Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Humanity Is Riding Delusion to Extinction
DEC 02, 2019
Horses sporting gas masks.
That, of all things, has been on my mind lately. Bear with me, now. Gaze at the
ever-so-cockamamie photo. A horse, wearing a gas mask. Nothing so
illustrates the rank absurdity and irrationality of the human condition. It was
during World War I—which killed an unheard-of nine million soldiers in just
four years—that the armies of Europe still employed horses in an age of machine
guns, airplanes (eventually), tanks and poison gas attacks. Rather than call a
halt to the inane slaughter in the trenches, the world’s great powers fought
that wildly nationalistic war to its macabre conclusion. One result was horses
in gas masks. That was only a hundred years ago.
As the U.S. government, as
well as far too many Americans, remain fixated on the decidedly minor threat of
Islamist “terrorism,” two actual global existential perils persist and are
hardly addressed. I’m speaking, of course, of nuclear war and man-made, climate-based
catastrophe. Hardly any serious establishment political figure in this country
has taken meaningful action on such grave matters, mind you—busy as they are
either reflexively attacking or defending Trump’s comparably trivial policies
in Ukraine or Syria. Who noticed as the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists ticked
the Doomsday Clock a stroke
closer to midnight? Who has commented on the absurd reality that one
of the two major American political parties denies the very existence of
climate change, while the (hardly progressive) Pentagon repeatedly
warns of its reality and profound consequences?
Which brings me back to the
irrational slaughter of the First World War: its philosophical meaning,
consequences, and what it, and a few subsequent events, portends for the fate
of humanity. Were the generals of the era simply dumb for sending waves of
infantrymen into the teeth of machine-gun fire, or did they face the old “wheel
problem?” It took human beings at least tens of thousands of years to even
conceive of the wheel. Seen in this context, the three or so years it took the
generals to develop a combined-arms (tanks + radios + artillery + small unit
infantry maneuver) “solution” to break the stalemate doesn’t seem quite so
awful. Not that many, if not most, senior commanders couldn’t be at times, and
especially early on, obtuse, arrogant and callous.
They and their civilian
political masters ought to have recognized, when around a million soldiers died
in the first five months of war, that as of Dec. 31, 1914, nationalism was
obsolete. Fighting for one’s “country,” the romance of national power, was
essentially—with the advent of efficient machine guns and poison gas—a suicide
pact among each country’s young men. Yet on the war raged, and soon enough, an
even bloodier Second World War broke out. This happened despite the
widespread global antiwar sentiment in the wake of the first war. Few
major governments were responsive, and despite the profound hopes
among WWII veterans that theirs would be the last, war has continued
almost endlessly into our new century.
The Second World War began
with its own horse-gas-mask, technology-ahead-of-tactics sort of absurdity,
when, in September 1939, Polish cavalrymen (to some degree apocryphally) faced
off with German tanks. But the real, philosophical, lesson of that
war’s culmination was this: If World War I should’ve made nationalism obsolete,
events in August 1945 ought to have proven that countries were themselves
outmoded. Because, when the United States (still the only country, ever, to do
so) slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians with two atomic
bombs, the whole game changed.
At that point, for the first
time in organized human history and due to the fantastically destructive power
of nuclear weapons, a single nation could end the world within minutes. It is
that sort of planet that the human race has inhabited for 75 years. And we
aren’t scared enough. Until the invention and proliferation of atomic and
hydrogen bombs, no single state or empire possessed world-ending power. Even
Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler were eventually checked by
coalitions of convenience and necessity. The Macedonian spearmen were halted by
determined Afghan tribesmen; Mongol horsemen were held off by Egyptian and
European armies; and as for the Nazis, the paradoxical duo of the Soviets and
the Americans had their number.
The near certainty of
planet-destroying nuclear winter in the event of major war has forever changed
the entire geopolitical calculus. Or, at least, it should have. These days, a
“rogue” state like North Korea, or eventually the Czech Republic or Bhutan,
could end the world. Such a ludicrously tenuous situation clearly demonstrates
that the only rational model of geopolitics capable of avoiding catastrophe,
whether due to nuclear annihilation or collective climate suicide, is some sort
of world government.
