An Age of Consequences

Over at Collapse of Industrial Civilization, an eloquent summary of our political predicament.

[O]ne of my greater concerns is the absence of humility, grace, and self reflection which as a trend seems to inversely correlate with a spike in the abundance of self righteous vitriol.

Here we are on the precipice of global ecological calamity, frail worlds dancing on a razor blown back and forth by the whims of mad men, and I fear that the wisdom the situation requires is not only not present, it is not welcome.

Fear of Falling

The logic of capitalism pushes society toward a greater concentration of wealth. Our class structure is a source of conflict which elicits various responses. A large middle class in the United States was a great accomplishment for the post World War II economy. But that middle class has been squeezed for the past 30 to 40 years. Instead of striving for understanding and analysis, it's easy to devolve into blaming scapegoats.

What Barbara Ehrenreich called the Fear of Falling has significant consequences when death rates for white, middle-aged people start to rise. Joseph Stiglitz sees it as a sign that the U.S. may become a former middle class society.

America is becoming a more divided society -- divided not only between whites and African Americans, but also between the 1 percent and the rest, and between the highly educated and the less educated, regardless of race. And the gap can now be measured not just in wages, but also in early deaths.

A study from the Pew Research Center shows that just under half of American adults are considered middle income--two thirds to double the median income. And while a larger percent of people have shifted to the upper income groups so has a disproportionate amount of income. Over about the same 44 year period, the percent of people with upper incomes grew 7 percentage points or 50 percent, while their share of income grew 20 percentage points or 69 percent. Meanwhile, the percent of people with middle incomes declined 11 percentage points or 18 percent, while their share of income declined 19 percentage points or about 30 percent.

The wealth gap is even more dramatic.

Some people win, but many others are falling behind. Lives are not what we expected them to be and we end up with a blend of anxiety, fear, and anger. Psychology professor Art Markman notes that

[fear] heightens your sensitivity to potential negative outcomes in you environment. Being fearful of a particular thing makes you aware of all the fearful things: Your entire world simply looks more scary.

Robert Reich points out that the middle class effectively has no influence over public policy. He sees a revolt that's just beginning.

The anxious class feels vulnerable to forces over which they have no control. Terrible things happen for no reason.

Yet government can’t be counted on to protect them.

Safety nets are full of holes. Most people who lose their jobs don’t even qualify for unemployment insurance.

Government won’t protect their jobs from being outsourced to Asia or being taken by a worker here illegally.

Government can’t even protect them from evil people with guns or bombs. Which is why the anxious class is arming itself, buying guns at a record rate.

They view government as not so much incompetent as not giving a damn. It’s working for the big guys and fat cats – the crony capitalists who bankroll candidates and get special favors in return.

This revolt would be dangerous for the one percent. The outrage needs to directed elsewhere. Simon Maloy on the Republican debate:

All in all it was a grim, bleak, and frightful debate that saw several leading candidates try to stoke heightened public anxiety over terrorism. A scared voter is a motivated voter, and Republicans have every interest in keeping people as terrified as possible.

Elias Isquith doesn't see an end to the politics of fear. For Republican voters, Obama's success is a sign that

the world as they knew it (and as they liked it) truly is coming to an end. As far as [the] party’s most dedicated supporters are concerned, [that] world is already over, and every piece of bad news just makes it that much more apparent.

So terrorist actions become a sideshow to distract from issues at the core of our anxiety. The politics of fear can be defeated like the National Front in France. But it poisons the national discussion. There's the thought that conservatives have a "negativity bias" which drives them to blame others--Blacks, immigrants, etc--when they see themselves losing status. Sean Illing argues for a rational approach to our economic grievances.

[S]o long as [we're] consumed with fear and misplaced anger . . .nothing much will change.

Update (December 22):  Edwin Lyngar argues that Americans are addicted to irrational fear.

We have witnessed terrorist acts and violence, but those isolated incidents are nothing compared to the damage we are doing to ourselves. We are shredding our national self-esteem and violating our own deepest values over almost nothing.

Update (December 23):  Paul Buchheit suggests that just looking at the number of middle-income people is deceptive when you factor in things like savings.

A study by Go Banking Rates reveals that nearly 50 percent of Americans have no savings. Over 70 percent of us have less than $1,000. Pew Research supports this finding with survey results that show nearly half of American households spending more than they earn.

Update (December 29):  Steven Hill describes how the "1099 economy" is wrecking the middle class.

