A Great Reason to Not Be Religious Anymore - Anthony Jeselnik

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

US Beekeepers File Suit Against Trump EPA Charging 'Illegal' Approval of Insecticide Linked to Mass Die-Off

"Honeybees and other pollinators are dying in droves because of insecticides like sulfoxaflor, yet the Trump administration removes restriction just to please the chemical industry."

Jon Queally, staff writer

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/06/us-beekeepers-file-suit-against-trump-epa-charging-illegal-approval-insecticide

A group of beekeepers joined forces on Friday against Trump's EPA by filing a lawsuit over the agency's move to put a powerful insecticide—one that scientists warn is part of the massive pollinator die-off across the U.S.—back on the market.

The lawsuit (pdf) charges that the EPA's approval of sulfoxaflor—touted by its manufacturer, agro-chemical giant Corteva, as a "next generation neonicotinoid"—was illegally rendered as it put industry interests ahead of the health of pollinators and ignored the available science.

"Honeybees and other pollinators are dying in droves because of insecticides like sulfoxaflor, yet the Trump administration removes restriction just to please the chemical industry," said Greg Loarie, an attorney with Earthjustice, the legal aid group representing the beekeepers. "This is illegal and an affront to our food system, economy, and environment." 

According to a statement by Earthjustice:

EPA first approved sulfoxaflor in 2013, but thanks to a lawsuit brought by Pollinator Stewardship Council, the American Beekeeper Federation, and Earthjustice, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision. The Court ruled EPA failed to obtain reliable studies regarding the impact of sulfoxaflor on honeybee colonies.

In 2016, EPA re-approved sulfoxaflor subject to significant restrictions to reduce the risk to honeybees and other pollinators.  On July 12, 2019, without any public notice, the Trump administration removed these restrictions on sulfoxaflor and approved a host of new uses for the bee-killing insecticide.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include beekeeper Jeff Anderson, the Pollinator Stewardship Council, and the American Beekeeper Federation.

"It is inappropriate for EPA to solely rely on industry studies to justify bringing sulfoxaflor back into our farm fields," said Michele Colopy of the Pollinator Stewardship Council. "Die-offs of tens of thousands of bee colonies continue to occur and sulfoxaflor plays a huge role in this problem. EPA is harming not just the beekeepers, their livelihood, and bees, but the nation's food system."

Climate change and mitigation

Michael Roberts

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2019/09/06/climate-change-and-mitigation/

There is a new IMF paper out on climate change and what policy instruments are available to do something about it.

I write this post from Brazil, where the fires in the Amazon rage on and the Bolsonaro government ignores this catastrophe and even welcomes it as a way of clearing the land for more agro production by big domestic and foreign companies.  Bolsonaro, Trump and other right-wing ‘populists’ of course deny that there is a problem from global warming and climate change.  And I know there are even some on the left in the labour movement who are sceptical at least or outright deniers, seeing it as either mistaken science or a scientific establishment conspiracy for grants and careers.

Well, all I can say to that is that evidence remains overwhelmingly convincing that the earth is heating up to levels not seen in recorded human history; that this global warming is caused by big increases in ‘greenhouse gases’ like carbon dioxide and methane; and that these increases are due to industrialisation and economic growth using fossil fuel energy.

Here is the graph on carbon emissions by NASA as published in the IMF paper.

And as the IMF paper says: “Climate change affects economic outcomes through multiple channels. Rising temperatures, sea-level rises, ocean acidification, shifting rainfall patterns, and extreme events (floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires) affect the economy along multiple dimensions, including through wealth destruction, reduction and volatility of income and growth (Deryugina and Hsiang 2014, Mersch 2018) and effects on the distribution of income and wealth (IMF 2017, Bathiany et al. 2018, De Laubier-Longuet Marx et al. 2019, Pigato, ed., 2019).”

