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As world leaders convened in Madrid for COP25 amid surging grassroots demands for radical action, the charitable organization Oxfam released new research Monday showing that climate-related disasters were the leading cause of internal displacement over the past decade, forcing an average of over 20 million people to flee their homes per year. That, according to Oxfam, amounts to one person every two seconds being forced from their home due to hurricanes, wildfires, cyclones, and other extreme weather
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Oxfam Unveils Report Showing Climate-Related Disasters Displaced 200 Million People Since 2008
by Jake Johnson
As world leaders convened in Madrid for COP25 amid surging grassroots demands for radical action, the charitable organization Oxfam released new research Monday showing that climate-related disasters were the leading cause of internal displacement over the past decade, forcing an average of over 20 million people to flee their homes per year. That, according to Oxfam, amounts to one person every two seconds being forced from their home due to hurricanes, wildfires, cyclones, and other extreme weather
Residents brave the floods in Mazive, southern Mozambique, on April 28, 2019, just weeks after the country suffered one of the worst storms in its history. (Photo: Emidio Josine/AFP via Getty Images)
As world leaders convened in Madrid for COP25 amid surging grassroots demands for radical action, the charitable organization Oxfam released new research Monday showing that climate-related disasters were the leading cause of internal displacement over the past decade, forcing an average of over 20 million people to flee their homes per year.
That, according to Oxfam, amounts to one person every two seconds being forced from their home due to hurricanes, wildfires, cyclones, and other extreme weather.
“Our governments are fueling a crisis that is driving millions of women, men, and children from their homes and the poorest people in the poorest countries are paying the heaviest price,” Chema Vera, acting executive director of Oxfam International, said in a statement.
According to Oxfam’s analysis (pdf), which relied on data Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the number of extreme weather disasters that have forced people from their homes.
“Today, you are seven times more likely to be internally displaced by extreme weather disasters… than by geophysical disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and three times more likely than by conflict,” the organization found. “There was a five-fold increase in the reported number of extreme weather disasters that resulted in people being displaced over the last decade.”
Emphasizing that small island nations such as Tuvalu and Cuba face far higher risk of internal displacement due to extreme weather than rich European nations, Oxfam condemned the wealthy nations of the world for making “little progress towards the provision of new funds to help poor countries recover from loss and damage resulting from the climate emergency.”
“Rich donor countries have largely left poor countries to cover the rising costs of extreme weather disasters themselves,” Oxfam said.
To help vulnerable nations recover from previous disasters and prepare for future extreme weather, Oxfam called on world leaders at COP25 to commit to establishing an international “Loss and Damage” fund to assist displaced people and communities.
Oxfam also urged nations to commit to deeper emission cuts and more rapid phase-outs of fossil fuels to limit global warming to 1.5°C by 2030.
“People are taking to the streets across the globe to demand urgent climate action,” Vera said. “If politicians ignore their pleas, more people will die, more people will go hungry and more people will be forced from their homes.”
“Governments can and must make Madrid matter,” Vera added. “They must commit to faster, deeper emissions cuts and they must establish a new ‘Loss and Damage’ fund to help poor communities recover from climate disasters.”
Originally published in CommonDreams.org
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Failed Action On The Climate Crisis Makes Resistance Imperative
Co-Written by Kevin Zeese and Magaret Flowers
On December 2, the 25th
two-week long United Nations climate conference begins in Madrid, Spain. The stated task of the conference, referred to as COP 25 (Conference Of Parties), is to make sure there are plans to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The goals of that agreement, which are nonbinding, are: Reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030; Achieve a net zero global carbon footprint by 2050; and Stabilize the global temperature increase at 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
Co-Written by Kevin Zeese and Magaret Flowers
On December 2, the 25th two-week long United Nations climate conference begins in Madrid, Spain. The stated task of the conference, referred to as COP 25 (Conference Of Parties), is to make sure there are plans to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The goals of that agreement, which are nonbinding, are:
- Reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030;
- Achieve a net zero global carbon footprint by 2050; and
- Stabilize the global temperature increase at 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
Last week, prominent scientists issued a warning that significant changes related to the climate crisis are already happening and could create a cascading effect that locks in catastrophic levels of temperature and sea-level rise. They view the pledges made by countries to take climate action as insufficient and leading to a three degrees Celsius temperature rise by the end of the century.
It is this reality that is spurring people around the world to take action in the growing global climate emergency movement. Many people are asking what they can do about the climate crisis.
Young activists take part in a rally to protest against Climate change outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC on November 29, 2019. (AFP/Nicholas Kamm).
Too little, too late
Each new climate report is direr. The climate crisis is here now. Oceans are heating up and acidifying as they absorb carbon dioxide. This is slowing ocean circulation and killing coral reefs. Ocean circulation impacts the weather – slowing is already changing weather patterns and worsening storms. Coral reefs are necessary for providing habitat and protecting coastlines.
