Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1386

Obama’s Climate Initiative: the New Obamacare

 

 

Who Does He Think He’s Fooling?

As with his sweeping health care legislation, the President’s long awaited climate initiative has winners and losers. With Obamacare, the big winners were the insurance/finance sector and the drug companies – the losers are doctors, nurses, hospitals and average Americans left reeling under skyrocketing insurance premiums.

From the President’s June 25 climate change speech, it appears that once again insurance companies (struggling with major losses from catastrophic weather events) are big winners. So are the oil and gas industry, thanks to the big boost he gave the fracking industry and his duplicity around the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline. The losers under Obama’s new climate initiative are Big Coal, United Mine Workers (that will teach them for not endorsing Obama in 2012), children who develop cancer and other health problems because they live or attend school near fracking wells, and future generations who suffer the ravages of catastrophic climate events because Obama’s extremely timid initiative falls far short of achieving the emissions reductions that are required.

For the most part the executive order Obama proposes (see details below) fully empowers the EPA to implement existing legislation already enacted by Congress (under The Clean Air Act) to regulate carbon and other emissions. In other words, he will cease to obstruct the EPA as he did during his first term. The Obama administration is already bound by a 2007 Supreme Court decision that the EPA must regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) under the Clean Air Act. In compliance with the ruling, in 2009 the EPA issued an “Endangerment Finding” that CO2 is a threat to public health – and drafted rules to regulate CO2 from new power plants in March 2012. According to Think Progress, the already-delayed rules have been delayed since then. In fact bitter battles over emissions limits on coal-fired plants and the Keystone pipeline were the main reason behind EPA chief Lisa Jackson’s resignation. in December 2012.

Opposition from the Right and the Left

As with Obamacare, both the right and left have big problems with the President’s climate initiative. Republicans fear it will expand Big Government and harm the economy. Anti-fracking and anti-Keystone activists are even more vocal in their criticism. Anti-fracking activists are mainly concerned about growing evidence that fracking poses serious hazards to human health. Many have already taken to calling Obama the Fracking President, owing to the ALEC*/Exxon legislation he signed recently. Under the new law drilling companies aren’t required to disclose the hazardous fracking chemicals they use until after they close the well. Also of increasing concern are recent studies (National Academy of Science  and NBC) showing that natural gas is leaking into drinking water near fracking sites. Even more alarming are studies (CDC and Texas) documenting cancer clusters adjacent to fracking wells. No one is surprised, of course, that federal, state and local regulators are being “bullied” into approving fracking as “safe” when there is virtually no reliable research substantiating this claim.

Anti-Keystone activists are unhappy about Obama’s refusal to veto outright the Keystone XL Pipeline. Instead he dances around, stating he will only approve it providing it doesn’t increase carbon emissions. After yesterdays speech, Forbes Magazine was quite definite it would be approved. The State Department (which is responsible for the environmental review) has already issued their finding that the pipeline itself won’t increase carbon emissions because Canadians producers would just find some other war to get tar sands oil to the Gulf Coast refineries (owned by the Koch brothers, by the way). Sounds like gang logic to me. We may as well beat up that old lady before someone else steals her money.

Due to the immense amount of fossil fuel energy required to extract oil from tar sands, the oil transported through the Keystone pipeline will produce carbon emissions equivalent to 51 coal powered plants. On June 20, 145 of Obama’s 2012 campaign staffers called on him, reminding him they worked “day-in and day-out” to reelect someone who was serious about tacking climate change.

Too Little Too Late – What Obama’s Climate Initiative Could Do But Doesn’t

Other climate activists are disappointed that Obama’s climate initiative reduces emissions far too slowly to avert catastrophic climate change. Think Progress lists a number of additional actions he could take by executive action as Congress has already authorized them under existing legislation:

1. Regulate Coal Exports

The Army Corps of Engineers already has the authority to review the climate impacts of coal imports and has been requested to do so by officials and environmental organizations in the Pacific Northwest – where planned export terminals will export coal to be burned in Asia. Obama’s executive order should direct them to exercise this authority but it won’t.

2. Include carbon pollution costs in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental impact statements.

All new projects undertaken by federal agencies must include NEPA analyses. Yet the Obama administration has yet to include the cost of carbon pollution in NEPA assessments.

3. Leverage federal purchasing power to support innovation and entrepreneurship in clean energy technologies.

Executive Order 13514 which Obama signed in 2009 established a 5 percent renewable energy goal for federal agencies. If Obama were really serious about reducing carbon emissions, he could instruct all federal agencies to meet this goal by 2014. Then he could raise the goal to 10 percent in 2017 and 15 percent in 2017. This would ensure a strong market for renewable energy across the country.

