According to the Guardian, a newly released Greenpeace study reveals it’s not just Exxon and the Koch brothers who fund the climate denial industry. In a recent article, they describe how a secretive charity known as Donors Trust enabled anonymous billionaires to donate nearly $120m to more than 100 groups campaigning to cast doubt on the science behind climate change. This money helped to build a vast network of thinktanks and activist groups dedicated to redefining climate change as a highly polarizing “wedge issue” for hardcore conservatives – as opposed to a neutral scientific fact. During the same period the oil billionaire Koch brothers, who are usually credited with financing climate change denial, donated only a fraction of this amount.

It’s no mystery why the oil, gas and coal industry wants to stymie efforts by the US and other governments to cut carbon emissions by subsidizing renewable energy, public transportation and other initiatives to cut fossil fuel consumption.

The study sheds new light on the so-called “scientists” Donors Trust pays to produce “research” proving there is absolutely no link between carbon emissions, increasing CO2 concentrations, melting ice caps and the recent rash of catastrophic weather events.

Greenpeace writes in more detail about this research (with links to the original data) in their February 15^th blog

Photo credit Greenpeace

Crossposted at Daily Censored

2011, Directed and produced by Dave Gardner

http://www.growthbusters.org/

Film Review

Growthbusters is the inspiring story of Dave Gardner’s efforts to challenge conservative Colorado Springs’ failed growth promotion policies. The film mainly focuses on the insanity of local councils cutting essential public services to “jump start” growth. However it also takes a broader theoretical look at the overall failure of economic growth to solve the global economic crisis.

While Gardner is clearly an environmental crusader concerned about the long term effects of unlimited growth on carbon emissions, resource scarcity and species extinction, he inserts a heavy dose of economic reality into the discussion. All of us who pay any attention to local government have heard the same insipid assertions about the urgent need to cut taxes and regulations to attract new industry and jobs, as well as the need to spend to spend billions of dollars on new infrastructure to accommodate the hoards of people planning to move to our area. The three billion dollar water project the Colorado Springs City Council recently approved to transport water 62 miles uphill is a case in point. Time after time, the companies jump ship and population predictions fall short, leaving existing residents with mountains of debt, higher taxes and reduced police and other services.

Even though the pattern occurs over and over again, no one ever challenges these unproven assertions – that growth equates with prosperity and that communities that don’t grow shrivel up and die. In fact as Gardner learned during his campaign for Colorado Springs City Council, people who oppose growth for growth’s sake are regarded as somewhat looney.

The reality, as Gardner and the experts he features in his film point out, is that people and institutions who promote growth most heavily are those who benefit from it – at the expense of everyone else. This includes real estate developers who derive profits from building more homes, office blocks and shopping center; the mining and fossil fuel companies that fuel this economic activity, as well as heating all the new homes and powering the new cars; and the banks who finance all this. In other words the super rich.

As our other national and local needs are sacrificed for these gung ho growth policies, this 1% gets richer. The other  99% get poorer, as they lose access to education, health care and other vital social services young people need to reach their full potential. Along with all this wealth comes power, as the 1% uses their vast propaganda network to put out messages to get people to consume more, to incur more debt and work longer hours to pay it off – and most importantly to have more babies.

The Population Bomb

In addition to tackling the pro-growth agenda head on, Gardner also makes the important link between exploding population growth and environmental degradation. Paul Ehrlich, who appears briefly in the film, warned in his 1970 book The Population Bomb that mankind was rapidly outstripping the Earth’s natural resources. Dennis Meadows, who directed the 1973 Club of Rome project resulting in the book Limits to Growth, also appears. Based on advanced computer modeling, this controversial report warned forty years ago that population growth and resource scarcity would cause the global economy to falter at the beginning of the 21^st century. This means, as Meadows reminds us, the 2008 global economic crisis was right on schedule.

As Gardner, Ehrlich, Meadows and other experts point out, humankind is living beyond our means, “liquidating” resources we should be should be saving for our children and grandchildren. If we were still growing all our food locally, as we were at the beginning of the 20^th century, it would be obvious there is no longer enough land in cultivation to feed 7 billion people. However because of globalization, most of the industrialized world has no idea where their food comes from. While the one billion people who die of starvation or gradual malnutrition are virtually invisible.