The United Nations or the
European Union (but not military-focused NATO) represent the only rational
model for compromise, conversation and war avoidance. Only today, in a paragon
of inherent human irrationality, it is precisely such models against which
Western (Trump, Brexit, Orban), and other (Bolsonaro, Putin, Xi Jinping)
governments react. Collective delusion—reflected in the populist, rightward,
authoritarian global political wave—might just spell the end of organized human
life on this planet. It seems that plenty of folks worldwide are riding
nationalist nostalgia right to the edge of extinction. These sorts of strongman
leaders historically have poor records on communal action—exactly what’s now
needed to save the world.
Perhaps the key metaphysical
problem is this: Human beings simply don’t live long enough. Limited life spans
inherently seem to encourage selfish, expedient, short-term, and thus
delusional and destructive, thinking. In that sense, climate change, though
it’s becoming increasingly imminent, may just be too big (and long-term, and
existential) of a problem for the truncated life spans of most humans. Especially,
it appears, among the wealthy elites clearly living it up in what may the last
days of their species’ existence. Egyptian pharaohs, who once had themselves
entombed with their worldly treasures, have a current equivalent in the CEOs
set to drown in rising seas while their wealth is stashed in (far more virtual)
mutual funds and subprime mortgage bundles.
As oceans flood the coasts,
famine breaks out wholesale and resource-driven inter-state combat breaks out,
my guess is that most desperate people will ignore John Lennon’s advice and
turn toward religion—or the irrationality of the humanity-unique
casino/gambling culture—to endure the absurdity of their existence. Perhaps
eventually, though time is ever-so-short, people will force governments to unite,
organize and (just barely) avoid disaster. I’m rooting for humanity, no doubt,
but my own limited life experience has made me unlikely to bet on our species.
All the knowledge needed to
save the world from climate catastrophe (and even nuclear war) is on our
iPhones. Unfortunately, most Americans are too busy watching porn and trolling
their exes on Facebook to unite, organize and save themselves. It’s an
irrational, and classically human, defense mechanism of sorts. Such is life, in
all its bizarre glory, all its absurdity.
Conservation pays its way handsomely
December 2nd, 2019, by Tim
Radford
Money does grow on trees. The
conservation of a native forest is natural capital, its cash value often
reaching trillions of dollars.
LONDON, 2 December, 2019 – More
than 400 scientists in Brazil have once again established that conservation
pays: landscapes and people are richer for the
native vegetation preserved on rural properties.
They calculate that 270
million hectares (667m acres) of natural forest, scrub, marsh and grassland
contained in Brazil’s legal reserves are worth US$1.5 trillion (£1.7tn) a year
to the nation.
Natural wilderness pays its
way by providing a steady supply of natural crop pollinators and pest controls,
by seamlessly managing rainfall and water run-off, and by maintaining soil
quality, the researchers argue in a new study in the journal Perspectives
in Ecology and Conservation.
“The paper is meant to show
that preserving native vegetation isn’t an obstacle to social and economic
development but part of the solution. It’s one of the drivers of sustainable
development in Brazil and diverges from what was done in Europe 500 years ago,
when the level of environmental awareness was different”, said Jean Paul Metzger, an ecologist at the
University of São Paulo, who leads the signatories.
“Brazil conserves a great
deal, protecting over 60% of its vegetation cover, and has strict legislation.
It’s ranked 30th by the World Bank, behind Sweden and Finland, which protect
approximately 70%. However, we must call attention to the fact that
conservation isn’t bad,” said Professor Metzger.
Protection maintained
Brazilian law requires rural
landowners to leave forest cover untouched on a percentage of their property:
in the Amazon region as much as 80%; in other regions as little as 20%. But
these protected areas shelter a third of the nation’s natural vegetation.