 

*ALEC is an organization of businesses, legislators and foundations that enables corporations themselves to write the regulatory legislation Congress and state legislatures will use to regulate them.

 

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SYNOPSIS OF OBAMA’S CLIMATE INITIATIVE

  THE DOMESTIC FRONT

The EPA is directed to finalize carbon limits rules for new power plants by September 20, 2013.
The EPA is directed to draft carbon limits for existing power plants by June 2014, to be finalized one year later.
The Department of the Interior is tasked with permitting enough renewable energy projects – wind and solar, for example – on public lands by 2020 to power more than 6 million homes. The Department is also directed with installing 100 megawatts of renewables on federally assisted housing by 2020.
The EPA will develop new fuel economy standards for heavy vehicles and trucks in model year 2018 and beyond.
The EPA will also “leverage” new opportunities to reduce pollution from hydrofluorocarbons, highly potent greenhouse gases used in air conditioning and refrigerators.

 INTERNATIONAL MEASURES:

A commitment to expanding major new and existing international initiatives, including bilateral agreements with China, India, and other major emitting countries.
 An end to U.S. government support for public financing of new coal-fired powers plants overseas, except for the world’s poorest countries or facilities deploying carbon capture and sequestration technologies (exactly why are we subsidizing any overseas coal-fired plants? This so-called carbon sequestration technology doesn’t even exist yet.)
 A commitment to working with trading partners to launch negotiations at the World Trade Organization for a global free trade in environmental goods, which include clean energy technologies like solar panels and wind turbines.

CLIMATE RESILIENCE (addressing current extreme weather patterns)

A direction to federal agencies to support local climate-resilience investment by removing barriers or counterproductive policies.
The establishment of a short-term task force of state, local, and tribal officials to advise on actions the federal government can take to help strengthen communities on the ground.
The establishment of pilot strategies for areas affected by 2012′s Hurricane Sandy to strengthen communities against future extreme weather and other climate impacts. The establishment of a National Drought Resilience Partnership and expands restoration efforts for forest and rangeland to make areas less vulnerable to catastrophic fire.

 

photo credit: Duke Energy via photopin cc

Reposted from Veterans Today

 

Palestinian Wins Arab Idol

 

 

Al Jazeera English reports reports that a wedding singer from the impoverished and overcrowded Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip has become the first Palestinian to win Arab Idol. In his victory speech 23-year-old Mohammed Assaf saluted the people of Palestine, “who have been suffering under occupation for decades” and stressed that revolutions aren’t just won by guns. In the lead-up to the finale, Assaf performed his signature song, “Raise the Keffiyeh.” The keffiyeh, a traditional head scarf, is the most prominent symbol of Palestinian nationalism.

As is clear from the video below, large crowds of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank celebrated in the streets, overjoyed at the unique opportunity to remind the world that decent human beings are suffering an immensely unjust Israeli occupation.

It’s a miracle of sorts that Assaf was even allowed to compete, as the movement of Gazan residents is severely restricted by both Hamas (which has controlled Gaza since 2007) and Israel. Hamas initially condemned Arab Idol as un-Islamic, and Assaf had to bribe Egyptian border guards before he was allowed enter Egypt en route to Beirut Lebannon, where the competition was held.

According to Al Jazeera, the Bank of Palestine facilitated his victory by agreeing to match up to 350,000 texted votes – each one costs 40 cents – for Assaf. In addition President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules the West Bank, instructed Palestinian embassies abroad to urge Palestinian expatriates to vote for him.

 

 

photo credit: khalid Albaih via photopin cc

Blowing the Whistle on Homeland Security

Another Whistleblower Fights Back

In spite of all the publicity and public support the Edward Snowden case has generated, the majority of whistleblowers suffer in silence. Below is an amazing interview with former US Customs inspector Julia Davis, who was declared a domestic terrorist by the Department of Homeland Security for following established protocol in reporting a potential security threat. The threat, in this case, involved border crossings of 25 individuals with known links to terrorist groups. As Davis indicates in the video, she never dreamed of becoming a whistleblower – she was merely doing her job.

When she inadvertently exposed corrupt practices the intelligence community over responding to this and other security threats, DHS retaliated by charging her with domestic terrorism. This, in turn, led her to be imprisoned twice, though she was ultimately exonerated of all charges.