Family Planning: the Best Way to Reduce Carbon Emissions

Gardner doesn’t advocate for mandatory population control like they have in China. However he argues strongly for major environmental groups like the Sierra Club to use their public profile to begin educating governments and communities to start making informed decisions around family size. The other side – the bankers, mining and fossil fuel industry and real estate developers – clearly see the connection between a booming population and economic growth. This is why they constantly pump out messages pressuring women to have more kids.

The truth is that we can’t possibly change enough light bulbs or plant enough trees to compensate for all the babies born to our children and our children’s children. People can save more carbon emissions through responsible family planning than by giving up jet travel. Population control is a critical ecological issue. The “official” environmental movement is letting us all down by refusing to take it up.

New Paths Forward

Gardner himself does his part. When he’s not running for city council or making movies, he’s out in the street distributing free Endangered Species Condoms on the street. The condoms come in choice of packaging featuring endangered panthers, polar bears and cute critters.

He also encourages people to join the Transition movement to help in strengthening their communities, re-localizing economic life and rebuilding skills that don’t depend on corporations and fossil fuels.

Towards the end the film, there is a very inspiring interview with Australian electronics giant Dick Smith, in which he announces the $1 million Wilberforce* Award he has established for “the young person with the best ability to communicate an alternative to our population and consumption growth-obsessed economy.”

*William Wilberforce was an 18^th century British politician and leader of the movement that abolished the slave trade.

Welcome to Your Bank of America

(from http://www.yourbofa.com/)

Dear Fellow American,

Welcome to your Bank of America.

Today, it’s time to acknowledge that our Bank isn’t working anymore—not just for the market, but for people, our real customers. We’ve paid $8.58 billion in relief to borrowers and $3.24 billion in fines. We face lawsuits and claims from citizens, companies, and state and local governments. There is even a petition with the Federal Reserve to break up our bank, adding yet more uncertainty to our position. Finally, we’ve found ourselves front-and-center in the national foreclosure crisis, and deep in unpopular investments like coal, at a time when climate change is a growing societal concern.

As a result, our company’s shares have fallen precipitously, and now trade at one-fifth their 2008 price. Our Bank may, in fact, soon need help keeping afloat—and much as in 2008, you, the American taxpayer, will be asked to provide that assistance.

The institutions you rescued in 2008 have continued much as they always were, engaging in the same practices that brought our economy so close to collapse. To make sure that this time around, things turn out differently, we at Bank of America are launching a forum in which you, the American taxpayer, can prepare for the time that you own us. By sharing ideas, and reading and rating the ideas of others, you can begin charting a course for this Bank—your course.

And when the day comes that you, the American taxpayer, own this Bank, you will be ready to make it a Bank for America—one that brings benefits not to the privileged only, but to all of our customers, and to all of our stakeholders too.

Welcome to your Bank of America.

Brian T. Moynihan
Chief Executive Officer
President

Brought to you by the same naughty men who produced the film The Yes Men

Go to www.bofa.com to share your ideas how our new bank should be run.

More good news this month. All signs suggest that ordinary Americans are winning the battle against Big Coal (see * below). However you won’t read it in the New York Times. The mainstream media is never eager to report on the victories of grassroots movements.  Thus the Times neglected to report, in January 2012, that the EPA had revoked the waste disposal permit the Bush administration granted Arch Coal for one of the largest mountaintop removal projects in the country. It was definitely newsworthy – it’s totally unprecedented for the EPA to revoke an existing permit granted by the Army Corps of Engineers. They only reported the story when a US district judge reversed the ruling.

Mountaintop removal is a controversial method of coal mining in which the company dynamites the top of a mountain to get at the coal seam underneath. The process fills and contaminates hundreds of miles of streams with explosion debris, endangering the health of downstream communities when they lose access to clean drinking water. The EPA ruling resulted in part from a 2011 study revealing that mountaintop removal is linked to an increased risk of birth defects.

Remind Obama that He Works for Us

The Obama administration has sixty days to appeal the court decision. Knowing our President, he will need a really strong nudge to do so. Readers can go to Earth Justice user action to remind him he’s running for re-election and that he works for us, not Wall Street.

The De Facto Ban on New Coal-Fired Power Plants

That being said, the court ruling is a minor setback when viewed against a string of grassroots victories against Big Coal over the last decade. This despite of their well-funded campaign to convince us that climate change is a liberal-funded conspiracy. The grassroots movement fight climate change is particularly strong on the left coast. In the city of Portland, according to Climate Solutions, carbon emissions have declined by 26% since 1990 (you ain’t going to read that in the New York Times, either).