According to a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, ice is melting at an unprecedented pace and sea-level rise is accelerating. This is leading to more frequent and chronic flooding. The world has already warmed to 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels causing droughts and frequent wildfires.
Of great concern is the fact that these changes are not isolated. They feed into and feed off of each other causing a cascading impact that is leading us to a point of no return, at least for thousands of years. For example, as the land thaws, stored methane is being released. Methane is the most potent greenhouse gas in the short term causing more warming and more thawing. The prominent scientists cited above explain this:
“…as science advances, we must admit that we have underestimated the risks of unleashing irreversible changes, where the planet self-amplifies global warming. This is what we are seeing already at 1°C global warming…”
Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are failing. Levels are rising even though we need at least a 7.6 percent reduction each year to reach the Paris Agreement goals. Growing energy demand is the biggest culprit. Colder winters and warmer summers mean more energy used to heat and cool our homes and other buildings. In the United States, gas consumption increased by ten percent in 2018 after years of decline. The increase in renewables is not even meeting new energy demands, let alone replacing polluting forms of energy production.
Even though the United Nations admits that not enough is being done to address the climate crisis and that there is no time to waste, it does not wield its power to make sure that effective actions are taken. Instead, as we wrote in 2014, the UN is dominated by global finance and corporations and their subservient governments pushing financial schemes and green technology to enrich themselves even when those projects don’t solve the problem.
In this year’s meeting, the major focus will be the rules for the newest form of a global carbon trading market mandated by the Paris Agreement. Carbon trading has been in existence since the Kyoto Protocol and has not reduced carbon emissions. California’s cap and trade system, one of the largest in the world, is being copied by other countries, but ProPublica found that carbon emissions in California have risen by 3.5 percent under the program as it allows big polluters to purchase credits and even increase their emissions.
There have already been mass protests around the world leading up to the COP meetings. In expectation of more protests at the meetings in Spain, more than 5,000 police have been called out. Thousands of anti-capitalist activists, environmental defenders, and concerned citizens are arriving from all over the world to demand that countries take concrete measures to halt global climate change. The police are on high alert throughout the COP meetings until December 14.
This is the last year that the United States will participate in the United Nations COP meetings as Trump formally withdraws from the Paris Agreement. What are activists in the US to do?
Climate Demonstrators in Cologne on November 29, 2019, before the UN climate summit. Source DPA
Action for the climate
The United States is the second-largest total GHG emitter in the world and the third-largest per-capita GHG emitter behind Saudi Arabia and Australia. The US is the largest producer of new fossil fuels. People in the US have a critical responsibility and role to play in the solution to the climate crisis.
There are lots of discussions going on right now about what people need to be doing and the answer is that we need to be using all the tools available. We cannot count on institutions such as the United Nations, governments and corporations to take appropriate actions without outside pressure. We need to organize resistance and build the solutions in our communities.
A core requirement of effective social movements is to have a clear vision of what they are working to achieve. To be transformational, this vision must embody not only the goal (for example, reducing GHG emissions) but also the structure of the system that will achieve that goal. Two major components of that structure are the ways decisions will be made and how the system will be financed. For more information on social transformation, visit the Popular Resistance School.
Currently, it is the powerholders who make and profit from the decisions. A new system, such as the Green New Deal, could be structured in a way that puts those who are most impacted by the decisions in control and could be financed in a way that reduces the wealth divide. The Ecosocialist Green New Deal, developed by Howie Hawkins, a candidate running for the Green Party presidential nomination, is the strongest proposal. It has the fastest timeline, includes a transition to a peace economy with 75 percent cuts to the military, an Economic Bill of Rights and a Green Economy Reconstruction Program. It would transform multiple sectors of the economy to put in place a clean energy economy by 2030 as well as transitioning to public or worker-controlled ownership.
The next requirements are a strategy to achieve the vision and tactics to serve that strategy. There are a broad range of actions to take and a number of roles to play. Here is a partial list of current actions:
- Pushing agencies to address the climate crisis in their policies – When the Trump administration announced it would allow more oil and gas drilling on federal lands, advocacy groups came together and sued the Bureau of Land Management to make sure GHG emissions are assessed in considering oil and gas leases. A court recently sided with the groups and hundreds of thousands of acres of leases are being suspended. Another example is the Beyond Extreme Energy campaign to transform the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which grants permits for energy projects, to the Federal Renewable Energy Commission.
- Direct action to prevent new fossil fuel infrastructure – Major campaigns to stop pipelines, fracking and new oil and gas infrastructure are going on across the country. Oil and gas corporations cite this resistance as their biggest obstacle. Last week, activists in Wingdale, NY shut down construction of the Cricket Valley Fracked Gas Power Plant. They are pressuring Governor Cuomo to shut it down for good. And in Clearbrook, Minnesota, activists blocked construction of the Line 3 Pipeline. You don’t have to lock down or climb a tripod to participate. There are many roles required for direct actions such as media support, legal observers, jail support and more.