Examples abound of companies laying off all or most of their workers and then rehiring the same workers—as independent contractors, a clear abuse of this legal loophole. One new economy booster clarified employers’ audacious strategy: “Companies today want a workforce they can switch on and off as needed” — like one can turn off a faucet or a TV.

The apps and websites of the “share the crumbs” economy have made it easier than ever to do that. Companies can hire and fire 1099 workers at will. In essence, the purveyors of the new economy are forging an economic system in which those with money will be able to use faceless, anonymous interactions via brokerage websites and mobile apps to hire those without money by forcing an online bidding war to see who will charge the least for their labor, or to rent out their home, their car, or other personal property. These perverse incentives are threatening to destroy the U.S. labor force and turn tens of millions of workers into little more than day laborers.

Update (January 1, 2016):  David Jarman elaborates on the Pew report.

Update (January 15, 2016):  Given that 56 percent of Americans have less than $1000 in their checking or savings accounts, Ben Norton suggests the U.S. barely has a middle class.

Update (January 16, 2016):  Jason McDaniel and Sean McElwee investigate reasons for the lack of government action to address inequality.

The sad reality is that most Americans don’t see a large causal connection between government policy and their lived experiences. Instead, they’ll likely blame the poor, immigrants and blacks.

Update (April 22, 2016):  Those higher death rates for middle-aged Americans seems to be about white women. But another report shows suicide rates up for both men and women.  Oh, and rich people live 10 to 15 years longer than poor people.

Update (June 1, 2016):  Paul Buchheit highlights the impact of inequality on the middle class.

Income among the middle class is plummeting
Half of us have no savings, along [with] wealth
Inequality is taking a toll on our health
It may all be getting still worse

Update (October 1, 2016):  Turns out that minorities in the U.S. now tend to be more optimistic about the future than whites.

This year’s presidential campaign has underscored an economic paradox: Financially, black Americans and Hispanics are far worse off than whites, yet polls show minorities are more likely than whites to believe in the American Dream. And they are less anxious about the outcome of the election.

[T]here’s evidence that the divide goes beyond party and Obama’s presidency. In great measure, it has to do with the past, not the future: Minorities who have seen great improvements in their lives are more confident, while whites who have seen disintegration in their lives are more pessimistic.

Helps explain the phrase: Make America Great Again.

Update (July 22, 2018):  In an interview with Paul Rosenberg, Suzanne Mettler discusses her research on the disconnect between government benefits and anti-government attitudes. She finds that "welfare" carries significant negative connotations.

[I]f people look at that one policy — whatever they mean by that — and they extrapolate, they’re thinking that government has these policies that I don't think are fair or right, and that's basically what government is: It gives special advantages to people who don't work to pay their own way, it gets them special benefits and doesn't take care of people like me who work hard, etc. I think conservatives have managed to capitalize on that kind of approach and that has served them well.

Mettler uses Kentucky as an example of how government benefits grew even as the state was sending more and more conservatives to Congress.

Of course, white people are more likely to be anti-welfare, but Mettler finds that income growth matters as well and that middle-income people tended to have the most negative attitudes.

You have people who have been in this long era of rising economic inequality, where for middle-income people and low-income people their wages have been pretty stagnant, or in some occupations deteriorating over time. So I think people have felt like they're not getting ahead, their kids are not having greater opportunities, and the Republican Party in Kentucky has effectively made the case of connecting the dots for them in a way that says the problem is Democrats and their environmental policies which have been detrimental to the coal industry and so on. Now, if you dig down, there's not good evidence for that, but they have managed to command the narrative and give people an explanation. And while Americans generally like the policies they use, when it comes to these more general principles, they are still very anti-government.

Update (September 22, 2019):  The 2018 version of the Pew report describes 19 percent of Americans as upper class (median income $187,872), 52 percent as middle class ($78,442), and 29 percent as lower class ($25,624). The report says 2016 is basically unchanged from 2011, but the story in the original post put the middle class at under half of American adults. Pew offers a calculator to determine who is middle class.

GOP Obstruction Is the Ultimate Voter Suppression Tactic

Nearly 25 years ago, P.J. O'Rourke wrote

Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it.

Does low voter turnout produce bad government, or does bad government produce low voter turnout? You would think that a 12 percent approval rating for Congress would have hundreds of members being turned out of office. Barney Frank describes voters as a big part of the problem of gridlock.