In the US, approximately 42% of electricity is still produced by coal-fired plants. However this ratio is decreasing rapidly, as existing plants become obsolete and a combination of state law and federal regulation amounts to a de facto ban on the construction of new coal-fired plants. The state legislatures of Washington, Oregon and California have outlawed the construction of new coal-fired plants. Plus both Washington and Oregon have passed legislation requiring their two remaining coal-fired plants (they have one each) to be decommissioned in 2025 and 2020 respectively. Although California still has ten remaining coal-fired plants, they only account for 0.7% of their generating capacity. Thus a decision by Los Angeles (population 12.9 million) to end their reliance of coal-generated electricity by 2020 will have a massive impact.

The Insane Scheme to Export 150 Million Tons to China

In the last five years, more than 160 new coal-fired plants across the US have been cancelled or placed on hold. The rapid phase-out of coal-generated electricity has caused American demand for coal to plummet. Accordingly, Big Coal has come up with a cockamamie scheme to export 150 million tons of coal per year (at present the US only burns 8 million tons per year) to China from strip mines in Wyoming and Montana. The coal companies propose to transport the coal by rail from the strip mines to ports in Washington and Oregon. The speed with which rural conservatives and urban liberals in both states have closed ranks against this crazy project  is nothing short of miraculous.

What we’re talking about here is eighty trains per day that are 1 ½ miles long, made up of 125 cars and pulled by four diesel locomotives. Can you imagine trying to get to your job or daycare center and getting stuck at a level crossing waiting for a 1 ½ mile train? Or worse still waiting for an ambulance or other emergency vehicle to get through? To say nothing of the health effects of constant exposure to mercury-laden coal dust or the particulate pollution from the four diesel locomotives.

Can you imagine the greenhouse effects of burning 100 million tons of coal per year? It makes no difference to planet Earth whether we burn the stuff in China or the US. According to Climate Solutions, the yearly CO2 emissions this would produce exceeds a lifetime of emissions produced by the controversial Keystone tar sands pipeline.

Northwest Residents Close Ranks

Thus far Northwest ports governed by elected port authorities (Seattle, Portland and Tacoma) have responded with a resounding “no.” As a fall-back position, Big Coal is seeking permits to build small private terminals in rural Washington – Cherry Point (near Bellingham), Longview and Grays Harbor, in rural Washington, and Coos Bay and St Helen’s in rural Oregon. Because these communities have no publicly elected port authority, they have been self-organizing to prevent environmental and use permits from being granted. More than half (246) doctors in Whatcom County have formed “Whatcom Docs” to fight the Cherry Point terminal. Church leaders, commercial fishermen, farmers, ranchers and elected officials have formed similar interest groups as part of the Power Past Coal Campaign. For more information and to sign a petition, go to http://www.powerpastcoal.org/

*Who is Big Coal? The two biggest US coal companies are Peabody and Arch Coal.

Happy International Women's Day

Today (March 8th) is International Women’s Day. This year the UN has declared the theme “Empower Rural Women: End Hunger and Poverty.”

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), women comprise 43 percent of agricultural workers worldwide and 70 percent in third world countries. More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women and girls. According to the FAO, gender inequality is a major cause of both poverty and hunger. Their studies suggest that if women were allowed the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20–30 percent, lifting 100-150 million out of hunger.

Gender inequality and inadequate access to education, health care and credit pose massive challenges for rural women in the developing world. The global food and economic crisis and extreme weather events related to climate change have greatly aggravated their plight.

According to UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), women and girls face still face extremely high rates of educational poverty. They find that approximately 80 percent of the 67 million children not attending school live in rural areas and that the majority are girls.

The FAO cites the West African nation of Burkina Faso as a prime example of rural education and gender gap challenges. According to UNESCO data released today, only about 22 percent of the country’s rural girls attend primary school, compared to 72 percent of urban girls or 82 percent of urban boys.

In Morocco in North Africa, 55% of rural males and 37% of rural women receive at least five years of education.

Addressing Poverty and Hunger by Empowering Women

According to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) , there has been a surge of interest in recent years in rural women and the role they play in agriculture. This has been prompted by the renewed focus on agriculture – sparked by two food crises; droughts linked to climate change, forcing men to seek alternative livelihoods away from home; HIV/AIDS, which has virtually decimated the agriculture work force in southern Africa; and the growing body of research into nutrition and food quality.