The IMF goes on:“The broad consensus in the literature is that expected damages caused by unmitigated climate change will be high and the probability of catastrophic tail-risk events is nonnegligible.”  And: “There is growing agreement between economists and scientists that the tail risks are material and the risk of catastrophic and irreversible disaster is rising, implying potentially infinite costs of unmitigated climate change, including, in the extreme, human extinction (see, e.g., Weitzman 2009).”

Maybe you might think this is scare-mongering and exaggerated.  But what if you are wrong and the ‘tail-end risks’ in the normal distribution of probability are fatter than you think?  Can you take the risk that it will all be ok?

So let us assume that the science is right and the consequences are potentially catastrophic to the earth, human living conditions and well-being.  What can be done about it, either to mitigate the effects or to stop any further rise in global warming?

Mainstream economics is seeped in complacency. William Nordhaus and Paul Romer won ‘Nobel’ prizes in economics for their contributions to the economic analysis and projections of climate change.  Using ‘integrated assessment models’ (IAMs), Nordhaus claimed he could make precise the trade-offs of lower economic growth against lower climate change, as well as making clear the critical importance of the social discount rate and the micro-estimates of the cost of adjustment to climate change.  And his results showed that things would not be that bad even if global warming accelerated well beyond current forecasts.

This neoclassical growth accounting approach is fraught with flaws, however.  And heterodox economist, Steve Keen, among others, has done an effective debunking job on the Nobel Laureate’s forecasts.  “If the predictions of Nordhaus’s Damage Function were true, then everyone—including Climate Change Believers (CCBs)—should just relax. An 8.5 percent fall in GDP is twice as bad as the “Great Recession”, as Americans call the 2008 crisis, which reduced real GDP by 4.2% peak to trough. But that happened in just under two years, so the annual decline in GDP was a very noticeable 2%. The 8.5% decline that Nordhaus predicts from a 6 degree increase in average global temperature (here CCDs will have to pretend that AGW is real) would take 130 years if nothing were done to attenuate Climate Change, according to Nordhaus’s model (see Figure 1). Spread over more than a century, that 8.5% fall would mean a decline in GDP growth of less than 0.1% per year”.

That other Nobel prize winner, Paul Romer, is also a ‘climate optimist’.  The founder of so-called ‘endogenous growth’ ie growth leads to more inventions and more inventions lead to more growth in a harmonious capitalist way, Romer reckons that ensuring faster growth will deliver innovatory solutions for stopping global warming and climate change.  Romer advocates setting up ’charter cities’ in the third world where enclaves in an existing country are handed over to another more stable and successful nation that would accelerate growth through innovation.  His favourite model for this was Hong Kong!

The IMF paper notes with sadness that ‘market solutions’ to mitigating global warming are not working.  That’s because companies and countries hope that somebody else will fix the problem and they don’t need to spend anything on it; or that companies and states never think long term and are only interested in what will happen in one, three of five years ahead, not fifty or a century.  But above all, market solutions are not working because for capitalist companies it is just not profitable to invest in climate change mitigation: “Private investment in productive capital and infrastructure faces high upfront costs and significant uncertainties that cannot always be priced. Investments for the transition to a low-carbon economy are additionally exposed to important political risks, illiquidity and uncertain returns, depending on policy approaches to mitigation as well as unpredictable technological advances.”

Indeed: “The large gap between the private and social returns on low-carbon investments is likely to persist into the future, as future paths for carbon taxation and carbon pricing are highly uncertain, not least for political economy reasons. This means that there is not only a missing market for current climate mitigation as carbon emissions are currently not priced, but also missing markets for future mitigation, which is relevant for the returns to private investment in future climate mitigation technology, infrastructure and capital.” In other words, it ain’t profitable to do anything significant.

The IMF then lists various measures of monetary and fiscal policy by governments that might be used to mitigate climate change.  They boil down to credit incentives to companies, or issuing ‘green bonds’ to try and fund climate change mitigation projects.  Then it considers what fiscal policies might be applied ie government investment in green projects or taxes on carbon emissions etc.