As she later learned, DHS justified the domestic terrorism charge on the basis she supposedly made derogatory statements about DHS. She explains that the label of “domestic terrorist” is a ploy used against prospective whistleblowers because it deprives them of important Constitutional protections under the Patriot Act.

She has ultimately come to the conclusion that the main function of DHS isn’t to protect Americans from potential terrorists but to harass dissidents and whistleblowers.

Davis has helped produce a documentary about her ordeal called Top Priority

Among other projects, she is undertaking an independent investigation of the systematic harassment one of her supporters and her husband – who both subsequently died under suspicious circumstances.

photo credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District via photopin cc

Microsoft’s Nevada Tax Dodge

 Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer

Below is a brief excerpt from an excellent expose by investigative journalist Jeff Reifman about a tax evasion scheme Microsoft uses to reduce the taxes it owes Washington State . Whereas many forms of tax evasion are technically legal, this one isn’t. Federal and state case law establish clearly that Washington State (where Microsoft has its corporate headquarters and employs 40,224 employees) has taxing authority over the small general partnership it licensed in Nevada in 1997. However instead of trying to collect the back taxes Microsoft owes them, former Microsoft executives in the state government merely changed the law, forcing the state to cut the education budget to cover the $4 billion deficit. As you can see by the date on the links, this is a battle Reifman has been fighting for over a decade.

According to Reifman’s website at Microsoft Nevada Tax Dodge:

“Microsoft makes its home in Redmond, Washington. It has 40,224 employees and 79 physical sites here. Since 1997, Microsoft has dodged $728.8 million in taxes by recording its software licensing revenue in Nevada. If this practice is proven to be illegal, the company could owe as much as $1.24 billion with interest and penalties.

About one third of Microsoft’s revenue comes from selling software licenses to large corporations and PC manufacturers. Washington State has no income tax but requires businesses to pay what are called Business and Occupation or B&O taxes.

In 1997, Microsoft et al. lobbied to reduce Washington State’s Royalty Tax from 1.5% to .5%, a threefold reduction. This wasn’t low enough. The company decided to open a small Reno, Nevada office to dodge the tax completely.

Between 1997 – 2011, the company used its Nevada office to avoid $1.51 billion in Washington state taxes, interest and penalties. If you include impacts from the company’s lobbying and calculate its savings at the original 1.5% rate, it’s saved $4.37 billion.”

Washington Guts Education Budget

Reifman goes on to point out that this is roughly the same amount Washington State has cut from their education budget since 2008. Thanks to the massive education cuts, the state now ranks 47th in age 18-24 college enrollment and 48th in K-12 class size. What makes all this especially ironic is that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer are also two of the most vocal critics of Washington’s public schools. Both are at the forefront of the campaign to transfer dwindling state education funds to privately run charter schools. It’s also noteworthy that Microsoft is one of the more aggressive users of Washington’s court system. Although their intellectual property is registered in Nevada, they always use Washington courts to sue people who don’t respect these rights.

In 2010, after Reifman raised these issues to the legislature, Democratic State Representative Ross Hunter, Chair of the Finance Committee and a former Microsoft executive, led the Legislature to change the state’s Royalty Tax from a tax on sales to worldwide customers to just a tiny tax on sales to Washington State customers. This reduced Microsoft’s effective Nevada tax dodge by about 99%. He also included language that gave Microsoft amnesty on its back taxes.

A short time later, Democratic governor Christine Gregoire appointed another Microsoft Executive, Suzan Delbene, to run the Washington State’s tax department. Delbene is married to Microsoft President Kurt Delbene.”

For more information see Reifman’s website Microsoft Nevada Tax Dodge and his excellent 2004 article in the Seattle Weekly

 

photo credit: dfarber via photopin cc

What If Marx Got It Wrong?

 

Progress and Poverty

By Henry George (1879), edited and abridged by Bob Drake, Robert Shalkenbach Foundation (2006)

Book Review

Progress and Poverty is an economic classic which has been suppressed in the US owing to its subject matter: the elimination of poverty and economic inequality by restoring The Commons. Internationally George’s economic theories are regarded as comparable to those of Marx, Keynes and Galbraith. Despite being the third most famous American in 1879 (after Edison and Mark Twain), George’s work remains largely unknown outside of Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Taiwan.  