A bill that proposed to weaken
or eliminate the Legal Reserve requirement went before the Brazilian Senate in
2019. Had it passed, it could have led to the loss altogether of 270 million
hectares of native vegetation.
The bill has since been
withdrawn, but a small army of scientists – including 371 researchers in 79
Brazilian laboratories, universities and institutions – have responded with a
study that attempts to set a cash value to simply maintaining the natural
capital of the wilderness.
Brazil is home to one of the
world’s great tropical rainforests, and to one of the world’s richest centres
of biodiversity. The global climate crisis is already
taking its toll of the forest canopy in the form of drought and fire.
But under
new national leadership there have been fears that even
more forest could be at risk.
The cash-value case for
conservation has been made, and made repeatedly. Studies have confirmed that
agribusiness monocultures – vast tracts devoted entirely to one crop and only
one crop – are not sustainable: animal pollinators can make
the best of the flowering season but then have no alternative sources
of food for the rest of the year.
Other researchers have
separately established that the loss of natural forest can be far
more costly and economically damaging than anybody had expected; and that,
conversely, conserved and undisturbed
wilderness actually delivers wealth on a sustained basis for national
and regional economies. But farmers concerned with immediate profits might not
be so conscious of the long-term rewards of conservation.
“It’s an important paper
because it presents sound information that can be used to refute the arguments
of those who want to change the Brazilian Forest Code and do away with the
legal reserve requirement”, said Carlos
Joly of the Sao Paulo Research Foundation, and one of the signatories.
And his colleague Paulo Artaxo said: “Farmers
sometimes take a short-term view that focuses on three or four years of
personal profit, but the nation is left with enormous losses. This mindset
should go. The paper makes that very clear.”
– Climate News Network
Obama spearheads campaign against Sanders’ nomination as Democratic presidential candidate
2 December 2019
The first votes for the
Democratic presidential nomination will be cast in two months’ time, in the
Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. With former President Barack Obama
taking the lead, the Democratic Party is moving to ensure that issues of social
inequality and wealth distribution are excluded from the elections.
An article in Politico last
week (“Waiting for Obama”) reported that the “Democratic establishment is
counting on [Obama] to stop Trump and, perhaps, stave off Bernie as well.”
While noting that Obama’s
public position is that he will support whatever candidate is nominated, the
article states, “There is one potential exception: Back when Sanders seemed
like more of a threat than he does now, Obama said privately that if Bernie
were running away with the nomination, Obama would speak up to stop him.”
The report conforms to what
Obama has said in statements over the past two weeks to party donors and
fundraisers in Washington, DC and California. He claimed that the American
people were opposed to any radical change. “This is still a country that is
less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement,” Obama said. “They
like seeing things improved. But the average American doesn’t think we have to
completely tear down the system and remake it… They just don’t want to see
crazy stuff.”
He continued, “We also have to
be rooted in reality and the fact that voters, including the Democratic voters
and certainly persuadable independents or even moderate Republicans, are not
driven by the same views that are reflected on certain, you know, left-leaning
Twitter feeds. Or the activist wing of our party.”
While he did not name them,
the meaning was clear, as the New York Times noted: “His comments
offered an implicit critique of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren…”
The concern of the Democratic
Party establishment is not over Sanders and Warren, both of whom are tested
political operatives. Rather, they do not want to run an election that appeals
even in a limited way to the class-based concerns of the vast majority of the
population.
Beginning with Obama’s
statement that the 2016 election was an “intramural scrimmage” between two
sides of the same team, the Democrats have sought to redirect popular hostility
to Trump behind their militarist, anti-Russia campaign, the focus of the
impeachment drive. This will be combined with efforts to promote divisions
based on race and gender.
Obama was only the most
prominent spokesman for a right-wing campaign throughout the month of November,
including commentaries and editorials in the Times and the Washington
Post (owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos), an op-ed from former
Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, and public statements from billionaires
Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Mark Cuban and Leon Cooperman, all attacking
proposals by Warren and Sanders for a tax on accumulated wealth.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg
went even further, officially announcing himself as a belated candidate for the
Democratic presidential nomination and funding a $30 million advertising blitz
that began last week.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
joined in with an attack on the health care proposal identified with Sanders
and Warren. “I’m not a big fan of Medicare-for-all,” she said on Bloomberg TV,
the cable network controlled by the billionaire now-candidate. She claimed that
“there is a comfort level that some people have with their current private
insurance.”