But there’s another, perhaps deeper reason, one that’s both a cause and an effect of the political dysfunction from which we now suffer: a sharp decline in the public’s belief that government works.

But where does that decline come from? And who benefits when voter turnout is low? It may not always be clear. Generally, groups that tend to vote Democratic are less likely to turnout when barriers to voting are enacted. Frank acknowledges that

there is an asymmetry when it comes to party behavior. Nonvoting is more often the response of the angry left than of the angry right.

The more the prevailing narrative blames the failures of political insiders for gridlock, leading to voter alienation, the deeper the gridlock and the greater the advantage to the right.

And yet, he claims that most Republican voters do want good governance and that we need greater turnout from all groups to hold politicians accountable.

Bill Curry agrees that

[w]hen it comes to suppressing turnout nothing beats good old fashioned alienation.

And it's pretty clear who has benefited from recent lower turnouts.

In 2014, 81.6 million votes were cast, a stunning 50 million vote drop from 2008 in the lowest turnout since World War II. Since 2008 Republicans have picked up 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats and 12 governorships, one of the three biggest partisan growth spurts in American history.

These gains give Republicans no motivation to do anything differently. Obstruction is a deliberate strategy. The confirmation of judges gets delayed or passed over just because they can get away with it. Even incompetence doesn't mean you can't win elections. And you can always rig the system to make sure nothing gets done.

The Republicans know what they're doing even if some candidates take things too far. In defense of the one percent, anything that turns people off of politics works in their favor. Yet Curry doesn't let Democrats off the hook and sees a way past the alienation (although it's also a battle against skewed media coverage).

The good news: It still presents in most voters as anger rather than hard-to-reach glacial despondency. Some say voters moved right but in fact many have moved left. Their anger is over economic decay and political corruption, and is empirical, not ideological. Democrats can’t accept that voters’ anger at government is fact-based. To win them back we must show them we know how to fix what’s broken, and that this time we really mean to do it.

Update (January 16, 2016):  Eliza Webb cites polling evidence that majorities of Americans support a progressive agenda.

Americans concur: a compassionate, fair land where babies grow up in equality and human beings are treated with respect and dignity is the country for us.

To make our values fit our reality, all we have to do is vote.

Because, after all, as studies show, when people vote, liberals win.

Climate Agreement

The twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties has adopted an agreement to "[hold] the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above preindustrial levels and [pursue] efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C".

It's being called a landmark that applies to 195 countries of which 186 have submitted voluntary emissions reduction pledges. This agreement isn't the end of the process, but there is an intent to stop the consumption of fossil fuels. According to Bill McKibben

This agreement won't save the planet, not even close. But it's possible that it saves the chance of saving the planet -- if movements push even harder from here on out.

Update (December 13):  Joe Romm seems optimistic that the agreement is a good start.

The pledges by 186 countries big and small, developed and developing, in the months leading up to the Paris conference are an enormous first step. But these intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) will need to be reviewed and ratched up every 5 years for the rest of the century to preserve a livable climate — and that review and ratchet is a key part of the deal.

But James Hanson criticizes the lack of a carbon tax.

It’s a fraud really, a fake. It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.

Also, New Internationalist says the agreement fails four criteria.

1. Catalyze immediate, urgent and drastic emission reductions
2. Provide adequate support for transformation
3. Deliver justice for impacted people
4. Focus on genuine, effective action rather than false solutions

Update (December 14):  Rebecca Leber says, "The world is a little less doomed now."

Update (December 22):  This is perhaps the harshest criticism.

Another climate conference has once again come and gone, echoing hollow promises and ugly unspoken realities.

Also, Naomi Oreskes writes about the need for government intervention in the form of a carbon tax.

Update (December 26):  Michael Klare shows how the future belongs to renewables.

Update (May 2, 2016):  In his monthly roundup, Dahr Jamail reiterates a warning from the U.N., "The future is happening now".

Update (October 5, 2016):  The Paris Agreement has now reached the threshold needed to go into effect.

Update (April 2, 2017):  A report from International Energy Agency and International Renewable Energy Agency examines the policy and investment requirements for implementing the Paris Agreement.

Update (June 1, 2017):  In one of the most short-sighted moves in the history of civilization, the United States has announced its intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

Update (September 18, 2017):  Despite some noise about getting "pro-America" terms in the Paris Agreement, Joe Romm points out that the US always had the right to change our voluntary pledge.