Written over 130 years ago, the book provides uncanny insights for the current difficulties capitalism faces with our current paralyzing recession, massive public and personal debt and growing income inequality. Given the simplicity and clarity of the concepts George lays out, I find it extremely baffling that his theories have been eclipsed by Marx’s, which in 1879 had yet to be translated into English. The book is a must read for anyone with a serious interest in reducing economic inequality – despite my personal skepticism a land tax would work in the absence of monetary reform. The massive financialization of the global economy over the last three decades has given the ruling elite a monopoly over the money supply, as well as land and resources. Thus for George’s land tax to be fully effective, it would also be necessary to restore public control over money creation.

Why Development Always Produces Poverty

George’s goal in writing Progress and Poverty is to explain, in economic terms, why material progress (i.e. economic development) is always accompanied by poverty and increasing inequality. Employing Adam Smith’s classical definitions of labor, capitol, wages and interest and Ricardo’s Law of Rent, he argues that development must always produce poverty and inequality so long as a privileged elite holds an exclusive monopoly on the ownership of land and basic resources. He starts from the premise that land and natural resources are the source of all wealth, though wealth itself can only be created through human labor. According to George, the relative monopoly the elite hold on land allows them to capture all increases in productivity and production as “rent” increases. He gives numerous historical examples demonstrating that the continual increases eases in land value and rent that accompany development always come at the expense of workers. In fact increases in productivity almost always result in a relative decrease, rather than increase, in wages

Maybe Capitalism Isn’t the Problem

The book also makes an extremely eloquent case that boom and bust cycles (such as we’re currently experiencing) aren’t the inevitable result of capitalism itself but of land privatization. Again with examples, he demonstrates how the monopoly the rich hold on land and resources allows them to engage in speculation by holding them out of production to increase their value. This, in turn, creates the speculative bubbles which cause episodes of “industrial paralysis” when they burst – commonly known as depressions and recessions. 

The History of Land Privatization

George’s approach is relatively unique for political economists in his emphasis on the role ideology plays in the economic theories that gain popular acceptance. In contemporary society, no one questions the right of a privileged elite to monopolize land and natural resources for their own benefit. However private land (and resource) ownership is a relatively new concept originating in seventeenth century Britain with The Enclosure Act.

About a third of Progress and Poverty traces the historical evolution of private land ownership. In all human societies, the common right of all people to use the earth to support themselves has been sacrosanct. The concept of individual land ownership only emerged as societies advanced and either concentrated power in privileged classes or seized land and slaves through military conquest. Prior to the rise of Greek and Roman civilization, all land was communally owned and the notion of an individual claiming a patch of land as his exclusive possession was unthinkable. Henry George sees the mass seizure of land by the nobility (in Rome this was referred to as the latifundia) as responsible for the death of democracy in these early societies and the ultimate collapse of both civilizations. In the case of Rome, he points to the inherent advantage German barbarians had as part of a system in which every family was entitled to a share of common land. In George’s view, this egalitarianism translated into character strengths of initiative, creativity and flexibility that made it possible for small bands of individuals to overrun the once great Roman Empire.

After the Roman Empire fell, feudalism was characterized by systems of communal and exclusively private property rights that operated in parallel. A feudal estate was considered to belong to society at large. The king, as the chief representative of the people, merely granted its use in trust to church leaders and military officers in return for services rendered to the commonwealth. Churches were expected to provide for the care and welfare of the sick and poor. For their part, feudal lords were expected to defend the king’s interests militarily. As of 1879, France still held almost ten million acres of communal land. Moreover despite enclosing (privatizing) over eight millions acres between 1710 and 1879, at the time Progress and Poverty was written, England still maintained two millions acres as commons (though most was unsuited for agriculture).

Because they allow the British system of private land ownership to persist in the US, in George accusing the founding fathers of failing in their efforts to establish a true republic. Despite abolishing heredity titles and establishing the right to vote, they failed to reestablish the communal property rights that enabled the Greek and Roman to flourish. He contends that political equality, when coexisting with wealth inequality, must always lead to either dictatorship or anarchy. He also highlights the steady social decay (crime, insanity and increasing prison populations) that always accompanies increasing income inequality.

Restoring The Commons Through a Land Tax

George proposes that the wealth inequality, recessions and numerous other evils commonly attributed to the capitalist economic model could be totally eliminated by restoring public ownership of land and resources.

Rather than advocating outright government seizure of private land, he proposes to accomplish this by imposing a tax on unimproved land roughly equivalent to its rental value. Such a system would allow landholders to preserve their right of tenure, while discouraging them from speculating by holding land and resources out of production. While ending land speculation and recessions, this type of tax would simultaneously expand land and resource access for workers and capital investment. Any productivity increases (beyond interest on capital), would accrue to the government, rather than private landholders.