- Driving disinvestment in dirty energy – Students, faculty and supporters took action last week to disrupt the Harvard-Yale football game with a message to their schools to divest from fossil fuels and cancel Puerto Rico’s debt. This was one action in an ongoing divestment campaign. The European Investment Bank took a positive step recently by promising to phase out investment in dirty energy over the next two years. Though it is promising to be the first climate bank, activists will still need to watchdog what the bank supports to make sure it is not investing in more false solutions.
- Protecting the right to protest – We know our actions are having an impact when the state tries to criminalize them. A new law was signed by the governor of Wisconsin making it a felony to protest fossil fuel infrastructure. This is the tenth state to pass such a law. In South Dakota, their anti-protest law was successfully fought in the courts this year.
- Pressuring lawmakers (and candidates) – During the Extinction Rebellion Global Hunger Strike, which started Nov. 20, a group of activists sat-in House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office calling for her to hold a public meeting with them. Two of them continued their hunger strike through this weekend. The Sunrise Movement has organized actions targeting lawmakers, candidates and the Democratic Party throughout the year. They, along with Fridays for Future, will target lawmakers with a climate strike on December 6.
- Constructive programs to build alternatives – There are many programs to build positive alternatives from developing regenerative agriculture to a resurgence of small farmers and urban gardens to expanded public transportation, walkable communities, and bike lanes, to incentives for clean energy installation and the formation of worker-owned cooperative green businesses. Recently a new law was passed requiring new roofs in Brooklyn, NY to either have solar panels or greenery. Visit the CREATE section of Popular Resistance for more information.
These are a few examples of many activities for the climate that are being organized. Here are a few final thoughts and observations. First, while changing our personal habits to reduce consumption and emissions is important for transitioning to the world we are working to create, we must remember that the drivers of the crisis are systemic and require systemic solutions. Second, activists often struggle with the issue of activism versus electoral politics. Our view is that in the manipulated US election system, we can’t elect our way out of these crises. Throughout history, it has been mass popular movements that have forced powerholders to either make necessary changes or to lose their power. Electoral politics is a useful tool when it is used to raise awareness for our issues and expose the failings of the current political system but the major focus of our work must be movement building.
Perhaps one of the most exciting developments is the rise of anti-capitalist protests around the world against neoliberalism, a model that drives privatization of land, water, services and more. We can’t solve the climate crisis using capitalist economic models because capitalism is fundamentally about extracting profits at all costs and is based on the overconsumption of a consumer-oriented economy.
Another promising development is the work to make connections between the many crises we face. We cannot solve the climate crisis in isolation because it requires a major restructuring of our entire society. This is the opportunity the climate crisis provides. Over the next decade, with a clear vision of where we want to go, we can shape the world to be one that respects self-determination, human rights and sustainability. That will only come about through organization, planning, and action to create a mass movement.
The seeds of that mass movement are growing. The opportunity has never been so great and the stakes have never been so high.
Kevin Zeese and Magaret Flowers are directors of Popular Resistance
American Exceptionalism Is Killing the Planet – The Many Abuses of Endless War
by William J Astore
Here’s the rub, though: even the Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is climate change, not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his administration of arsonists its officials can’t express themselves on the subject as openly as they
otherwise might. Assuming we don’t annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our real enemy is the endless war we’re waging against Planet Earth.
Ever since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch, I’ve been arguing against America’s forever wars, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere. Unfortunately, it’s no surprise that, despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities ruined. And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of America’s wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?
Sadly, there isn’t just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.
So why do America’s disastrous wars persist? I can think of many reasons, some obvious and easy to understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, here’s another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for president. One, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise a self-professed hawk on the subject of the war on terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end “endless wars” but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive F-35 fighter jet. The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually withdrawing U.S. troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking of peace. And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his inauguration he’s sent more troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other air strikes, something about which he openly boasts.
War, in other words, is our new normal, America’s default position on global affairs, and peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against the Taliban, ISIS, “terror” more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia or China, is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an unprecedented 800 or so military bases, when you configure your armed forces for what’s called power projection, when you divide the globe — the total planet — into areas of dominance (with acronyms like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you spend more on your military than the next seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion) already quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a reality of endless war?
Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn’t an “exceptional” belief system, what is?
If we’re ever to put an end to our country’s endless twenty-first-century wars, that mindset will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront war’s many uses in American life and culture.
War, Its Uses (and Abuses)
A partial list of war’s many uses might go something like this: war is profitable, most notably for America’s vast military-industrial complex; war is sold as being necessary for America’s safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that “freedom isn’t free.” In our politics today, it’s far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.
As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it, war is a force that gives us meaning. And let’s face it, a significant part of America’s meaning in this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being the world’s sole superpower.