Bottom Line: In the global deal to save a livable climate, America had committed to do the least we could possibly do, and [von Clownstick] won’t even do that. [Fuckface] is content with America the villain — the greedy and myopic rogue nation that killed humanity’s best hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change.

Update (November 20, 2017):  Curtis Doebbler reports on the latest climate talks.

Virtually no progress was made on taking action. Both the provision of resources and the mitigation of greenhouse gases must come from developed countries, but they showed no willingness to live up to this responsibility. ... Most delegates and the two dozen or so world leaders who attended are probably starting to wonder whether the climate action we need will ever be taken.

Update (February 17, 2018):  A draft report from IPCC suggests that meeting the 1.5 degree Celsius target is "extremely unlikely".

Fuck the NRA

The New York Times published a front page editorial, but this is better.

Update:  The Supreme Court declined to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals 7th Circuit that upheld a ban on assault weapons in Highland Park, Illinois.

Update (December 9):  Jill Lawrence quotes Justice Scalia from 2008, “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited."

Update (December 16):  House Democrats were unable to remove a budget rider called the Dickey Amendment which prevents the Centers for Disease Control from researching gun violence.

Update (January 5, 2016):  What kind of fascist monster sheds tears at the thought of murdered school children?

Update (May 11, 2018):  Pat Davis stole my line!

Update (June 12, 2018):  NRA could be getting desperate in Florida. Shannon Watts:

Since the Parkland shooting, everyone who is opposed to the NRA agenda feels comfortable coming out against it, and I think that shows that it’s not a third-rail issue anymore. Lawmakers are looking at the polls and they know they can get elected by opposing the NRA, not by being silenced or even pretending to tolerate their extremist agenda.

Update (March 28, 2019):  NRA seems to have a connection to spreading conspiracy theories.

NRA officer Mark Richardson emailed Wolfgang Halbig, a noted harasser of parents of Sandy Hook Elementary School victims, to float a conspiracy theory about the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed last year.

Update (April 30, 2019):  Couldn't happen to a bigger bunch of assholes.

The National Rifle Association is facing collapse. Membership is plummeting. Investigations are opening. And victims of gun violence are holding the organization accountable for deaths all across the country.

Update (May 11, 2019):  The NRA has $24 million of legal bills.

Like I've Been Saying . . .

Looks like Hamilton Nolan and I agree:

There are two real issues of primary importance facing America and the world today—two issues that lie at the foundation of many others. Two issues which must be addressed in a meaningful way if we hope to live in a just and thriving nation in the long term. They are economic inequality, and climate change.

Update (December 4):  Paul Krugman makes it clear that if nothing gets done about climate change, the Republican Party is to blame.

Update (December 7):  Chris Hedges calls the climate summit a charade.

We have little time left. Those who are despoiling the earth do so for personal gain, believing they can use their privilege to escape the fate that will befall the human species. We may not be able to stop the assault. But we can refuse to abet it. The idols of power and greed, as the biblical prophets warned us, threaten to doom the human race.

Also, Steven Thrasher writes about a deliberate war on the poor.

The disparities in wealth that we term “income inequality” are no accident, and they can’t be fixed by fiddling at the edges of our current economic system. These disparities happened by design, and the system structurally disadvantages those at the bottom. The poorest Americans have no realistic hope of achieving anything that approaches income equality; even their very chances for access to the most basic tools of life are almost nil.

Update (December 9):  ExxonMobil funded climate disinformation for years, but now Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post reports:

With no government action, Exxon experts told us during a visit to The Post last week, average temperatures are likely to rise by a catastrophic (my word, not theirs) 5 degrees Celsius, with rises of 6, 7 or even more quite possible.

Update (April 2, 2017):  ExxonMobil defends the climate agreement to a hostile administration.

The Paris accord is “an effective framework for addressing the risks of climate change,” a senior Exxon official wrote in a letter to the president’s special assistant for international energy and the environment. “We welcomed the Paris Agreement when it was announced in December 2015 and again when it came into force in November 2016,” Peter Trelenberg, Exxon’s manager for environmental policy, wrote to the White House.

Update (April 8, 2018):  Turns out Shell is another oil company that suppressed warnings about climate change for decades.

The Problem of Exceptionalism

Patrick Smith finds hope in the Princeton University student protests over Woodrow Wilson's racism--an act to recover a past that has been buried in silence.