A new report IFPRI entitled Engendering Agricultural Research, Development and Extension, which will be presented at the Global Conference on Women in Agriculture in India March 13-15, calls for a more “gender equitable” agriculture. Specifically it argues that the development of homestead gardens should get the same attention from policymakers as male-dominated aspects such as cash-crops. It also calls for an expanded concept of the food sector – to include staple crops, but also fish, livestock, gardens, the nutritional value of food and the use of water. It also advocates for government policies providing microcredit, as well as opportunities for land and livestock ownership, to women farmers. Finally it calls for more investment in women female agricultural scientists and greater attention to food processing, to better preserve the nutrient content of food, as well as ensuring food safety.

Female Poverty in the US

Sadly the feminization of poverty is, by no means, limited to the third world. According to the 2010 census, American women are the hardest hit by the global economic crisis in every category. The poverty rate among US women rose to 14.5% last year, up from 13.9% in 2009 and the highest in 17 years. More than 17 million American women lived in poverty last year, compared to 12.6 million American men. Single mothers are the hardest hit. Forty percent of women who head families currently live in poverty.

How to distinguish industrial hemp (the first plant)

(This is the first of three posts about the Industrial Hemp Farming Act Bill sponsored by Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.)

For nearly four decades, industrial hemp advocates have extolled the virtues of hemp (cannabis sativa, variety sativa), a plant whose cultivation is still banned in the US, thanks to its scandalous distant cousin, cannabis sativa, variety indica. The latter is the source of the illicit drug marijuana. The former produces good quality fiber and has a tetrahydrocannabinol (THC – the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana) concentration of 1% or less. The latter produces negligible usable fiber and has a THC concentration of 4-20%.

Hemp happens to be one of the most versatile plants known to man. Hemp fiber is used in the production of paper, textiles, rope, sails, clothing, plastics, insulation, dry wall, fiber board and other construction materials; while hempseed oil is used as a lubricant and base for paints and varnishes, as well as in cooking and beauty products. The hemp plant, a “bioaccumulator,” is also used in phytoremediation. This is a process that uses living plants to remove nuclear contaminants and toxic chemicals from soil. Massive hemp fields were planted in the Ukraine following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, to soak up radionucleotides (http://www.hemp.net/news/9901/06/hemp_eats_chernobyl_waste.html).

I recently became interested in the importance of hemp in green technology following the relocation from Ashville North Carolina to New Plymouth (New Zealand) of Hemp Technologies (www.hemp-technologies.com), a construction company that produces low cost, energy efficient hemp homes and construction materials. Up until the 1990s, interest in industrial hemp was limited to the movement seeking to legalize marijuana. However growing public concern about the need to urgently reduce fossil fuel use (both to reduce carbon emissions and to conserve dwindling reserves) has given industrial hemp a major shot in the arm. Because hemp cultivation is still illegal in the US (except for the Pine Ridge Reservation and small “research” plots), the US is the world’s largest importer of hemp (http://www.naihc.org/hemp_information/content/hemp.mj.html). Ironically they import most of it from the their main economic rival, China, which is also the world’s largest producer. This is yet another example of how communities, small businesses and states are leaving behind a short sighted, corporate controlled federal government and forging ahead to save their communities and the planet from economic and ecological collapse.

The Fiber Modern Synthetics Replaced

The use of hemp dates back to 10,000 BC in Taiwan (http://www.hemphasis.net/History/history.htm). In fact hemp-based paper, textiles, rope, construction materials and even plastics are the tried and true low tech alternative to modern synthetics that consume large quantities of fossil fuel during manufacture. Prior to the industrial revolution, the vast majority of textiles, clothing, canvas (the Dutch word for cannabis), rope and paper was made of hemp. It was only with the industrial revolution and the proliferation of machinery run on cheap fossil fuels that more sophisticated alternatives, such as cotton, wood-based paper, and eventually petroleum based plastics became cheaper alternatives. Prior to the invention of the cotton gin in the 1820s, 80% of the world’s textiles, fabrics, and clothing were made of hemp. By 1883, hemp was still the primary source of 75% of the world’s paper. Prior to the crippling hemp tax the US government passed in 1937, most bank notes and archival papers were made of hemp (owing to its greater durability) and most paints and varnishes were made from hempseed oil.

Hemp has always been such a vital community resource that a long series of laws, dating back to Henry VIII (1535) required farmers to grow hemp or be fined. In 1619 Jamestown Virginia enacted a law requiring residents to plant hemp. Massachusetts and Connecticut passed similar laws in 1631 and 1632. Betsy Ross’s flag was made of hemp. The Declaration and Independence and Emancipation Proclamation are printed on it.