With this approach, everyone whose interest as a worker or capitalist (i.e. investor) exceeds their monopoly on land would also experience direct gains. Employers would be forced to increase wages because workers would have easy access to land and self-employment opportunities. Workers, in turn, would no longer fear the technological advances (e.g. automation) that increase productivity as they would share directly in the rewards.

The government, in turn, would use revenue from the land tax to pay down debt without resorting to austerity cuts that dampen productions and to abolish taxes on wages and capital, which also discourage production.

 

 

 

Upcycling: Saving the Planet by Design

 

 

The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability – Designing for Abundance

 By William McDonough and Michael Braungart

2013 Northpoint Press

 

Book Review

 In The Upcycle, American architect William McDonough and German chemist Dr Michael Braungart offer a new improved version of the cradle to cradle (C2C) vision they first introduced with their 2002 book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. C2C design is an approach to architecture and manufacturing that seeks to lessen environmental damage and the impact of resource scarcity by revolutionizing the way we design products, factories, buildings and cities – as opposed to trying to undo or minimize the negative effects of conventional production. There are no villains in C2C design. McDonough and Braungart are highly critical of the current tendency to demonize carbon, given its role as an essential building block of life. There’s simply too much of it accumulating in the atmosphere when it should be returning to the soil for food production. They also object to labeling incandescent light bulbs, air travel, long showers and disposable diapers as “bad for the environment.” Instead of shaming and penalizing people who use these products for “wasting energy,” we should be trying to find more efficient ways to produce them.

Imitating Nature’s Design Principles

A fundamental precept of C2C design is its emphasis on biomimicry, i.e. copying the genius of nature’s design principles. One of the major drawbacks of conventional industry is a built-in inefficiency in which valuable resources are lost to the landfill, incineration or runoff. In C2C design, as in nature, there is no waste. Instead products, industries and processes are designed in such a way that waste from one provides the raw materials for others. McDonough and Braungart argue that the initial design of any product, building or factory should include detailed planning for the new products that will be made from its basic elements when it wears out or is torn down. For example, a C2C computer would be designed to be returned to the manufacturer and easily disassembled into safe, environmentally friendly components that can easily be put to other uses.

The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute

With their new book, the authors elaborate on their earlier work by introducing the concept of “upcycling.” This they define as optimizing the materials, ingredients and process pathways in such a way that waste is converted to raw materials for nature or some other industry. By ensuring that scarce natural resources, such as aluminum, copper, water and wood, are continuously reused, there is less pressure to destroy more and more of the environment to replace them. After consulting with hundreds of businesses and cities on adopting C2C design principles, in 2010 they started McDonough-Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) and the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. The latter issues C2C certification for companies and products based on five quality categories:

Use of materials that are safe and healthy for humans and the environment
Incorporation of design principles that allow all products to be reused by nature or industry.
Use of renewable, non-polluting energy in the manufacture and assembly process.
Use of production processes that protect and enrich the water supply.
Treatment of all people involved in a socially responsible way.

The Upcycle presents numerous real life cases demonstrating the enormous economic advantages C2C technology can have for business. Lower energy and water processing costs can save tens of millions of dollars in both upfront capital costs and long term operational costs.

The Argument Against Biofuels, Nuclear Energy and Dam-Based Hydropower

A large section of The Upcycle analyzes the cost and desirability of current renewable energy options. Biofuels, nuclear energy and dam-based hydropower are rejected as being incompatible with C2C technology. The authors reveal the present biofuel industry is responsible for massive rainforest destruction in Indonesia, without offering a significant reduction in CO2 emissions (because they contain the same complex carbon chains, biofuels produce as much CO2 as fossil fuels). Nuclear technology, in turn, creates a massive amount of permanent waste that can’t be diverted to other safe uses. Finally large dams, which cause the same kind of environmental damage and habitat destructions as strip mining and nuclear energy, has virtually decimated the wild salmon population in the Pacific Northwest. The authors give much higher marks to small scale high head hydro generation in which water flowing downstream turns a ferris wheel-type generator.

They also feel solar, wind (especially offshore wind generation, which is less aesthetically controversial), geothermal and biogas from manure and landfill waste have great promise. They note that as of June 2 2012 wind-generated electricity is two cents per kilowatt hour cheaper than coal.