The policy cliques and corrupt, know-nothing pols who now run Washington are allergic to history—and try to keep us away from it at all cost—for a very good reason. History is a weapon. In our past—another distinction I have made before—there is mythology and there is history. When you listen to these people, you hear the sound of mythology, of American exceptionalism. We need the sound of history now

Increasing Weather Disasters

A study by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction shows that 90 percent of major natural disasters over the past 20 years consist of floods, storms, heatwaves, drought and other weather related events. An average of 335 disasters per year from 2005 to 2015 is double the average over 1985 to 1995. Events since 1995 have killed over 600,000 people with over 4 billion impacted in some way at a cost of US$ 5 to 6 trillion.

Update (July 8, 2018):  As dramatic rescue efforts are underway for a Thai soccer team trapped in a cave by flash floods, there's also the news that "unprecedented" rain has lead to dozens of deaths in Japan. Humans have amazing ingenuity, yet we are still humbled by the forces of nature.

Climate and Peace

Jason Box and Naomi Klein argue that addressing climate change is the best hope for peace.

[M]any factors contributed to Syria’s instability. The severe drought was one, but so were the repressive practices of a brutal dictator and the rise of a particular strain of religious extremism. Another big factor was the invasion of Iraq, a decade ago. And since that war—like so many before it—was inextricable from the West’s thirst for Iraqi oil (warming be damned), that fateful decision in turn became difficult to separate from climate change. ISIS, which has taken responsibility for the attacks in Paris, found fertile ground in this volatile context of too much oil and too little water.

[C]limate change leads to wars and economic ruin. It’s time to recognize that intelligent climate policy is fundamental to lasting peace and economic justice.

Antibiotic Resistance

When random mutations in organisms produce traits that enhance the reproductive success of the organism, then "natural selection" allows those traits to spread in a population. A new mutation, called the MCR-1 gene, gives bacteria resistance to colistin, the antibiotic of "last resort". Especially troubling is that the resistance can be shared among different bacteria species. Timothy Walsh is a co-author of the study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

If MCR-1 becomes global, which is a case of when not if, and the gene aligns itself with other antibiotic resistance genes, which is inevitable, then we will have very likely reached the start of the post-antibiotic era.

Update (December 9):  A report from the United Kingdom warns about the global overuse of antibiotics on farm animals.

Paris

No one condones a terrorist attack. And yet, it's difficult to have a rational discussion about what to do. There is no simple answer--we can't just bomb them out of existence. Emotion gets in the way of fact, and I wasn't even aware of the attack in Beirut just the day before Paris. Yet only the latter is worthy of a national TV tribute. And it's rather jarring to watch that and be yanked right back into the comedy afterward.

There's a long and complicated history that we ignore at our peril. Ben Norton offers some perspective.

It was the U.S.-led war in and occupation of Iraq that created the conditions of extreme violence, desperation, and sectarianism in which al-Qaeda metastasized, spreading worldwide. The West, in its addiction to militarism, played into the hands of the extremists, and today we see the rotten fruit borne of that rotten addiction: ISIS is the Frankenstein’s monster of Western imperialism.

The Paris attacks, as horrific as they are, could be a moment to think critically about what our governments are doing both abroad and here at home. If we do not think critically, if we act capriciously, and violently, the wounds will only continue to fester. The bloodletting will ultimately accelerate.

Patrick Smith:

Yes, what has just occurred in Paris is an affront to all of us. But to invoke universal values is to sustain the error of understanding, of recognition, of acknowledgement, that lies at the heart of all this incessant hatred, attack and counterattack. ... [T]here is little ground to claim that they have determined how we have acted in the Middle East and treated its people

Update (November 16):  Paul Rosenberg criticizes Republican Presidential candidates for talking about a "clash of civilizations".

It’s war of barbarism against civilization—except for one thing. We started it.

Update (November 17):  Smith follows up with more history to argue against the "decontextualization" Richard Perle advocated.

This is where the Richard Perle ethos gets us. Over time it leaves us ignorant such that we grasp less and less of the world around us. We do not know how to behave properly.

Ultimately Middle Eastern societies must be left to find their own ways, each one by itself. It is not an original thought. The West’s task, speaking very broadly, is to stop doing a lot of what it has been doing and start doing things it has neglected. In the latter category this means an emphatically disinterested effort—a long campaign, the kind that would be a feature of our time the way colonization was—dedicated to repairing the political, social, economic and cultural damage inflicted in the past.