Both Warren and Sanders have
responded by shifting to the right. Warren has backpedaled on
her “Medicare for All” proposal, releasing a “Plan B” that backtracks on the
main component of her campaign.
For his part, Sanders was
queried in last month’s Democratic presidential debate about Obama’s repudiation
of revolution. “Is President Obama wrong?” the moderator asked Sanders. The
Vermont senator shelved his rhetoric about “political revolution” and meekly
replied, “No, he’s right. We don’t have to tear down the system, but we do have
to do what the American people want.”
Both Sanders and Warren accept
the fraudulent presentation of the Obama administration as a “progressive”
government that laid the basis for further social reforms. They make no
criticism of Obama’s bailout of Wall Street, his wage-cutting attacks on auto
workers, or his slashing of federal support to public education and other
social programs. They do not address the undeniable political fact that it was
the alignment of the Obama administration with corporate America that drove
sizeable sections of workers to turn their backs on the Democratic Party and
either vote for Trump or stay home on Election Day in 2016.
Most critically, they support
the foreign policy consensus in the Democratic Party that underlies the
campaign to impeach Trump, not for his real crimes against immigrant workers
and the democratic rights of the American people, but for his transgressions
against the demands of the military-intelligence apparatus in relation to
Ukraine, Russia and the Middle East.
Warren has publicly embraced
the Trump administration’s efforts to strangle Venezuela with financial
sanctions, while tacitly supporting the overthrow of Bolivian President Evo
Morales by a right-wing US-backed campaign in which the Bolivian military
played the central role. Sanders has referred to the overthrow of Morales as a
“coup,” but offers no alternative to the aggressive assertion of US imperialist
interests around the world, which is supported by both the Democrats and
Republicans.
And like most Democrats,
Sanders has criticized Trump’s trade war policies towards China from the right,
demanding even more aggressive protectionist measures that would only add fuel
to the mounting global tensions that bring with them the danger of a third
world war.
The working class cannot
defend its social rights to good-paying jobs, decent schools, medical care and
other social services, or fight the growing danger of imperialist war, by means
of the Democratic Party. This requires the independent mobilization of the
working class in both industrial and political struggle, through strikes, mass
demonstrations and the building of an independent political movement directed
against the capitalist system based on a socialist program.
Patrick Martin
The author also recommends:
Obama joins
effort to push Democratic primary campaign to the right
[18 November 2019]
[18 November 2019]
Global levels of biodiversity could be lower than we think, new study warns
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191202105807.htm?utm
Date: December 2, 2019
Source:University of Sussex
Summary:Biodiversity across the globe could be in a worse state than previously thought, as assessments fail to account for long-lasting impact of land change, a new study has warned.
Biodiversity across the globe could be in a worse state than previously thought as current biodiversity assessments fail to take into account the long-lasting impact of abrupt land changes, a new study has warned.
Biodiversity across the globe could be in a worse state than previously thought as current biodiversity assessments fail to take into account the long-lasting impact of abrupt land changes, a new study has warned.
The study by PhD graduate Dr Martin Jung, Senior Lecturer in Geography Dr Pedram Rowhani and Professor of Conservation Science Jörn Scharlemann, all at the University of Sussex, shows that fewer species and fewer individuals are observed at sites that have been disturbed by an abrupt land change in past decades.
The authors warn that areas subjected to deforestation or intensification of agriculture can take at least ten years to recover, with reductions in species richness and abundance.
With current biodiversity assessments failing to take into account the impacts of past land changes, the researchers believe that the natural world could be in a far worse state than currently thought.
Lead author, Dr Martin Jung said: "These findings show that recent abrupt land changes, like deforestation or intensification through agriculture, can cause even more impactful and long-lasting damage to biodiversity than previously thought.