What does the IMF conclude on the efficacy of these policies: “Adding climate change mitigation as a goal in macroeconomic policy gives rise to questions about policy assignment and interactions with other policy goals such as financial stability, business cycle stabilization, and price stability. Political economy considerations complicate these questions. The literature does not provide answers yet.”  In other words, they see so many complications in using traditional policy tools within the framework of the capitalist mode of production for profit, that they don’t have any answers. In effect, how can the threat of disasters be averted if capitalist accumulation for profit must continue?

Now some on the left argue that the answer is to end the ‘growth mentality’ in capitalism.  Just ploughing on producing blindly and wastefully more will ensure disaster.  This is the ‘no-growth’ option.  And it is undoubtedly true that when economies accelerate in growth and industrial output, based on fossil fuel energy, then carbon emissions also rise inexorably.  Jose Tapia, a Marxist economist in the US, has produced firm empirical evidence of the correlation between economic growth and carbon emissions.  Indeed, whenever there is a recession as in 2008-9, carbon emission growth falls.

Tapia points out that “the evolution of CO2 emissions and the economy in the past half century leaves no room to doubt that emissions are directly connected with economic growth. The only periods in which the greenhouse emissions that are destroying the stability of the Earth climate have declined have been the years in which the world economy has ceased growing and has contracted, i.e., during economic crises. From the point of view of climate change, economic crises are a blessing, while economic prosperity is a scourge.”  Inexorable march toward utter climate disaster [f] (1)

There is an extensive literature arguing for this no growth option to be adopted by the labour movement and socialists globally.  But is no growth the answer, when there are three billion people in dire poverty and when even in the more advanced capitalist economies, stagnating economies would mean falling living standards and worse lives for the rest?  Instead, can we not mitigate climate change and environmental disasters, and even reverse the process through ending the capitalist mode of production?  Then under democratic global planning of the commonly owned resources of the world, we can phase out fossil fuel energy and still expand production to meet the needs of the many.  Is this utopian or a practical possibility?

I won’t spell out how that can be done because I think that Richard Smith has expounded how in a series of comprehensive articles.  As he says, what we need is not ‘no growth’ but ‘eco-socialism’.  It is not a choice between global warming and ‘no growth’ recession and depression for billions; but between capitalist production disaster or socialist planning. 

Green capitalism won’t work, as the IMF paper hints at, and a Green New Deal won’t be enough if the capitalist mode of production for profit still dominates.

 

But under democratic planning we can control unnecessary consumption and return resources to the environment in a way to keep the planet, human beings and nature as balanced as possible. We can “innovate”, create new things, but still balance our ecological inputs and outputs.  It’s a practical possibility, but time is running out.

The Amazon is burning, and your tiny human efforts against the climate crisis have never seemed so meagre

We are like soccer fans in front of a TV screen at home, shouting and jumping from our seats, in a superstitious belief that this will somehow influence the outcome

Slavoj Zizek

2 days ago

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/amazon-fires-rainforest-capitalism-bolsonaro-climate-crisis-zizek-a9091966.html

Just when the burning of the Amazon forests drifted from our headlines, we learned that almost 4,000 new forest fires were started in Brazil in the two days after the government banned deliberate burning of the Amazon. 

These figures trigger alarm: are we really heading towards a collective suicide? By destroying the Amazon rainforests, Brazilians are killing “the lungs of our Earth”. However, if we want to confront seriously threats to our environment, what we should avoid are precisely such quick extrapolations which fascinate our imagination.

Two or three decades ago, everyone in Europe was talking about Waldsterben, the dying of forests. The topic was on the covers of all popular weeklies, and there were calculations of how in half a century Europe will be without forests. Now there are more forests in Europe than at any point in the 20th century, and we are becoming aware of other dangers – of what happens in the depth of the oceans, for example. 