And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In an age of gaping inequality, using up the country’s resources in such profligate and destructive ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the many.
In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesn’t. In a nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is anti-democratic, anti-progressive, anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as “great captains.”
What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containment — not against communist expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. What’s stopping us from containing war? You might say that, in some sense, we’ve grown addicted to it, which is true enough, but here are five additional reasons for war’s enduring presence in American life:
- The delusional idea that Americans are, by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore winnable: No American leader wants to be labeled a “loser.” Meanwhile, such dubious conflicts — see: the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, with several more years, or even generations, to go — continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though they visibly aren’t. No president, Republican or Democrat, not even Donald J. Trump, despite his promises that American soldiers will be coming home from such fiascos, has successfully resisted the Pentagon’s siren call for patience (and for yet more trillions of dollars) in the cause of ultimate victory, however poorly defined, farfetched, or far-off.
- American society’s almost complete isolation from war’s deadly effects: We’re not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though they’re certainly suffering from a lack of funding, as is our most essential infrastructure, thanks in part to the cost of those overseas wars). It’s nonetheless remarkable how little attention, either in the media or elsewhere, this country’s never-ending war-making gets here.
- Unnecessary and sweeping secrecy: How can you resist what you essentially don’t know about? Learning its lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now classifies (in plain speak: covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn’t because the enemy could exploit such details — the enemy already knows! — but because the American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it. Principled whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning have been imprisoned or otherwise dismissed or, in the case of Edward Snowden, pursued and indicted for sharing honest details about the calamitous Iraq War and America’s invasive and intrusive surveillance state. In the process, a clear message of intimidation has been sent to other would-be truth-tellers.
- An unrepresentative government: Long ago, of course, Congress ceded to the presidency most of its constitutional powers when it comes to making war. Still, despite recent attempts to end America’s arms-dealing role in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen (overridden by Donald Trump’s veto power), America’s duly elected representatives generally don’t represent the people when it comes to this country’s disastrous wars. They are, to put it bluntly, largely captives of (and sometimes on leaving politics quite literally go to work for) the military-industrial complex. As long as money is speech (thank you, Supreme Court!), the weapons makers are always likely to be able to shout louder in Congress than you and I ever will.
- America’s persistent empathy gap. Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we’re actually doing to them. Even our globetrotting troops, when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast bases, referred to in the military as “Little Americas,” complete with familiar stores, fast food, you name it. Wherever we go, there we are, eating our big burgers, driving our big trucks, wielding our big guns, and dropping our very big bombs. But what those bombs do, whom they hurt or kill, whom they displace from their homes and lives, these are things that Americans turn out to care remarkably little about.
All this puts me sadly in mind of a song popular in my youth, a time when Cat Stevens sang of a “peace train” that was “soundin’ louder” in America. Today, that peace train’s been derailed and replaced by an armed and armored one eternally prepared for perpetual war — and that train is indeed soundin’ louder to the great peril of us all.
War on Spaceship Earth
Here’s the rub, though: even the Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is climate change, not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his administration of arsonists its officials can’t express themselves on the subject as openly as they otherwise might. Assuming we don’t annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our real enemy is the endless war we’re waging against Planet Earth.
The U.S. military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system, only wants to grow more so, but what’s welfare for the military brass isn’t wellness for the planet.
There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since we’re all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we’re its crewmembers, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely to survive, no less thrive.
In other words, in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.
Spaceship Earth should not be allowed to remain Warship Earth as well, not when the existence of significant parts of humanity is already becoming ever more precarious. Think of us as suffering from a coolant leak, causing cabin temperatures to rise even as food and other resources dwindle. Under the circumstances, what’s the best strategy for survival: killing each other while ignoring the leak or banding together to fix an increasingly compromised ship?
Unfortunately, for America’s leaders, the real “fixes” remain global military and resource domination, even as those resources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe. And as we’ve seen recently, the resource part of that fix breeds its own madness, as in President Trump’s recently stated desire to keep U.S. troops in Syria to steal that country’s oil resources, though its wells are largely wrecked (thanks in significant part to American bombing) and even when repaired would produce only a miniscule percentage of the world’s petroleum.
If America’s wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it’s that every war scars our planet — and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.
Despite all of war’s uses and abuses, its allures and temptations, it’s time that we Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few enough of us experience “our” wars firsthand and that’s precisely why some idealize their purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody, murderous mess and those practitioners, when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes everyone involved into a murderer.
We need to stop idealizing war and idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship Earth.
William Astore, a TomDispatch regular, is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and history professor. His personal blog is Bracing Views.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel (the second in the Splinterlands series) Frostlands, Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.
