts (RFC3); some aggregate global effects, such as the number of climate deaths (RFC4); single large-scale events, such as the disintegration of ice sheets (Antarctica, Greenland) or the slowing of ocean thermohaline circulation (e.g. the Gulf Stream) (RFC5).

For each of these RFCs, the authors compare the current level of risk to the level of risk assessed in their previous report (IPCC 5th Assessment Report, 2014). The level of risk refers to the objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted in Rio (1992): “to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. The conclusion of the comparison should sound like an alarm siren: the risk has become high to very high for the five RFCs in all modelled scenarios (even if the level of warming remains low). Staying below 1.5°C would allow the risk to remain “moderate” for RFCs 3, 4, and 5, but it’s already high for RFC 2, and it’s going from high to very high for RFC1.

We know that only one of the IPCC’s five emission mitigation scenarios does not depend on a “temporary overshoot” of 1.5°C while remaining “well below 2°C” (Paris agreement). The scientists say such an overshoot would entail severe risks and irreversible impacts. In addition, it would increase the risk that large quantities of carbon stored in ecosystems would be released (as a result of fires, melting permafrost, etc.), which would accelerate climate catastrophe.

Limits to adaptation, unfair policies

Governments say they have a policy of adaptation to the now unavoidable consequences of 1.5oC global heating, as provided for in international agreements. The WG II report takes stock of this approach: 1) it is unfair and inefficient, and benefits more well-off people than the poorest; 2) instead of complementing the essential drastic and rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, it serves as a substitute, so that global warming worsens, which reduces the possibilities of adaptation, to the detriment of the poor ; 3) the room for manoeuvre is further reduced due to the deployment of measures aimed at circumventing the reduction of emissions (for example carbon capture and storage, tree plantations, large hydroelectric dams) to the detriment of indigenous peoples, poor communities and women.

The report clearly states that “dominant development strategies run counter to climate-sustainable development”. Several reasons are put forward: the widening of income inequalities, unplanned urbanization, forced migration and displacement, continuously rising greenhouse gas emissions, the continuation of changes in land use, reversal of the long-term trend towards longer life expectancy.

According to the authors, it is crucial to develop an inclusive, fair and just policy, particularly with regard to indigenous peoples whose knowledge must be valued. The empowerment of marginalized communities is decisive for the co-production of a sustainable climate policy. Governments’ lack of social justice is singled out as the greatest obstacle, particularly in the face of the challenges of the food-energy-water nexus.

Health, education and basic social services are vital to increasing the well-being of populations and the sustainability of development, the report reads. It is, therefore, a priority to increase the financial means of the global South, where the cost of adapting to global warming will very quickly exceed the $100 billion a year that the North has promised to pay (but has not paid) to the Green Fund for the climate. The report cites amounts of $127-290 billion per year in 2030-2050, which could go up to $1000 billion.

The IPCC WGII report obviously does not provide a social strategy for dealing with capitalist climate catastrophe: the general tone is one of good intentions and pious wishes for the inclusion of all social actors. But social movement activists will find here two things that are useful in their fight: scientific confirmation of the extreme gravity of the impacts of global warming, and a rigorous demonstration of the systemic injustice of current climate policies

https://mronline.org/2022/03/08/impacts ... says-ipcc/