While we should take ecological threats extremely seriously, we should also be fully aware of how uncertain analyses and projections are in this domain – we will know for sure what is going on only when it is too late. Fast extrapolations only hand arguments to climate change deniers. We should avoid at all costs the trap of an “ecology of fear”, a hasty, morbid fascination with looming catastrophe. 

This ecology of fear has the hallmarks of a developing, predominant form of ideology in global capitalism, a new opium for the masses replacing the declining religion. It takes over the old religion’s fundamental function, that of installing an unquestionable authority which can impose limits. 

The lesson hammered into us is that of our own finitude: we are just one species on our Earth embedded in a biosphere which reaches far beyond our horizon. In our exploitation of natural resources, we are borrowing from the future, so one should treat our Earth with respect, as something ultimately sacred, something that should not be unveiled totally, that should and will forever remain a mystery, a power we should trust, not dominate. 

While we cannot gain full mastery over our biosphere, it is, unfortunately, in our power to derail it, to disturb its balance so that it will run amok, swiping us away in the process. This is why, although ecologists are all the time demanding that we make radical changes to our way of life, underlying this demand is its opposite: a deep distrust of change, of development, of progress. Every radical change can have the unintended consequence of catastrophe.

Things get even more difficult here. Even when we profess the readiness to assume responsibility for ecological catastrophes, this can be a tricky stratagem to avoid facing the true scale of the threat. There is something deceptively reassuring in this readiness to assume the guilt for threats to our environment: we like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, then it all depends on us, we pull the strings of the catastrophe, so we can also save ourselves simply by changing our lives. 

What is really difficult for us (at least for us in the west) to accept is that we might be reduced to a purely passive role of impotent observers who can only sit and watch our fate. To avoid this, we are prone to engage in frantic activity, we recycle old paper, buy organic food, whatever, just so that we can be sure we are doing something, making our contribution.

We are like a soccer fan who supports his team in front of a TV screen at home, shouting and jumping from his seat, in a superstitious belief that this will somehow influence the outcome.

It is true that the typical form of fetishist disavowal around ecology is: “I know very well (that we are all threatened), but I don’t really believe it (so I am not ready to do anything really important like changing my way of life).” 

But there is also the opposite form of disavowal: “I know very well that I cannot really influence the process which can lead to my ruin (like a volcanic outburst), but it is nonetheless too traumatic for me to accept this, so I cannot resist the urge to do something, even if I know it is ultimately meaningless.” 

Is it not for that reason we buy organic food? Who really believes that the half-rotten and expensive “organic” apples are really healthier? The point is that, by way of buying them, we do not just buy and consume a product – we simultaneously do something meaningful, show our care and global awareness, we participate in a large collective project.

Food price profiteering is destroying the Amazon

The predominant ecological ideology treats us as a priori guilty, indebted to Mother Nature, under the constant pressure of the ecological superego agency which addresses us in our individuality: “What did you do today to repay your debt to nature? Did you put all your newspapers into a proper recycling bin? And all the bottles of beer or cans of Coke? Did you use your bike or public transport instead of your car? Did you open the windows wide rather than firing up the air conditioning?”

The ideological stakes of such individualisation are easy to see: I get lost in my own self-examination instead of raising much more pertinent global questions about our entire industrial civilization.

Ecology thus lends itself easily to ideological mystification. It can be a pretext for New Age obscuration (the praising of the pre-modern etc), or for neocolonialism (developed world complaints of the threat of rapid growth in developing countries such as Brazil or China), or as a cause to honour “green capitalists” (buy green and recycle, as if taking into account ecology justifies capitalist exploitation). All of these tensions exploded in our reactions to the recent Amazon fires. 

There are five main strategies to distract from the true dimensions of the ecological threat. First there is simple ignorance: it’s a marginal phenomenon, not worthy of our preoccupation, life goes on, nature will take care of itself.