Originally published by TomDispatch
Copyright 2019 William J. Astore
Global Health Crisis and Pesticides
by Colin Todhunter
The UK-based Independent online newspaper recently published an article about a potential link between air pollution from vehicles and glaucoma. It stated that according to a new study air pollution is linked to the eye condition that causes blindness. Following the article, environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason put together a 20-page report on glyphosate and has sent it out to key public health officials and media outlets, including The Independent’s editor. In her report, she states that the European Chemicals Agency classifies glyphosate as a substance that causes serious eye damage and is toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects. But she claims that the media still remains
silent on the matter.
The UK-based Independent online newspaper recently published an article about a potential link between air pollution from vehicles and glaucoma. It stated that according to a new study air pollution is linked to the eye condition that causes blindness.
The report explained that researchers had looked at vision tests carried out on more than 111,000 people across Britain between 2006 and 2010 and cross-referenced results against levels of air pollution in their neighbourhoods. Those living in areas with higher amounts of fine particulate matter were at least 6% more likely to have glaucoma than those in the least polluted areas.
Glaucoma affects half a million people in the UK and can cause blindness if left untreated. However, the study cited by The Independent, published in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, was unable to prove that air pollution was a trigger.
Following the article, environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason put together a 20-page report on glyphosate and has sent it out to key public health officials and media outlets, including The Independent’s editor. In her report, she states that the European Chemicals Agency classifies glyphosate as a substance that causes serious eye damage and is toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects. But she claims that the media still remains silent on the matter. Even in UK towns and cities, glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide is still being sprayed on weeds and super-weeds which have become Roundup-resistant.
Mason implores The Independent and other mainstream media outlets to write with honesty about the use and harmful effects of glyphosate-based weedicides and other agrochemicals. She quotes the UN expert on Toxics, Baskut Tuncak, who in 2017 urged the EU to put children’s health before pesticides. Children form the most vulnerable part of the population as pesticides can adversely affect their development.
Offering insight into the incidence of cataracts in England, Mason notes that annual rates of admission for cataract surgery rose 10‐fold from 1968 to 2004: from 62 episodes per 100,000 population to 637. A 2016 study by the WHO also confirmed that the incidence of cataracts had greatly increased: in ‘A global assessment of the burden of disease from environmental risks’ it says that cataracts are the leading cause of blindness worldwide. Globally, cataracts are responsible for 51% of blindness. An estimated 20 million individuals suffer from this degenerative eye disease.
Mason discusses long waiting lists for cataracts in England. Because the NHS cannot cope with the pressure, private companies are cashing in. The growing demand for cataract operations is forcing the NHS to send increasing numbers of patients to be treated privately.
In Wales, where Mason resides, 35,000 patients are at risk of going blind from macular degeneration and glaucoma while on the NHS waiting list. All the municipal councils in Wales use glyphosate-based herbicides. Glyphosate now accounts for about 50% of all herbicide use in the US. About 75% of glyphosate use has occurred since 2006, with the global glyphosate market projected to reach $11.74 billion by 2023.
Figures for the use of glyphosate in the UK show a similar trend, which Mason has documented in her many reports. And let us not forget at this point that the current Conservative government regards Brexit as an ideal opportunity to usher in crops that have been genetically engineered to withstand the application of glyphosate or similar chemicals. The agrochemicals sector stands in the wings salivating at the prospect. This has nothing to do with boosting yields or ‘feeding the world’ as Boris Johnson asserts (claims which fail to stand up to scrutiny) but has everything to do with facilitating industry ambitions.
Never in history has a chemical been used so pervasively. Glyphosate is in our air, water, plants, animals, grains, vegetables and meats. It’s in beer and wine, children’s breakfast cereal and snack bars and mother’s breast milk. It’s even in our vaccines.
Of course, the power of the pesticides companies has been well noted. In 2017, global agrochemical corporations were severely criticised by UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver. A report presented to the UN human rights council accused them of the “systematic denial of harms”, “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics” and heavy lobbying of governments which has “obstructed reforms and paralysed global pesticide restrictions.”
The report authored by Hilal Elver and Baskut Tuncak says pesticides have “catastrophic impacts on the environment, human health and society as a whole”, including an estimated 200,000 deaths a year from acute poisoning. Its authors said: “It is time to create a global process to transition toward safer and healthier food and agricultural production.”
Hilal Elver says:
“Using more pesticides is nothing to do with getting rid of hunger. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), we are able to feed nine billion people today. Production is definitely increasing, but the problem is poverty, inequality and distribution.”
Elver said many of the pesticides are used on commodity crops, such as palm oil and soy, not the food needed by the world’s hungry people:
“The corporations are not dealing with world hunger; they are dealing with more agricultural activity on large scales.”
Mason notes that chronic exposure to pesticides has been linked to a range of diseases and conditions and that certain pesticides can persist in the environment for decades and pose a threat to the entire ecological system on which food production depends. The excessive use of pesticides contaminates soil and water sources, causing loss of biodiversity and destroying the natural enemies of pests. The impact of such overuse also imposes staggering costs on national economies. Moreover, the use of neonicotinoid pesticides is particularly worrying because they are linked to a systematic collapse in the number of bees around the world. Some 71% of crop species are bee pollinated.