A Small Caveat

The Upcycle promotes two viewpoints I take strong exception with. The first concerns overpopulation. The book’s argument that each new person is a “potential source of raw materials” fails to address concrete space limitations and the epidemic of species extinctions linked to human over population. Likewise the authors’ argument that business is more potentially helpful than government in the transition to a C2C society seems incredibly naïve. They claim that business is less subject to corruption and more “adaptable,” owing to pressure to be profitable or die. As society is currently structured, there is virtually no check on corporate corruption. Moreover businesses have no disincentive against employing maladaptive strategies when they know the government will bail them out.

Reposted from Dissident Voice

Is Lipstick Killing Us?

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A recent study in the May 2 Environmental Health Perspectives reveals that commercial lipstick and lip gloss products contain potentially hazardous levels of heavy metals, such as aluminum, cadmium, chromium and manganese. The study also notes that young people (i.e. teenage girls) tend to absorb heavy metals at higher rates than adults.

The article notes that the last decade has seen considerable publicity regarding the lead (which causes brain damage, particularly in children and young people) in lip products. It seems the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has solved the problem of lead in lipstick, by declaring that lip products are allowed to contain lead levels lower than the 0.1 ppm maximum level of lead allowed in candy (say what???).

People can check it out for themselves on the FDA website. According the FDA, it’s totally safe for children to ingest as much lead-laden candy as they want, so long as the concentration of each piece of candy is less than 0.1 ppm (parts per million)  This is interesting as it contradicts the finding by another federal agency – Centers for Disease Control (CDC) – that no level of lead consumption in children is considered safe.

In contrast the EU Cosmetics Directive makes it illegal to manufacture, import or sell any cosmetic products with detectable concentrations of lead The Directive also lists cadmium and chromium as unacceptable constituents of cosmetic products.

Cadmium is a known human carcinogen associated with lung cancer and respiratory system damage, kidney and bone impairments. Animal studies have shown that exposure to cadmium during pregnancy can result in low birth weights, skeletal deformities and behavior and learning problems

Chromium is also a known human carcinogen; inhalation causes lung cancer and oral exposure through drinking water has been linked with increased stomach tumors.

According to the authors of the EHP article, existing evidence linking manganese in drinking water with neurological and neurobehavioral problems in children is still inconclusive.

Even more concerning to someone of my age are studies linking high manganese levels to Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aheh.200400556/abstract

http://www.alzforum.org/new/detail.asp?id=2770

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijad/2011/607543/ref/

I believe in the Precautionary Principle. If cosmetics companies want women to use their products, they have an absolute obligation to prove that they are safe.

photo credit: Auntie P via photopin cc

Crossposted at Daily Censored

The Role of Ideology in Inspiring Change

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The space between the TV screen and the child is nothing less than sacred ground – Mr Rogers

 

Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New World View

Joseph Obeyon 2012

http://crossroadsfilm.com/ 

Film Review

Crossroads is an exciting and surprisingly uplifting new documentary about the role of ideology in finding solutions to the urgent global crises humankind faces in the 21st century.

In bringing an evolutionary perspective to these urgent economic and ecological crises, the film offers a uniquely optimistic view of political and social change. Featuring a broad range of scientific experts, it focuses primarily on the role of ideology in preventing or facilitating change. For the last few centuries a competitive/individualistic view of ourselves was helpful in driving the engines of development and technological progress. However increasing evidence suggests that this widely embraced ideology is no longer sustainable.

This competitive/individualist worldview is also totally at odds with the collectivist/interdependent way of life our genes have programmed us for. Scientists have discovered that people share much of the same genetic code that enables schools of fish and flocks of birds to perform complex maneuvers as if they were a single organism. Primitive peoples have preserved the ability to see themselves this way, but it has been lost to most of industrialized society.

Crossroads stresses the role of television advertising, which pressures people to consume by making them feel insecure, in perpetuating this flawed individualistic view of ourselves. Constant bombardment with psychologically sophisticated messaging is far more powerful than actual experience. Studies consistently show that people derive the most happiness from activities that connect them with other people.

The dilemma facing 21st century political and environmental activists is how to get large numbers of people to make major changes quickly. Crossroads frames this and the multiple crises humankind faces as questions to be answered, rather than problems. High levels of global unrest suggest a substantial proportion of the world’s population already knows the old answers don’t work any more. The secret to finding new answers, according to one social scientist interviewed, is to get people to answer the fundamental question of what it means to be human.

The film ends by asking whether enough of humankind can change quickly enough to save the human species. Obeyon clearly believes we can. He cites studies showing that only a critical mass of 10% of a population is necessary to bring about cataclysmic social change. The same studies reveal that below this number it appears as if no visible progress is being made.