Second, there is the belief that science and technology can save us. Third, that we should leave the solution to the market (with higher taxation of polluters, etc.). Fourth, we resort to the superego pressure on personal responsibility instead of large systemic measures (each of us should do what we can – recycle, consume less, etc.).

And fifth, perhaps the worst, is the advocating of a return to natural balance, to a more modest, traditional life by means of which we renounce human hubris and become again respectful children of our Mother Nature. 

This whole paradigm of Mother Nature derailed by our hubris is wrong.

The fact that our main sources of energy (oil, coal) are remnants of past catastrophes which occurred prior to the advent of humanity is a clear reminder that Mother Nature is cold and cruel.

This, of course, in no way means that we should relax and trust our future: the fact that it is not clear what is going on makes the situation even more dangerous. Plus, as it is fast becoming evident, migrations (and walls meant to prevent them) are getting more and more intertwined with ecological disturbances like global warming. The ecological apocalypse and the refugees apocalypse are more and more overlapping in what Philip Alston, a UN special rapporteur, described entirely accurately: 

“We risk a ‘climate apartheid’ scenario,” he said, “where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer.” 

Those least responsible for global emissions also have the least capacity to protect themselves.

So, the Leninist question: what is to be done? We are in a deep mess: there is no simple “democratic” solution here. The idea that people themselves (not just governments and corporations) should decide sounds deep, but it begs an important question: even if their comprehension is not distorted by corporate interests, what qualifies them to pass judgement in such a delicate matter? 

What we can do is at least set the priorities straight and admit the absurdity of our geopolitical war games when the very planet for which wars are fought is under threat. 

In the Amazon, we see the ridiculous game of Europe blaming Brazil and Brazil blaming Europe. It has to stop. Ecological threats make it clear that the era of sovereign nation states is approaching its end – a strong global agency is needed with the power to coordinate the necessary measures. And does such the need for such an agency point in the direction of what we once called “communism”?

New Missile Silo And DF-41 Launchers Seen In Chinese Nuclear Missile Training Area

Posted on Sep.03, 2019 in China, Nuclear Weapons by Hans M. Kristensen

https://fas.org/blogs/security/2019/09/china-silo-df41/

Newly acquired satellite photos acquired from Digital Globe (Maxar) show that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) is building what appears to be a new type of missile silo in the missile training area near Jilantai, possibly for use by a new ICBM.

The photos also show that 18 road-mobile launchers of the long-awaited DF-41 ICBM were training in the area in April-May 2019 together with launchers for the DF-31AG ICBM, possibly the DF-5B ICBM, the DF-26 IRBM, and the DF-21 MRBM.

Altogether, more than 72 missile launchers can be seen operating together.

China is in the middle of a significant modernization of its nuclear weapons arsenal and the Jilantai training area, which has been constructed since 2014, appears to play an important part in that modernization effort.

A New Type of Missile Silo?

The most surprising new development in the training area is the construction of what may be a new type of missile silo. I want to emphasize that there is no official confirmation the structure is a silo, but it strongly resembles one. If so, it is potentially possible it could be part of a Chinese effort to develop the option to deploy some of its new solid-fuel road-mobile ICBMs – possible the DF-41 – in silos. According to the 2019 Pentagon report on Chinese military developments, “China appears to be considering additional DF-41 launch options, including rail-mobile and silo basing.”

Construction of the silo began in June 2018. Initially, a roof was built over it to conceal details, but in May 2019 the roof was removed exposing the silo to satellite photography (see image below).

PLARF appears to be building a new type of missile silo. Click on image to view full size.

The layout of the Jilantai silo is very different from the silos seen at Wuzhai. Those silos, which are thought to be similar to about 20 operational silos hidden in the mountains of the Henan and Hunan provinces for use by the liquid-fuel DF-5A/B ICBMs, consist of a rectangular retractable lid covering the silo on a concrete pad. And they have large exhaust vents to protect the DF-5’s liquid fuel from the launch heat.