"Our study shows that it can take at least ten or more years for areas which have undergone recent abrupt land changes to recover to levels comparable to undisturbed sites. This only strengthens the argument to limit the impacts of land change on biodiversity with immediate haste."
The study combined global data on biodiversity from the PREDICTS database, one of the largest databases of terrestrial plants, fungi and animals across the world, with quantitative estimates of abrupt land change detected using images from NASA's Landsat satellites from 1982 to 2015.
Comparing numbers of plants, fungi and animals at 5,563 disturbed sites with those at 10,102 undisturbed sites across the world from Africa to Asia, the researchers found that biodiversity remains affected by a land change event for several years after it has occurred, due to a lag effect.
Species richness and abundance were found to be 4.2% and 2% lower, respectively, at sites where an abrupt land change had occurred.
In addition, the impacts on species were found to be greater if land changes had occurred more recently, and caused greater changes in vegetation cover. At sites that had land changes in the last five years, there were around 6.6% fewer species observed.
However, at sites where a land change had taken place 10 or more years ago, species richness and abundance were indistinguishable from sites without a past land change in the same period, indicating that biodiversity can recover after such disturbances.
Dr Jung explained: "For us, the results clearly indicate that regional and global biodiversity assessments need to consider looking back at the past in order to have more accurate results in the present.
"We've shown that remotely-sensed satellite data can assist in doing this in a robust way globally. Our framework can also be applied to habitat restoration and conservation prioritization assessments."
Prof Jörn Scharlemann added: "Although the number of species and individuals appear to recover more than 10 years after a land change, we will still need to find out whether the original unique species recover or whether common widespread species, such as weeds, pigeons and rats, move into these disturbed areas."
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Sussex. Original written by Stephanie Allen. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
Martin Jung, Pedram Rowhani, Jörn P. W. Scharlemann. Impacts of past abrupt land change on local biodiversity globally. Nature Communications, 2019; 10 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13452-3
The authors warn that areas subjected to deforestation or intensification of agriculture can take at least ten years to recover, with reductions in species richness and abundance.
With current biodiversity assessments failing to take into account the impacts of past land changes, the researchers believe that the natural world could be in a far worse state than currently thought.
Lead author, Dr Martin Jung said: "These findings show that recent abrupt land changes, like deforestation or intensification through agriculture, can cause even more impactful and long-lasting damage to biodiversity than previously thought.
"Our study shows that it can take at least ten or more years for areas which have undergone recent abrupt land changes to recover to levels comparable to undisturbed sites. This only strengthens the argument to limit the impacts of land change on biodiversity with immediate haste."
The study combined global data on biodiversity from the PREDICTS database, one of the largest databases of terrestrial plants, fungi and animals across the world, with quantitative estimates of abrupt land change detected using images from NASA's Landsat satellites from 1982 to 2015.
Comparing numbers of plants, fungi and animals at 5,563 disturbed sites with those at 10,102 undisturbed sites across the world from Africa to Asia, the researchers found that biodiversity remains affected by a land change event for several years after it has occurred, due to a lag effect.
Species richness and abundance were found to be 4.2% and 2% lower, respectively, at sites where an abrupt land change had occurred.
In addition, the impacts on species were found to be greater if land changes had occurred more recently, and caused greater changes in vegetation cover. At sites that had land changes in the last five years, there were around 6.6% fewer species observed.
However, at sites where a land change had taken place 10 or more years ago, species richness and abundance were indistinguishable from sites without a past land change in the same period, indicating that biodiversity can recover after such disturbances.
Dr Jung explained: "For us, the results clearly indicate that regional and global biodiversity assessments need to consider looking back at the past in order to have more accurate results in the present.
"We've shown that remotely-sensed satellite data can assist in doing this in a robust way globally. Our framework can also be applied to habitat restoration and conservation prioritization assessments."