Update (November 18):  In formulating a response (not just a reaction), we need to take a hard look at ourselves. Ben Norton reviews the history of U.S. intervention. Daniel Denvir examines our dark side of racism and rage.

ISIS and right-wing Westerners seek a similar goal of a world starkly divided between Muslim and Christian. Between us and them. An attack by one side always props up the other, a violent feedback loop that pushes each side away from one another and into fortified camps, stigmatizing diversity and making it dangerous. It’s a war where both opposing sides are constantly winning.

Here's one view of the complexity:

Update (November 30):  Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn describes the Iraq War as "a huge error" that lead to the creation of ISIS.

Update (December 3):  Thomas Piketty makes a connection between economic inequality and terrorism.

Update (December 12):  In an interview, Noam Chomsky discusses the Paris attack. "If you want to end [terrorism], the first question you ask is: why did it take place?"

Paul Rosenberg notes that the U.S. tops the list for the number of armed conflicts in the past two hundred years--most of them undeclared interventions. And we're paid a price for our addiction to war as the Hart-Rudman Commission found out in the late 90s. According to Senator Gary Hart, “We got a terrific sense of the resentment building against the U.S. as a bully, which alarmed us.” Those Commission reports were ignored in 2001.

There was, after all, another way. 9/11 was not an act of war. It was a crime. And we could have treated it as such. Doing so would have meant strengthening and intensifying international law, as a means for putting all those responsible for 9/11 on trial. A trial in which the utter innocence of thousands of victims would have shamed and humiliated the perpetrators so thoroughly that no one would ever think to follow them again. The exact opposite of a war in which we created thousands of innocent victims of our own, completely destroying the moral foundations of superiority that Kennan’s [containment strategy] rightly saw as fundamental.

This was the low-conflict path we turned our backs on. Rather than taking a path that has increasingly pitted security against individual rights and freedom, we could have taken that path, instead–a path that strengthened both. What we failed to do was to learn from our past mistakes—and that can only be done by those who are confident enough to admit to past mistakes, face up to them and make the necessary changes. We missed our chance to do this after 9/11, and the devastating attacks on Paris are just the most obvious bitter fruits of that missed chance. The 134 secret wars Turse wrote about are less obvious to us, perhaps, but no less bitter to those who die in them.

If we were really as good as we claim to be, wouldn’t we be good enough to face up to our mistakes—and begin to act to change them? If we can answer that one question, face that one challenge, then all the rest of them—however difficult—will be easy in comparison. Because we will have reclaimed our moral center, finally, after all these years.

Up One Degree Celsius and Rising

Britain's Met Office announced that the temperature rise due to industrialization will exceed one degree Celsius this year. And, according to the International Energy Agency, we're not doing enough to stay under the two degree target.

There are unmistakable signs that the much-needed global energy transition is underway, but not yet at a pace that leads to a lasting reversal of the trend of rising CO2 emissions.

Climate Change Will Increase Poverty

The World Bank estimates that 702 million people (9.6 percent of the world's population) lives in poverty--down from 902 million (12.8 percent) in 2012. But a World Bank report, Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty, warns that that progress might end.

The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climateinformed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate propoor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones:

Climate-related shocks and stresses, already a major obstacle to poverty reduction, will worsen with climate change.

In the short run, rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most (but not all) consequences of climate change on poverty. Absent such good development, climate change could result in an additional 100 million people living in extreme poverty by 2030.

Immediate mitigation is required to remove the long-term threat that climate change creates for poverty eradication. Mitigation need not threaten short-term progress on poverty reduction provided policies are well designed and international support is available.

Keystone XL Rejected

President Obama has decided that building the bitumen pipeline is not in the national interest of the US. This is a bit of good news heading into the Paris climate conference.

Update (November 9):  Edward Rubin notes that the real reason for stopping the pipeline is that we must stop increasing the consumption of fossil fuels.

Thirty-five Year Wage Trend

The Economic Policy Institute shows that the top 0.1 percent aren't quite back to their peak, but their income was up 8.9 percent in 2014. And over the past 35 years, they've done a lot better than the rest of us.

The Assassination Complex

The Intercept reports on the use of drone warfare--greatly expanded by President Obama. Many more civilians have been killed than intended targets.