Using Hemp to Control and Reduce CO2

A hemp crop takes approximately four months to reach maturity. This contrasts with twenty years for the fastest growing trees. Hemp absorbs four times as much carbon dioxide and produces four times as much raw fiber (per unit weight) as trees (http://www.hempforus.com/hemp_carbon_footprint.htm). In addition to its low carbon footprint, hemp has a number of other advantages over the synthetic and highly processed products that have replaced it. Paper manufactured from hemp is finer, stronger and lasts longer (http://www.hemphasis.net/Paper/paper.htm). Likewise hemp-based products used in home construction are unparalleled thermal insulators, as well as being non-toxic, waterproof, fireproof and insect and mold resistant (http://www.hemp-guide.com/hemp-building-materials.html).

Prior to visiting the Hemp Technologies website (www.hemp-technologies.com), I was under the mistaken impression that hemp was mainly used for home insulation. I was very surprised to learn that hemp (in the form of HemPcrete) can be used in the construction of the outer walls, as well as a non-toxic replacement for dry wall (Magnum Board). In addition Hempboard (100% hemp) is an inexpensive, non-toxic replacement for fiberboard in interior paneling, countertops, shelving, sheathing and furniture.

To be continued.

Famous Diagram from Limits to Growth

(This is the second of four blogs about the Club of Rome, which along with Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, is an important think tank in the Round Table network of world elites. Bill Clinton’s mentor Carroll Quigley describes their history and function in his 1966 book Tragedy and Hope.)

An Internet search reveals there are four main sources of information about the Club of Rome (COR): the Club of Rome website; Lyndon LaRouche’s prolific attacks against the Club of Rome; Illuminati and New World Order sites drawing on LaRouche’s work; and various climate change denial sites, which portray the entire sustainability movement as an anti-growth conspiracy originating with the COR. The climate change denial movement receives major financial support from billionaire oil barons David and Charles Koch (http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/03/koch-brothers-funding-climate-change-denial-machine/), as well as the Big Coal lobby ( http://www.care2.com/causes/climate-change-denial-research-funded-by-big-oil.html). I suspect many of the New World Order websites also receive a significant chunk of corporate funding, though this is more difficult to trace.

The Club of Rome grew out of a 1965 international conference called “The Conditions of World Order.” It was held on oil magnate David Rockefeller’s private estate in Bellagio Italy. It was sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom (a well-known CIA front – see http://monthlyreview.org/1999/11/01/the-cia-and-the-cultural-cold-war-revisited), the Ford Foundation (another well-known conduit for CIA funding – see The Ford Foundation and the CIA), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Twenty-one “scholars, writers, and scientists” attended this preliminary conference. They issued a report stating that the risk of “nuclear conflagration” made it “incumbent upon intellectuals of the world to play a decisive role in the formation of pressure groups in favor of world order.”

Italian industrialist Aurelie Pecei (major shareholder in Fiat and Italian telecom giant Olivetti), called a follow-up conference, again at Bellegio, in 1968. This second conference, attended by financiers, scientists, economists and heads of state of ten countries, resulted in the creation of a “think tank” of global elites called the Club of Rome. At its founding, the COR consisted of 75 scientists, industrialists, government officials and four token liberals: peace activist Norman Cousins; co-founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW) Betty Friedan; Jean Houston, author and pioneer in the “human potential” movement, and Amory Lovins, the environmental scientist who went on to found the Rocky Mountain Institute (dedicated to fostering sustainable business development models).

Limits to Growth

According to the Club of Rome website, their mission is to “maintain a thorough interest” (a classic euphemism if I ever saw one – COR’s purpose is to pressure national governments to enact legislation) in environment and resources, globalization, world development, social transformation (i.e. using propaganda to influence popular thinking), and peace and security. They are best known for their 1972 book Limits to Growth, the basis for the film I saw in 1973. The COR commissioned a group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Dennis Meadows, Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William Behrens III) to write Limits to Growth (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3551). Using a mathematical model based on “system dynamics,” they examine the future evolution of the global economy. Computer modeling enables them to track a number of variables across a variety of possible future scenarios. Their conclusion: unless specific measures were taken, the world’s economy would likely collapse some time in 21st century. This collapse would be caused by a combination of resource depletion, overpopulation, and growing pollution.