He stresses that global political and business leaders won’t be leading the change: they have too much to gain from maintaining the status quo.

photo credit: vauvau via photopin cc

Crossposted at Daily Censored

Rethinking Industrial Agriculture

Small Food Forest

 

(This is the second of two posts about dramatic changes that are occurring in food production and marketing, as well as consumer food choices.  Part II addresses the application of design technology to water and soil management, which is revolutionizing the movement towards local food production.)

Applying Design Technology to Farming

Most food localization initiatives have been accompanied by radical technological advances that apply design principles to the way food is grown. The design technology employed in the rapidly growing fields of permaculture and biointensive farming is based on a radically different approach to water and soil management, modeled on nature’s ecosystem design principles. Anyone who studies natural ecosystems can’t help but notice there are no neat rows or bare soil in natural forests and prairies. Nature crams as many living organisms as possible, all with complex symbiotic relationships, into every square inch.

Ironically this “revolutionary” technology happens to be 4,000 years old. Chinese farmers discovered around 2,000 B.C. that designing their fields to replicate natural ecosystems produced the highest yields. This approach is well-described in F.H. King’s 1911 book Farmers of Forty Centuries. The US Department of Agriculture sent King to China in the early 1900s to investigate why Chinese farms were so amazingly productive. What he discovered was a highly sophisticated system of water and soil management that emphasized species diversity and rational utilization of ecological relationships among plants and between plants and animals.

The Watershed Model of Water Management

Despite King’s innovative work, it has taken English-speaking countries a full century for the lessons to sink in. Applying capitalist slash and burn mentality to farming clearly hasn’t worked. Agricultural yields in Britain and its former colonies, which all employ similar “modern” methods of water management, have destroyed tons of topsoil and essentially reduced agricultural yields by a third. In a desperate attempt to ramp up yields, chemical insecticides and herbicides were introduced after World War II. These, in turn, systematically killed off microscopic soil organisms essential to plant health.

Britain, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other former British colonies all adopted the “drainage” system of water management. In this approach, trees are systematically cleared (usually by burning) and wetlands and springs are drained. Typically land managed in this way is subject to alternating flooding and drought, creating an unending cycle of economic hardship for farmers and farming communities. Besides destroying existing crops, repeated flooding also washes away topsoil and essential plant nutrients.

In contrast traditional farmers in non-English speaking countries are more likely to use the centuries’ old “water catchment model” of water management, sometimes referred to as terraquaculture. Because they deliberately design their farms to catch and hold water, they aren’t subject to flooding, soil erosion and draught. Chinese farmers wouldn’t dream of draining their wetlands, which are always the most productive areas for high energy food crops, such as rice and other grains.

Plowing “Kills” Soil

Soil technology has also greatly advanced in the last five decades, with the discovery of complex micro-ecosystems that support optimal plant growth. These eocosystems include a myriad of soil yeasts, bacteria and other organisms that live in symbiosis with host plants. Not only do they provide nutrients to the root systems of larger plants, but they also produce a myriad of natural insecticides and herbicides to protect them against pests. Mechanically disrupting the soil through plowing kills these organisms. They can potentially recover if the soil is left undisturbed – unless the grower totally wipes them out with pesticides, herbicides or bacteriocidal GMOs.

Studies show that plant diversity is also essential to a healthy plant ecosystem. Planting a single crop in neat rows surrounded by bare soil is also perfect invitation for weeds and insects to come and attack them.

Permaculture, in contrast, discourages noxious weeds and insect pests by creating “food forests” made up of compatible food-producing trees, shrubs and ground cover crops. Unlike veggie gardens limited to annuals that have to be replanted every year, the food forest is self-sustaining with minimal input. For people worried about the economy collapsing and their gardens being invaded by barbarians from the big city, it’s also virtually indestructible.

To get some idea what a food forest looks like, check out this video by Australian permaculture guru Geoff Lawton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASNVqSEEk1U

Attention City Dwellers!

Lawton is also a big fan of small space urban permaculture because it’s the most productive in terms of yield per square foot. The following is a video by one of his students about designing a permaculture food growing system on your balcony or terrace:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBLfVXpRkPQ

photo credit: London Permaculture via photopin cc

Corporate Food Is Bad For You

Chicago Lights Urban Farm

 (This is the 1st of  2  posts about dramatic changes that are occurring in food production and marketing, as well as consumer food choices.  Part I addresses the conscious shift many consumers have made over the past decade to locally grown organic food.)