While many of the documents provided to The Intercept contain explicit internal recommendations for improving unconventional U.S. warfare, the source said that what’s implicit is even more significant. The mentality reflected in the documents on the assassination programs is: “This process can work. We can work out the kinks. We can excuse the mistakes. And eventually we will get it down to the point where we don’t have to continuously come back … and explain why a bunch of innocent people got killed.”

The architects of what amounts to a global assassination campaign do not appear concerned with either its enduring impact or its moral implications. “All you have to do is take a look at the world and what it’s become, and the ineptitude of our Congress, the power grab of the executive branch over the past decade,” the source said. “It’s never considered: Is what we’re doing going to ensure the safety of our moral integrity? Of not just our moral integrity, but the lives and humanity of the people that are going to have to live with this the most?”

I get a little skeptical when JFK assassination theories are brought into it, and no President is above criticism for their foreign policy decisions, but the idea that a "deep state" consisting of a class of powerful private interests limits the range of policy choices can't just be dismissed. There is too much consistency between Republican and Democratic administrations on the perceived need to preserve United States' dominance in the world.

Climate Change and the Economy

A study from Stanford University and UC-Berkeley finds a correlation between rising temperatures and economic performance.

The findings indicate climate change will widen global inequality, perhaps dramatically, because warming is good for cold countries, which tend to be richer, and more harmful for hot countries, which tend to be poorer. In the researchers’ benchmark estimate, climate change will reduce average income in the poorest 40 percent of countries by 75 percent in 2100, while the richest 20 percent may experience slight gains.

Lonely at the Top One Percent

If only there was something one could do to solve the problem of having too much money.

There is a fair amount of isolation if you are wealthy. We are all taught not to talk about money. It’s not polite to talk about money. In itself, ironically, it’s harder to talk about having money than it is to talk about not having money. It’s much more socially acceptable to say: ‘I am broke. Things are hard.’ You can’t say: ‘I have a ton of money.’ You have to keep a lot of your life private except in small circles.

Meanwhile, Alliance for a Just Society finds that the current minimum wage falls far short of a "living wage".

A living wage is one that allows families to meet their basic needs, without public assistance, and that provides them some ability to deal with emergencies and plan ahead. It is not a poverty or survival wage.

Although $15 per hour is significantly higher than any minimum wage in the country, it is not a living wage in most states. A national living wage for a single adult is actually $16.87 per hour, based on a weighted average of living wages across the country. In 35 states and in Washington, D.C., a living wage for a single adult is more than $15 per hour. In no state is a living wage less than $14.26 an hour.

Update (October 20):  Eric Ravenscraft explains how being poor is too expensive.

Update (October 24):  Some heirs are finding ways to do good with their wealth.

Update (February 4, 2018):  Alex Henderson also explains how living in poverty can be expensive.

It’s a vicious cycle. America’s poor are slammed with costly banking or check-cashing fees, face higher auto insurance premiums and are more susceptible to health problems, yet the one thing that can be improve their material circumstances—a decent job—can be denied to them based on their credit score.

Oceanic Food Chain Collapse

A study by Ivan Nagelkerken and Sean Connell of The University of Adelaide in Australia concludes that acidification and warming in the oceans will lead to "simplification" of that ecosystem. The loss of species diversity and increased metabolism brings a mismatch of available food for larger carnivores. Nagelkerken:

There will be a species collapse from the top of the food chain down.

Coral Bleaching

Michael Klare writes about climate "tipping points" which eventually threaten civilization if they can't be avoided. Mega-icebergs are calving into the ocean. And coral is dying all over the world due to an underwater heat wave. The evidence is out there, and keeps coming, if people want to see it. Are the Paris talks our last chance to change course and avert the worst?

Update (October 11):  Can breeding save coral?

Flowing Water on Mars

NASA confirms that dark streaks called recurring slope lineae are caused by liquid briny water.

Update (June 8, 2018):  Organic molecules have been discovered in an ancient lakebed.

Update (July 25, 2018):  An underground lake has been discovered.

Update (March 31, 2019):  A paper published in Science Advances shows that Mars had running rivers for billions of years.

Update (May 20, 2019):  Pluto might have a liquid ocean under its surface.

Update (September 14, 2020):  Mars always seemed the most likely place to have life or had life besides Earth. But now the detection of phosphine in the upper atmosphere of Venus suggests life may have adapted to harsh conditions there. So far, a nonbiological explanation hasn't been found. Seth Shostak:

If you find life on the next planet over, you might say, "well, maybe we're not all that special".