Attacked Across the Political Spectrum

Limits to Growth raised enormous interest, selling at least twelve million copies in thirty languages. The 1973 oil crisis, a year after its publication, seemed to confirm the authors’ predictions about the global economy’s vulnerability to resource scarcity. The book, seriously received by the Carter administration, was totally repudiated by the neoliberal leaders (e.g. Reagan and Thatcher) who succeeded him. They came to power promoting the far more optimistic agenda of unlimited growth. The Catholic Church attacked Limits to Growth for the emphasis it placed on controlling overpopulation. Likewise the John Birch Society and other extreme right groups attacked it for being part of a liberal Rockefeller-initiated conspiracy to create a world government. Even the political left attacked it as a scam to convince workers into believe a proletarian paradise was impossible.

The most vicious attacks against the Club of Rome and Limits to Growth originated from former leftist turned right wing fascist and would be FBI/CIA collaborator Lyndon LaRouche (the feds rebuffed him – see http://lyndonlarouche.org/fascism26.htm and http://lyndonlarouche.org/fager.htm). LaRouche, a prolific researcher and conspiracy theorist, brags about the letter he received from Club of Rome attorneys, threatening him with legal action (see Club of Rome Complaint).

To be continued.

Leaders from 2008 World Economic Forum

This is the second of two posts on Global Risks 2012, a discussion document the global elite is considering this week at the World Economic Forum meets in Davos Switzerland.

How Global Risks 2012 Came to Be Written

The World Economic Forum’s Risk Response Network (RRN) was launched in 2004 to provide public and private sector leaders with “an independent, impartial platform to map, measure, monitor, manage and mitigate global risks.” This is the RRN’s seventh annual report. It’s based on surveys completed by 469 international experts in industry, government, academia and civil society about 50 potential global risks across five categories: Economic, Environmental, Geopolitical, Societal and Technological. Risks in each category are rated according to both the potential damage they could inflict and their likelihood of occurrence. In addition, a specific risk in each category is identified as “the center of gravity,” which feeds other risks, both within the specific category and across categories.

How 469 Experts Rated the 50 Risks

Economic:

• Most damaging: chronic fiscal imbalances (translation – debt) and severe income disparity.
• Most likely to occur: chronic fiscal imbalances and severe income disparity.

Environmental:

• Most damaging: rising greenhouse gas emissions and failure of climate change adaptation (acknowledging that climate change is already occurring).
• Most likely to occur: rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Geopolitical

• Most damaging: terrorism, followed by critical fragile states and pervasively entrenched corruption.
• Most likely to occur: critical fragile states and pervasively entrenched corruption.

Societal

• Most damaging: water supply crisis, followed by food shortage crisis.
• Most likely to occur: water supply crisis, followed by food shortage crisis.

Technological

• Most damaging: cyber attacks.
• Most likely to occur: cyber attacks

Is There a Split in the Ruling Elite?

It’s clear from the spelling (using “our” instead of “or” and “re” instead of “er” at the end of words) that the authors of Global Risks 2012 are either British or Canadian. I find it extremely hard to imagine a report emphasizing carbon emissions and income inequality coming out of the US. I also think find it significant that three of the four companies listed as report “cosponsors” are insurance companies (see * below). If Exxon had helped write this document, it would surely minimize the danger of increasing carbon emissions, if it mentioned them at all.

At times division develop in the ruling elite – between the banking/insurance and the energy/military sectors – over specific issues. Climate change seems to be one of them. Owing to deregulation, there is significant overlap between insurance companies, which derive most of their income from reinvesting premiums, and other financial institutions. AIG, for example, is supposedly an insurance company but had to be bailed out because they owned a substantial chunk of subprime mortgages.

It’s clearly in the interest of oil, natural gas and coal companies for consumers to continue to buy and burn up as much fossil fuel as possible. Insurance companies, on the other hand, serve their shareholders best by reducing carbon emissions. They already face growing claims losses due to a massive increase in weather-related catastrophes. In this context it makes sense for them to cosponsor a World Economic Forum document emphasizing the need for international agreement about reducing carbon emissions. It also helps explain why Wall Street investment banker (and New York mayor) Michael Bloomberg has given a $50 million donation to the Sierra Club’s Anti-Coal Campaign http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/nyregion/bloomberg-donates-50-million-to-sierra-club-coal-campaign.html

* Marsh and McLennan, Swiss Reinsurance Company, University of Pennsylvania Wharton Center for Risk Management, and Zurich Financial Services

http://transitionculture.org/

Book Review-Part V (of VI)

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

Parts 5 and 6 of Fleeing Vesuvius are entitled “Changing the Way We Live” and “Changing the Way We Think.” Both are about solutions. They propose broad strategies for supporting large numbers of people in downsizing their energy guzzling way of life.