Mason goes on to describe the various lawsuits in the US against Bayer (which bought Monsanto) and the tactics used by Monsanto to conceal glyphosate-based Roundup’s carcinogenicity, including capturing regulatory agencies, corrupting public officials, bribing scientists and engaging in scientific fraud to delay its day of reckoning.
Following the court decision to award in favour of Dewayne Johnson, attorney Robert Kennedy Jr said the following at the post-trial press conference:
“… you not only see many people injured, but you also see a subversion of democracy. You see the corruption of public officials, the capture of agencies that are supposed to protect us all from pollution. The agencies become captured by the industries they are supposed to regulate. The corruption of science, the falsification of science, and we saw all those things happen here. This is a company (Monsanto) that used all of the plays in the playbook developed over 60 years by the tobacco industry to escape the consequences of killing one of every five of its customers… Monsanto… has used those strategies…”
There is now also a good deal of scientific evidence linking glyphosate to obesity, depression, Alzheimer’s, ADHD, autism, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, kidney disease, inflammatory bowel disease and brain, breast and prostate cancer, miscarriage, birth defects and declining sperm counts. Strong science suggests glyphosate is the culprit in the exploding epidemics of celiac disease, colitis, gluten sensitivities, diabetes and non-alcoholic liver cancer which, for the first time, is attacking children as young as 10. Researchers also peg glyphosate as a potent endocrine disruptor, which interferes with sexual development in children.
The compound is also a chelator that removes important minerals from the body, including iron, magnesium, zinc, selenium and molybdenum. Roundup disrupts the microbiome destroying beneficial bacteria in the human gut and triggering brain inflammation and other ill effects.
Neurotransmitter changes in the brain have been detected due to exposure to glyphosate. This is why, according to Mason, there are so many mental health and psychiatric disorders, depression, suicides, anxiety and violence among children and adults. It is even found in popular breakfast cereals marketed for UK children.
And this says nothing about the cocktail of pesticides sprayed on crops. The Soil Association and PAN UK have indicated that exposure to mixtures of pesticides commonly found in UK food, water and soil may be harming the health of both humans and wildlife. A quarter of all food and over a third of fruit and vegetables consumed in the UK contain pesticide cocktails, with some items containing traces of up to 14 different pesticides.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Environment has identified the rights threatened by environmental harm, including the rights to life, health, food and water and has mapped obligations to protect against such harm from private actors. In effect, where pesticides are concerned, the public are being denied the right to a healthy environment.
But it’s not just the powerful pesticides lobby that is to blame here. Rosemary Mason says the British public (and indeed people across the world) have a right to information. However, she concludes that the public have been denied this because mainstream media outlets have on the whole for too long opted to remain silent on the pesticides issue.
This article touches on just a few of the points in Rosemary Mason’s report. Readers can access the full text of ‘Glyphosatecauses serious eye damage’ on the academia.edu site.
Colin Todhunter is an independent writer
‘Debt’ laden power producers compromising with air pollution health threats
by Rohin Kumar
Little less than 2% of the power plants comply with the emissions norms set by MoEFCC
Little less than 2% of the power plants comply with the emissions norms set by MoEFCC
This year, on November 2, 2019, due to severe air pollution, a health emergency was declared in India’s capital, New Delhi.
While much of the media’s attention remained focused on Delhi, major parts of North India, beyond the capital, also faced severe pollution menace. Much of the public narrative about pollution in Delhi and North India is related to stubble burning but rapid growth in coal based thermal power generation, largely out of sight of urban India, is one of the key factors of the pollution crisis.
Many researches on air pollution including the ones by Greenpeace and IIT-Delhi, highlight thermal power plants being the biggest source of Sulphur-di-oxide (SO2) and Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emission growth in India. It clearly establishes relation between increase in coal consumption and air quality in specific hotspots such as Delhi NCR, Korba, Singrauli, and Raigarh.
Case Study of Delhi-NCR
According to a study by IIT-Delhi, around 60% to 90% of PM10 in Delhi is due to emissions outside of Delhi. Industrial sources are responsible for nearly 90% of SO2, 52% of NOx and 11% of PM 2.5 emissions load in Delhi. Most of these pollutants are emitted from the power plants.
There are around 16 coal-fired units (2824MW) within 50 km radius from the centre of New Delhi and around 114 coal fired-units (26874MW) within 500 km radius. The more worrying factor is, there are eight more coal-fired units under construction. Emissions from these plants also turn hazardous depending on the wind direction and other atmospheric conditions.