According to Michael Ableman, author of Fields of Plenty, 25% of Americans make the conscious choice to eat organic food. Those who make the switch from corporate, industrially produced food do so for a variety of reasons. The main ones are cost, health and ethical concerns. Cost is a big consideration for low income families. In an economic depression accompanied by spiking food prices, growing your own fruits and vegetables or purchasing them from a grower at a farmers’ market can save families literally thousands of dollars a year.

Ironically the economic crisis has one silver lining in inner cities, as neighborhoods organize to create urban orchards and gardens on vacant, foreclosed land. An example is Chicago Lights Urban Farm, which supplies fresh produce for the once notorious Cabrini Green subsidized housing complex. This is the first access to fresh produce in decades for many inner city residents – thanks to the mass exodus of supermarket chains in the eighties and nineties.

Health issues linked to industrial agriculture are the second biggest reason people choose locally grown organic food over the standard corporate options. The growing list includes a number of debilitating and fatal illnesses linked with endocrine disruptors (estrogen-like molecules) in chemical herbicides and pesticides; contamination with infectious organisms; severe allergies, immune problems and cancers associated with GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and nanoparticles; type II diabetes related to growth hormones fed to US cattle and the proliferation of superbugs like MRSA (methcillin resistant staphylococcus aureus) linked to antibiotics routinely fed to factory farmed animals.

Endocrine Disruptors and Food Borne Pathogens

At the moment the biggest concern for health advocates is the epidemic of breast cancer and infertility linked to the growing presence of endocrine disruptors in our water supply and food chain. Breast cancer currently affects one out of eight women, and sperm counts in American men are among the lowest in the industrialized world. However the infectious organisms arising from factory farming methods and lax regulation of slaughter facilities are also responsible for a growing number of health problems. Infectious organisms linked with severe illness and death include the prion carried by cattle that causes Creuzfield Jakob disorder (aka Mad Cow Disease); campylobacter, salmonella and pathogenic E coli from the fecal contamination associated with overcrowded livestock pens and inadequate regulation of slaughterhouse hygiene; and Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP), an increasingly common organism linked to a big spike in Crohn’s disease. Lax US food regulation and inspection regimes are worrying enough. Adding to all these concerns is the vast amount of supermarket food imported from third world countries where food production is totally unregulated.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

GMO-related health issues are another reason more and more consumers are going organic. Unlike New Zealand and most of Europe, which ban GMOs, in the US 88% of corn, 93% of soy, 90% of canola (used in cooking oil), 90% of sugar beets (the source of half of US sugar) are genetically modified. Moreover thanks to the millions Monsanto spends lobbying to block product labeling laws, the majority of US shoppers have no way of knowing whether supermarket foods contain GMOs. Knowledgeable consumers are especially angry about the so-called “Monsanto Protection Bill.” This was a clause inserted in a recent continuing budget resolution that virtually guarantees Monsanto immunity against lawsuits for GMO-related health problems and environmental damage.

Nanoparticles

The latest food controversy involves the presence of untested nanoparticles in processed foods. Nanoparticles are submicroscopic particles the food industry adds to foods and packaging to lengthen shelf life, to act as thickening agents and to seal in flavor. As You Sow, NRDC and Friends of the Earth, first raised the alarm about five years ago regarding the nanoparticles used in cosmetics. They were mainly concerned about studies which showed that inhaled nanoparticles cause the same kind of lung damage as asbestos and can lead to cancer. More recently the American Society of Safety Engineers has issued warning about research showing that nanoparticles in food pass into the bloodstream, accumulate in organs and interfere with metabolic process and immune function.

Environmental and Psychological Benefits

Aside from cost and health concerns, an increasing number of consumers eat locally produced organic food for ethical and environmental reasons. In doing so, they are consciously opting out of an insane corporate agriculture system in which food is transported halfway around the world to satisfy an artificially created demand for strawberries in the winter. They are joining food localization initiatives springing up in thousands of neighborhoods and communities to increase options for locally produced organic food. As they reconnect with local growers to start farmers’ markets (the number in the US is 3,200 and growing) and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiatives*, they find they are simultaneously rebuilding fundamental community ties their grandparents enjoyed.

Many farmers’ markets serve the additional function of a key gathering place for friends and neighbors. As you can see from the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVgtYDBtr3I

*In Community Supported Agriculture, local consumers help farmers with upfront costs by pre-purchasing a share of their crops. In return, members receive a regular delivery of fresh fruits and veggies as various crops are harvested.