The main lessons I draw from these chapters are

1. Politicians don’t lead – people do. The notion that elected officials will lead us in finding solutions to the economic crisis, climate change, Peak Oil or the impending food and water crisis is a myth created and perpetuated by the mainstream media. The only solution politicians and the media can think of is to push the poor and disadvantaged off the cliff through massive austerity cuts. One of the important points Gar Aperovitz makes in America Beyond Capitalism is that Franklyn Roosevelt didn’t create the New Deal jobs and social programs (like Social Security). With the New Deal, he merely enacted on a federal level (in response to popular pressure) programs that had been operating for years on a state and local level.

2. There is an awful lot happening on the state and local level to take back our economy and lives from corporate rule. Just because people don’t hear about it on the six o’clock news doesn’t make it any less real. In addition to the Citizens Rights movement and similar movements in other countries, hundreds of US cities (representing nearly one-third of the population) have signed up to the Kyoto Accords and are massively reducing their carbon emissions. Likewise, as Aperovitz points out, hundreds of millions of Americans have opted out of the corporate economy by joining cooperatives and credit unions and creating worker owned businesses, alternatives currencies, farmers markets, etc.

Part 5 Changing the Way We Live

This section starts with economist Brain Davey’s article entitled “Danger ahead: prioritizing risk avoidance in political and economic decision making.” It looks at the difficult proposition of getting national and international leaders to enact meaningful energy and transportation policy. He suggests that we need to stress the dire risk – focusing on an impending food and public health crisis – of not doing so. I find it intriguing that the elitist World Economic forum, which meets every January in Davos Switzerland, makes the same argument in Global Risks 2012 (see http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/01/occupy-wall-street-the-view-from-davos/)

The second essay, “Transition thinking: The Good Life 2.0,” describes the philosophy and success of the Transition movement in helping thousands of local communities to make the local infrastructure changes that will facilitate a transition to carbon neutrality and energy self-sufficiency. As a member of Transition Town New Plymouth, I have been extremely surprised at the receptiveness of our local council to the initiatives we put forward (for example reconfiguring streets to make them safer for cycling and walking, rewarding council employees for leaving their cars at home, and enacting incentives to help residents insulate their homes and install solar water heaters).

“Sailing Craft for a post-collapse world” talks about strategies for replacing expensive, fossil fuel based land transport with boats powered by free wind energy.

Part 6 Changing the Way We Think

This section is a little disappointing, as some of the essays buy into reductionistic drug company hype attributing human behavior to brain molecules. The notion presented here that resource overconsumption is based on the dopaminergic reward system overlooks important work by Robert Putnum, Ralph Nader and others on the link between depression and alienation and breakdown of community and civic organizations. Kalle Lasn (founder of Adbusters) and others have written at length about systematic efforts by the public relations and advertising industry to persuade people to compensate for chronic loneliness and emptiness by consuming. This section also overlooks extensive neurophysiological research showing that human beings are hard wired to crave social interaction. These studies also show that hormones, such as ocytocin and endorphins, and mirror neurons are far more important than dopamine in this programming (see http://www.opednews.com/articles/Marketing-Serotonin-Defici-by-Dr-Stuart-Jeanne-B-100713-513.html).

I found the later essays in Part 6 more helpful, especially those that address the apathy and inertia that prevent most of the developing world from taking serious measures to address impending economic, ecological and resource crises. In “Cultivating hope and managing despair,” psychotherapist John Sharry compares this widespread apathy and inertia to Kubler Ross’s stages of grief in bereavement or impending loss (denial, anger, depression, acceptance). The impending collapse of the global economy, industrial capitalism and possibly civilization itself is the worst loss any of us can imagine. It should be no surprise that human beings’ initial response to such news is denial.

Sharry suggests that Kubler Ross has left out an essential step between depression and acceptance – namely hopeful and constructive action. Based on personal experience, this makes perfect sense. Transition Town New Plymouth draws in many people who still aren’t totally convinced we are heading off the cliff. As they become involved in constructive activities to move our community away from blind corporate consumption, they seem to find it easier to accept that mankind faces a rocky future.