Instead, the Jilantai silo looks more like Russian ICBM silos. It is not yet complete but so far consists of what appears to be a 180-meter line-up path and a 30-meter missile loader pad next to the silo. The precise silo diameter is difficult to measure given the image resolution but appears to be 5-6 meters, which is smaller than the 8-9 meter diameter silos at Wuzhai. Moreover, the absence of exhaust vents hints the Jilantai silo might be intended for solid-fuel missiles.

The new silo design would offer a more efficient (and safe) missile loading. At the DF-5 silos, missiles are loaded by a crane, which hoists each stage off its transporter and lowers it into the silo. It is a cumbersome and lengthy procedure. Moreover, the DF-5 is propelled by liquid fuel that is stored separately and must be loaded before the missile can be launched. With the Jilantai silo design, however, the solid-fuel missile presumably would be brought in on a loader that backs up to the edge of the silo, elevates the missile, and lowers it into the silo in one piece (warhead payload is probably added later).

China’s new missile silo resembles Russian ICBM silos (click image to view full size)

If the structure seen at Jilantai indeed is a new silo, it presumably would only be used for training. If the design is successful, it would likely be followed in the future by the construction of similar silos in China’s ICBM basing areas for use by operational missiles.

Extensive Missile Training

The Jilantai missile training area, which has been constructed since 2014 and is located in the south-western part of the Inner Mongolia province approximately 930 kilometers (578 miles) west of Beijing, has undergone significant changes since I described it in January. The central technical facilities continue to expand, TEL drive-through facilities are being added, and road-mobile launchers for China’s newest nuclear-capable ballistic missiles are seen more or less constantly training in the area.

This includes the new DF-41 ICBM that may be in the final phase before starting to deploy to operational PLARF brigades. The new DF-31AG ICBM is also training at Jilantai, as is the new DF-26 IRBM and the DF-21 MRBM (see image below).

Five types of ballistic missile can be seen operating in PLARF’s training area near Jilantai. Click on image to view full size.

All these systems are solid-fuel missiles on road-mobile launchers. But it is also possible – although at this point unconfirmed – that missile systems seen training at Jilantai include transporters for the silo-based DF-5B ICBM. This is a large silo-based missile that would not be able to launch from mobile launchers, but the images show unique two-part, truck-pulled trailers that resemble the DF-5B transports that were displayed at the Beijing parade in 2015 (see image below).

Vehicles operating at PLARF’s training center near Jilantai resemble DF-5B transporters shown in 2015 parade (click on image to view full size)

It must be underscored that there is no confirmation the trailers are for the DF-5B. In one photo some of the trailers are longer and it is unclear why DF-5B transporters would be training at Jilantai given there are no DF-5B silos in the area. If the towed trailers are not DF-5Bs, they could potentially be transporters of reload missile for the road-mobile launchers seen on the satellite photos.

The DF-41 ICBM

The satellite images indicate that the DF-41 TELs started training at Jilantai in April 2019 shortly after a new TEL drive-through highbay facility was completed (a second is under construction further to the north). There appear to be 18 DF-41 launchers. In one photo from April 17, 2019, for example, a column of 15 DF-41s can be seen making its way from the new drive-through facility (two additional DF-41s can still be seen at the facility and the 18th is probably still inside) to a parade strip to join an assembly of 18 DF-31AGs, 18 DF-26s, and 5 (possibly) DF-5B transporters.

Eighteen DF-41 TELs were operating at PLARF’s training site in April this year. Click on image to view full size.

The DF-41 has been in development for a very long time. The Pentagon’s annual report on Chinese military developments first mentioned the missile in 1997 and sensational news articles have claimed it has been operational for years. The DF-41 was widely expected to be displayed at the 2015 military parade in Beijing, but that didn’t happen. Nor was it displayed at the PLA’s anniversary parade in 2017.