A group of scientists led by Dr. Zohir Chowdhury studied the chemical composition of PM2.5 pollution in Delhi. He concluded that one sixth was soot and dust generated from burning coal and one fourth was secondary particulates (most of which are linked to coal burning) generated from SO2, NOx, ammonia and other emissions through chemical reactions in the atmosphere.
However, there is no getting around the fact that coal-fired power plants generate 72% of India’s electricity. BP Energy Outlook Report 2019 expects that the share of coal in India’s primary energy consumption will decline from 56% in 2017 to 48% in 2040. In such a scenario, the major question is – Is it possible to strike a balance between its energy generation and sustainable growth?
Criminal Negligence by Coal Power Plants
In 2015, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) legislated new standards to restrict concentration of emissions for coal-fired power plants. They were asked to reduce emissions. After extensive lobbying by the Association of Power Producers (APP), the government extended the emission deadline to December 2017.
India has a phased plan for power plants to comply with emission norms, with some plants having end-December 2019 as deadline, while others need to comply till the end of 2022.
Now, a new analysis by Reuters highlights that more than half of India’s coal-fired power plants are set to miss the deadline. 267 units which produce 103.4 GW of power, are required to be compliant between December 2019 and February 2022.
Out of these, 224 units are yet to order the required Flue Gas Desulphurization (FGD) units. Economic Times reported that most of the plants nearby Delhi-NCR region, on the verge of missing deadline belong to power giant companies such as Vedanta Ltd., Larsen and Toubro Ltd. and Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation.
Speaking to this reporter, Greenpeace India’s Avinash Chanchal said, “As per the submission to the Supreme Court of India in an ongoing case, Flue Gas Desulphurization (FGD) units were required to be installed by December 2017 initially. Now, even till December 2019, which is already an extension from the extended deadline, the power plants are not complying with the emission standards.”
“APP’s Director General Ashok Khurana said that the installation of FGD units – which cuts emissions of sulphur dioxide – take around 27 to 30 months and warned that banks were withholding funding for these units due to stress levels in power sector,” reported Business Standard.
Little less than 2% of the power plants comply with the new norms of the ministry.
Spokesperson of one of these power companies on the conditions of anonymity said, “We [Indian power producers] are under huge financial stress. Power plants are increasingly losing market share as states are rightfully opting for renewable energy options. At the same time, we are trying to cope up with structural inefficiencies. Given these circumstances, it is quite difficult to invest in FGD units.”
Having mentioned the case of emission standards by coal fired power plants, one thing is undeniably clear that “coal is dirty” and population’s continued reliance on fossils is contributing to one of the greatest global health threats. Earlier, State of Global Air 2019 had reported that exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million deaths in India in 2017. Researchers also pointed out that phasing out the use of fossil fuels would prevent more than three million premature deaths annually worldwide.
Rohin Kumar is a journalist
Iraqi Communist Party calls for a new system replacing the present
by Countercurrents Collective
Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) calls for the resignation of the government, a total replacement of the current system by a new system, and for continuing the uprising with the same motivation and power until people’s demands are met.
China slaps sanctions on US over Hong Kong
by Countercurrents Collective
China has suspended U.S. warship visits and sanctioned American NGOs on Monday in
retaliation for the passage of a bill backing pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
China has suspended U.S. warship visits and sanctioned American NGOs on Monday in retaliation for the passage of a bill backing pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong has been rocked by nearly six months of increasingly violent unrest, which Beijing has frequently blamed on foreign influence.
Last week U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which requires the president to annually review the city’s favorable trade status and threatens to revoke it if the semi-autonomous territory’s freedoms are quashed.
The move came as the world’s two biggest economies have been striving to finalize a “phase one” deal in their protracted trade war.
“In response to the unreasonable behavior of the US side, the Chinese government has decided to suspend reviewing the applications for U.S. warships to go to Hong Kong for (rest and) recuperation as of today,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing.
China had already denied requests for two U.S. Navy ships to dock in Hong Kong in August, without specifying a reason why.
Hua said they would also apply sanctions to a number of US-based NGOs. However, Hua has not given any specifics over the form sanctions would take.
Sanctions will apply to NGOs that had acted “badly” over the recent unrest in Hong Kong, she said, including the National Endowment for Democracy, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute.
There was “already a large amount of facts and evidence that make it clear that these non-governmental organizations support anti-China” forces and “incite separatist activities for Hong Kong independence”, Hua added.
She accused them of having “great responsibility for the chaotic situation in Hong Kong”.
Hua said the NGOs are inciting protesters to commit “violent crimes” and promoting “separatism” in Hong Kong. These groups are “responsible for the current chaos” in the city, she told reporters.
The spokesperson stressed that the measures are a direct response to the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act 2019, which was signed into law by Trump last week.
China slammed the U.S. move as illegal under international law and an attempt to “seriously interfere in Chinese domestic affairs.”
Chinese officials have repeatedly warned Washington against meddling in Hong Kong and accused American politicians, who openly backed the protesters, of encouraging riots there.