People can follow the progress of the global Transition movement at the Transition Culture website http://transitionculture.org/

To be continued.

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Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.

Biochar pellets

Book Review-Part IV (of VI)

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

Parts 3 and 4 of Fleeing Vesuvius, “New Ways of Using the Land” and “Dealing with Climate Change,” focus mainly on  local and national strategies for reducing fossil fuel use (both to conserve fossil energy and reduce carbon emissions).

Industrial Symbiosis

The first essay in Part 3, “Cutting transport costs and emissions through local integration,” talks about bringing similar and related industries into close proximity with one another. The term for this is “industrial symbiosis.” Emer O’Siochru gives the example of Kalundburg Denmark, where all waste products are someone else’s raw material. Siochru describes how surplus heat from the coal fired power plant is used to heat 3,500 local homes and a fish farm, whose waste sludge is sold as fertilizer. Meanwhile steam from the power plant is sold to a pharmaceutical company, and gypsum collected from the the sulfur dioxide chimney scrubbers is sold to a wall board manufacturer.

Food Security and Localized Food Production

The other essays in Part 3 deal with food production, in an era where energy, water and resource scarcity make food security increasingly precarious. It may be difficult for urban dwellers who are isolated from food production to comprehend the urgent need to transition from centralized industrialized agriculture to small scale local and regional farms. Factory farming is extremely energy intensive. The synthetic nitrogen fertilizers used are manufactured from natural gas, while most pesticides are petroleum-based hydrocarbons. This is in addition to the substantial energy cost of running farm machinery and food processing and packaging, to say nothing of transportation costs (especially in the case of imported foods). In New Zealand, as in many parts of the US and Europe, the cost of meat, dairy products, eggs and fresh fruits and vegetables has increased 20% since 2008, along with the cost of energy.

In addition to skyrocketing costs, there is also the growing risk that extreme weather events – floods, hurricanes, tornadoes – will shut down vital sections of the food supply network. Owing to major cutbacks in federal, state and local emergency response programs, communities may be left to fend for themselves, as New Orleans was after Katrina.

It will take several years for local communities to become the major source of food for their residents. The global sustainability movement has launched a number of initiatives, such as the 100 mile diet, to facilitate this process. Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver describes this quite eloquently in her 2007 book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Nutritional Resilience

The food security essays in Part 3 are quite technical and geared towards communities that have already taken the first steps to increase local food production. “The nutritional resilience approach to food security” addresses the problem of mineral deficient soils, which could cause major nutritional problems in communities that source all their fruits and vegetables from a single region. Healthy soil should contain a range of trace minerals (e.g. calcium, zinc, selenium and boron), which are easily lost through erosion and water run-off. Because industrially produced crops are often deficient in these minerals, they are more susceptible to pests, which results in massive overuse of toxic pesticides.

Bruce Darrell talks about the importance of addressing the mineral composition of soils, even in organic farming. He gives the example of the high prevalence of thyroid goiter in iodine deficient regions of England.

Methane, Nitrous Oxide and Biochar

The final essay in Part 3 discusses a variety of strategies for creating “carbon sinks,” which trap carbon in the soil to prevent its release to the atmosphere. “Refocusing the purpose of the land” also discusses methane and nitrous oxide emissions. These are far more damaging greenhouse gasses than carbon dioxide, especially in countries like Ireland (and New Zealand) with agriculturally based economies. Nitrous oxide comes from livestock urine and the overuse of urea as a fertilizer. Methane is a by-product produced (as a belch) when ruminants (cows, sheep, horses, etc) degrade grass and other high cellulose plants by means of special bacteria in their rumins.

The author, Corinna Birne, focuses heavily on the use of biochar (buried charcoal) to create carbon sinks. In addition to trapping carbon dioxide, it also locks up methane and nitrous oxide and important nutrients. Thus soil treated with biochar requires less fertilizer.

Cap and Share

The essays in Part 4 look at national and international strategies for reducing carbon emissions. Cap and Share is a simple method devised by Feasta in 2008 that is much fairer than either a carbon tax or emissions trading. With this approach, countries agree to a fixed cap on carbon emissions. They also require primary fossil-fuel suppliers (e.g. oil companies) to buy permits to introduce fossil fuels into the economy. Although fossil fuel suppliers pass these costs onto the consumer, revenue from the permits is used to help low income customers pay their energy bills. Over time this causes carbon-intensive goods and services to cost more, encouraging consumers to seek out renewable energy alternatives.

To be continued.

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Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.