The DF-41 training at Jilantai with the other launchers is probably part of the formal integration of the new missile into PLAFRF service, more than two decades after development began. It seems likely that the DF-41 will appear at the military parade in Beijing on October 1st. Indeed, two months after the training occurred at Jilantai, 18 DF-41 launchers (potentially the same 18) could be seen on a satellite photo of a military facility in Yangfang about 35 kilometers (22 miles) northwest of Beijing apparently getting ready for the October parade. The image first made its way onto the Internet on August 9th, when it was posted by the Twitter user @Oedosoldier. The image carried the user’s logo but it was a screenshot from a Digital Globe image on TerraServer dated July 4, 2019.

Chinese Nuclear Missile Outlook

The highly visible display and clustering of more than 72 missile launchers at Jilantai in April and May indicate the PLARF wants them to be seen and is keenly aware that satellites are watching overhead. This is Beijing’s way of telling the world that it has a capable and survivable nuclear deterrent.

Once they become operational, the 18 DF-41s seen on the satellite photos will probably form two or three brigades and join the existing force of 65-90 DF-5A/B, DF-31/A/AG, and DF-4 ICBMs.

Despite the visible display, there is considerable uncertainty about the future development of the Chinese nuclear arsenal, not least how many missiles China plans to deploy. It seems possible the DF-41 over time might replace one or more of the older ICBMs. It is potentially also possible that the DF-31AG will replace the older DF-31/A trailer launchers (the DF-31 is notably absent from the Jilantai images). And the old DF-4 seems likely to be retired in the near future.

The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) stated in May this year that, “Over the next decade, China is likely to at least double the size of its nuclear stockpile…” Part of that projection hinges on the DF-41 adding MIRV capability to the solid-fuel road-mobile missiles for the first time (the DF-5B is already equipped with MIRV).

Whether DIA’s projection comes true remains to be seen; the agency has been notoriously bad about Chinese nuclear warhead projections in the past. At this point, the Chinese arsenal is estimated to include roughly 290 warheads, a fraction of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. To put things in perspective, all the launchers seen on the satellite photos make up less than half of the number of launchers in one of the three US ICBM wings.

Nonetheless, China is modernizing and increasing its nuclear arsenal. And the activities captured by commercial satellites at the PLARF’s training area west of Jilantai – operations of new DF-41 and DF-31AG ICBMs, the new dual-capable DF-26 IRBM, and the construction of what might be a new type of missile silo – are visual reminders of the important developments currently underway in China’s nuclear posture.

Additional background:

FAS Nuclear Notebook: Chinese nuclear forces, 2019

'Definition of Insane Greed': Investing Billions in New Projects, Fossil Fuel Corporations Undermining World's Climate Targets

"These dirty fossil fuel companies are not getting the message, let alone acting on the urgency of the climate crisis."

Julia Conley, staff writer

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/06/definition-insane-greed-investing-billions-new-projects-fossil-fuel-corporations

Despite outward claims from the fossil fuel industry that it shares the public's concern over the rapidly warming planet, a new study shows that oil and gas companies are actively and aggressively undermining climate targets agreed to by world governments.

The thinktank Carbon Tracker released a report entitled "Breaking the Habit" on Thursday, detailing the immense investments powerful companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, and BP have continued to make in offshore drilling, tar sands, and fracking projects in the years after nearly 200 countries agreed that the warming of the globe must be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The companies have invested $50 billion in climate-warming fossil fuel projects since the beginning of 2018, according to the report.

"Every oil major is betting heavily against a 1.5C world and investing in projects that are contrary to the Paris goals," report author Andrew Grant told The Guardian.

Author and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben shared The Guardian's report on the study on social media, saying its findings detail the "insane greed" of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of the planet.

At least 30 percent of the companies' investments over the past two years have gone towards the kinds of energy projects that have been found to pump as much as 37 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere per year as well as endangering marine life, drinking water sources, and people who live near fracking and pipeline projects.

"Last year, all of the major oil companies sanctioned projects that fall outside a 'well below two degrees' budget on cost grounds," the report reads, referring to the goal of keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels—and more ambitiously, under 1.5 degrees.