China had vowed to take strong countermeasures after US President Donald Trump late last month signed into law two Hong Kong related bills that were overwhelming passed by Congress.
Julian Assange in Videoconference: The Spanish Case Takes a Turn
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
Judge José de la Mata of Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, had been facing a good deal of stonewalling on the part of his British colleagues. He is overseeing an investigation into the surveillance activities of a Spanish security firm aimed at WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, during his stay at the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Criticism Of Israel Is Not Antisemiticism
by John Scales Avery
Neither British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn nor his party are anti-Semetic. But Corbyn is not afraid to criticize the government of Israel. For this reason, Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has taken the
unprecedented step of interfering in an election by attacking Corbyn as an antisemite.Not only is this demonstrably untrue, but also the two things are not the same. Criticising Israel is not the same as antisemitism.
Outstanding contributions of Jewish culture
Let us begin by recognizing the brilliant contributions that Jewish intellectuals have given to the world. Of the three great monotheistic Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Judaism was the first. Thus the religious traditions of much of the world have their roots in Jewish culture.
We should also acknowledge the remarkable intellectual achievements of thinkers such as Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Niels Bohr, Hanna Adler, Emmy Noether, Noam Chomsky, and many many more. Interested readers can look at a more complete list on the following link:
Jews have suffered terrible persecutions
One must also think of the terrible suffering that the Jewish people have endured, for example, exiles into Babylon and Egypt, persecutions under the Roman Emperor Hadrian, pogorms during the Middle Ages in Europe, and more recently in Russia, and finally the unspeakable genocide inflicted in the Jewish people of Europe by Nazi Germany.
These facts should not make Israel immune to criticism
Criticism of the state of Israel is by no means the same as antisemitism. We can acknowledge the great contrubutions of Jewish culture and brilliant Jewish individuals, and at the same time criticize the state of Israel. There is much to criticize. The international community was unanimous in condemning apartheid in South Africa, but the state of Israel has pursued a policy of apartheid as cruel as that of South Africa – or perhaps even worse. Furthermore, Israel has repeatedly launched aggressive military attacks and wars against its neighbours, Lebanon and Syria, and is threatening to attack Iran.
Sabotaging Jeremy Corbyn
Neither British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn nor his party are anti-Semetic. But Corbyn is not afraid to criticize the government of Israel. For this reason, Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has taken the unprecedented step of interfering in an election by attacking Corbyn as an antisemite.
Not only is this demonstrably untrue, but also the two things are not the same. Criticising Israel is not the same as antisemitism.
John Scales Avery is a theoretical chemist at the University of Copenhagen. He is noted for his books and research publications in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science. His 2003 book Information Theory and Evolution set forth the view that the phenomenon of life, including its origin, evolution, as well as human cultural evolution, has its background situated in the fields of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and information theory. Since 1990 he has been the Chairman of the Danish National Group of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Between 2004 and 2015 he also served as Chairman of the Danish Peace Academy. He founded the Journal of Bioenergetics and Biomembranes, and was for many years its Managing Editor. He also served as Technical Advisor to the World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe (19881997).
http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/ordbog/aord/a220.htm. He can be reached at avery.john.s@gmail.com. To know more about his works visit this link. http://eacpe.org/about-john-scales-avery/
http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/ordbog/aord/a220.htm. He can be reached at avery.john.s@gmail.com. To know more about his works visit this link. http://eacpe.org/about-john-scales-avery/
Being Political In Class Rooms
by Swapna Gopinath
The turmoil at JNU and other universities demand certain introspections regarding the institutions of higher education across the country. When there is a massive paradigm shift happening in our social discourses, the movement towards a neoliberal economy and culture, student community ought to be an informed and educated one
Telangana CM KCR announces huge sops for RTC workers
by Countercurrents Collective
Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao has categorically said that employment security would be given to the TSRTC workers and not even one TSRTC
employee would be sacked from the employment and not even one private bus would be permitted to operate even in a single RTC bus’s route. He also s announced that from next year onwards, Rs 1000 Crore will provided in the State Budget for the TSRTC.
Reject the culture of Misogyny and democratize our socio-cultural spaces
by Vidya Bhushan Rawat
The horrendous rape and murder of Hyderabad’s vet doctor has again brought into light the dirty realities of our life that women remain the most vulnerable in India. The incidents of brutal rapes are fact of life here where leaders never get tired of sermonizing us of our ‘glorious’ past when women were regarded as ‘goddess’ and what not.
The Politics of the Idea of India
by Dr. Y. Srinivasa Rao
In the modern nation states, governed by
constitutions who belongs to what identity is not mattered but what matters is the equality of every citizen across race, religion, caste and language before law, government and justice. Reversing this idea of India for political gains not only amounts to taking the nation back to the medieval times but also amounts to emptying it of all its positivity that it has acquired in its long course of history
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