Prof Jörn Scharlemann added: "Although the number of species and individuals appear to recover more than 10 years after a land change, we will still need to find out whether the original unique species recover or whether common widespread species, such as weeds, pigeons and rats, move into these disturbed areas."
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Sussex. Original written by Stephanie Allen. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
Martin Jung, Pedram Rowhani, Jörn P. W. Scharlemann. Impacts of past abrupt land change on local biodiversity globally. Nature Communications, 2019; 10 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13452-3
Insurance Industry Is Clearly 'Terrified,' Says Sanders, As Lawmakers Admit Lobbyists Helped Them Write Attacks on Medicare for All
"We are taking on the
big-money interests who have an army of lobbyists trying to defeat Medicare for
All."
Monday, December 02, 2019
Documents obtained by
the Washington Post Monday showed that lobbyists helped three state
lawmakers draft op-eds this year attacking Medicare for All, a revelation Sen.
Bernie Sanders highlighted as further evidence that the healthcare industry is
"terrified" of the push for single-payer.
"We are taking on the
big-money interests who have an army of lobbyists trying to defeat Medicare for
All," tweeted Sanders,
a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. "They are terrified that the
American people recognize that healthcare is a human right. They're right to be
terrified."
The Post's Jeff Stein
reported Monday that Montana state Rep. Kathy Kelker (D), Montana state Sen.
Jen Gross (D), and an aide to Ohio state Sen. Steve Huffman (R) admitted in
interviews that lobbyists helped craft their recent op-eds criticizing Medicare
for All. The three columns appeared in local newspapers; none of them disclosed
that they were written with the assistance of lobbyists.
Kelker and Gross
"acknowledged in interviews that editorials they published separately about the single-payer health
proposal included language provided by John MacDonald, a lobbyist and
consultant in [Montana] who disclosed in private emails that he worked for an
unnamed client," Stein reported.
Kathleen DeLand, an Ohio-based
lobbyist, assisted Huffman with his September 30 Sidney Daily News op-ed,
which criticized Medicare for All as a "one-size-fits-all approach"
that "does not work for healthcare."
Huffman's aide told the Post that
he believes DeLand was working for the Partnership for America's Health Care
Future (PAHCF), an industry front group formed
last year to fight Medicare for All.
"DeLand's emails to the
Ohio lawmaker's staff include the acronym for the group in the subject line:
'PAHCF op-ed - OH - Huffman[3]. docx,'" Stein reported, citing documents
provided to the Post by non-profit advocacy group Medicare for All
Now.
MacDonald, who edited the
Montana lawmakers' columns, would not confirm to the Post whether he
was working for PAHCF.
"The emails appear to
show extensive outside involvement in the Montana lawmakers' op-eds,"
Stein reported. "In a Microsoft Word document, MacDonald removed three
paragraphs from a draft of Kelker's op-ed that pointed out that the United
States 'clearly spends significantly more on healthcare per capita than other
developed nations.' He also deleted a table from the lawmaker's original draft
showing that the United States has higher healthcare spending per capita than
France, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland."
Wendell Potter, president of
advocacy group Business for Medicare for All, said the emails "blow open
what I saw firsthand and revealed as a health insurance whistleblower."
"These companies and
their lobbyists will stoop to whatever it takes, no matter how grotesque, to
deny people the lifesaving coverage they need," Potter, a former health
insurance executive, told the Post. "This is just the latest reason
we need to reform this broken system where greedy corporations determine who
can get medical treatment in America."
In a series of
tweets Monday, Potter called on PAHCF to "come clean about any
other op-eds secretly authored by the health insurance industry to discredit
Medicare for All."
"This move by the
industry is built on a decades old corporate playbook used previously by Big
Tobacco and the NRA," said Potter. "Placing industry-crafted talking
points under the byline of trusted local leaders is a tried and true way to
manipulate the public."
Larry Noble, who served as
general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center and the Federal Election
Commission, echoed Potter's ethical concerns.
"It's disturbing,"
Noble said of the emails in an interview with the Post. "I think
there's a certain ethical obligation to be upfront about who wrote the
editorial."
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