"These will not deliver adequate returns in a low-carbon world," Carbon Tracker said.

The continued investments in new fossil fuel projects come three years after the Paris climate agreement entered into force, when the E.U. pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent compared to its 1990 levels and the U.S. agreed to slash its emissions by 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Since the agreement was forged fossil fuel companies have claimed to be working towards reducing their emissions.

"We agree that the world is not moving fast enough to tackle climate change," a spokesperson for Shell told The Guardian. "As the energy system evolves, so is our business."

Critics on social media said Friday that Carbon Tracker's report demonstrates how, with Shell's plans for a $13 billion natural gas investment and plans by BP and ExxonMobil to invest in an offshore project in Angola, profits still trump preserving the planet for powerful companies—priorities which will cause suffering for communities that have contributed the least to the climate crisis.

"None of the largest oil and gas companies are making investment decisions in line with the global climate goals," tweeted the group End Water Poverty.

Grant suggested that shareholders at Exxon, Shell, and other oil and gas companies must urge executives to shift away from emission-causing projects.

"Investors should challenge companies' spending on new fossil fuel production," Grant told The Guardian.

But others on social media said the power to stop companies and their wealthy investors lies with policymakers who need the political will to bring the fossil fuel sector to heel.

"These dirty fossil fuel companies are not getting the message, let alone acting on the urgency of the climate crisis," wrote British Green Party co-leader Jonathan Bartley. "But it is governments who must hold them to account, and end the subsidies that are funding their environmental destruction."

'Hell No,' Say Progressives, After GOP Sen. Joni Ernst Suggests Cutting Social Security 'Behind Closed Doors'

"No matter how hard you try to hide, the American people will be watching—and we won't let you cut our earned Social Security benefits."

Jake Johnson, staff writer

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/06/hell-no-say-progressives-after-gop-sen-joni-ernst-suggests-cutting-social-security

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa is under fire after telling a town hall audience last weekend that members of Congress should negotiate changes to Social Security "behind closed doors" in order to dodge scrutiny from the media and advocacy groups.

Ernst, who is running for reelection in 2020, complained to the crowd gathered in Estherville, Iowa that "the minute you say we need to address Social Security, the media is hammering you, the opposing party is hammering you—there goes granny over a cliff."

Lawmakers should therefore meet in secret to avoid "being scrutinized by this group or the other," said the Iowa Republican.

Ernst did not recommend specific changes to Social Security during her town hall appearance, but the senator has in the past suggested privatization of the widely popular program as "one solution."

A video of Ernst's remarks was posted on Youtube Tuesday by the Democratic super PAC American Bridge, and the comments quickly generated outrage on social media.

Nancy Altman, president of progressive advocacy group Social Security Works, wrote Friday that Ernst "said out loud what Republican politicians usually only talk about in secret meetings with their billionaire donors: the GOP wants to cut our earned Social Security benefits—and they want to do it behind closed doors so that they don't have to pay the political price."

Altman said any changes Congress makes to Social Security should expand the program's benefits, and the improvements should be made in public.

"All of us who have a stake in Social Security—which is every one of us—should insist that those seeking our vote tell us if they support expanding or cutting Social Security," wrote Altman. "If they refuse to tell us, if they ramble on about their desire to 'save' or 'fix' or 'strengthen' Social Security in secret, we should draw the obvious inference: They want to cut Social Security."

Ernst's comments came as President Donald Trump is reportedly considering cuts to Social Security and Medicare as a possible "second-term project."

As the Washington Post reported in July, Trump ordered his aides to "prepare for sweeping budget cuts if he wins a second term in the White House."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who in February introduced legislation to expand Social Security by hiking taxes on the rich, said Friday that he has "some bad news" for Republicans who want to gut Social Security in secret.

"We're not going to cut Social Security benefits," Sanders tweeted. "We're going to expand them."