Update (September 28, 2020):  A study published in Nature Astronomy presents evidence of additional underground lakes at the Martian south pole. 

Update (November 29, 2020):  A review of data finds only about one-fourth as much phosphine as previously estimated for Venus.

Update (February 3, 2021):  A new study suggests that an unexpected amount of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere of Venus was misinterpreted as phosphine. 

Update (July 13, 2023):  Phosphine has been detected again at Venus, but apparently in a lower part of the atmosphere.

Also, a paper published in Nature describes organic compounds on Mars, but doesn't conclude that the compounds are evidence for past life.

Have or Have Not

In their book $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, authors Kathryn Edin and Luke Shaefer report that extreme poverty has “more than doubled since 1996, placing 1.5 million households and 3 million children in this desperate economic situation.”  1996 is when Aid for Families with Dependent Children was eliminated.

Meanwhile, Hanna Brooks Olsen contrasts the fact that the rich are getting richer with polling results showing that most Americans identify themselves as "haves".

Class is a hidden topic in American political discourse. Olsen:

As long as we Americans continue to see ourselves as “haves” in the economic system, we’ll continue to think that this degree of economic inequality is normal and unavoidable. But the extreme bounties of the ultra-wealthy should be a clear indicator that, even though there’s enough wealth to go around, most of us are being screwed out of seeing any of it.

Partisan Poll Results

Ariel Edwards-Levy reports on a HuffPost/YouGov poll showing how people respond to question cues.

[M]ost Americans, regardless of their political views, don't have a solid opinion about every single issue of the day, particularly when it concerns a complicated or obscure topic. People tend, reasonably, to rely on partisan cues -- if a politician they support is in favor of a bill, they're likely to think it's a good idea, or vice versa.

Trees

The World Resources Institute reports that 45 million acres of trees were lost in 2014 (an area twice the size of Portugal). But, also, a forest survey published in Nature finds there are about 3 trillion trees on Earth (far more than previously estimated). However, that's a 46 percent decrease since humans started cutting them down.

Update (December 22):  A study published in Nature Climate Change projects that unchecked warming could wipe out evergreen trees in southwestern U.S. by the end of this century.

Update (February 8, 2016):  A study published in Landscape Ecology warns that development projects are shifting forests to a more fragmented condition.

Between 2000 and 2012, the world lost more forest area than it gained, according to U.S. Forest Service researchers and partners who estimated a global net loss of 1.71 million square kilometers of forest -- an area about two and a half times the size of Texas. Furthermore, when researchers analyzed patterns of remaining forest, they found a global loss of interior forest -- core areas that, when intact, maintain critical habitat and ecological functions.

Update (February 17, 2016):  Bruce Melton writes about beetles, dying forests, and abrupt climate change.

Update (April 8, 2017):  Botanic Gardens Conservation International has created a database of over 60,000 species of trees. At least 15 percent of the species are considered at risk for extinction.

Update (May 29, 2017):  Tree plantations alone could not remove enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

Update (January 14, 2018):  Daniel Meek discusses an infographic about deforestation.

To understand the ecological importance of trees to our planet, Alton Greenhouses, a greenhouse manufacturer based in the United Kingdom, analyzed various scientific studies and comments from environmentalists to imagine a world without trees. The results are alarming. In addition to flash floods and food shortages, humanity would also have to deal with widespread animal extinctions, accelerating climate change and the loss of materials.

Update (June 19, 2018):  John Vidal discusses how older, larger trees are most vulnerable to climate change.

July Was Warmest Month on Record

While some barely noticed, it is significant that last month was the warmest ever in our weather records. The previous record was 17 years ago and the new one will be ... next year?

Update (August 5, 2019):  It's been three years since the previous warmest month ever, but it's a record that's bound to be broken over and over in the years to come. This July was only 0.04 degrees Celsius above July 2016 (1.2 degrees above pre-industrial mean). But in a non-El Nino year.

Update (August 15, 2019):  NOAA confirms July was 0.03 degrees Celsius above the previous record.

Update (August 13, 2021):  So a new record for warmest month in the historical record--last month was 0.93 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average.

The picture is particularly bleak for the Northern Hemisphere, where the land temperature was 2.77 degrees Fahrenheit (or 1.54 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average.

Campaign Zero

People protest for a reason. Sophia Tesfaye examines the agenda.

Update (January 20, 2016):  Stephen Colbert discusses white privilege with Campaign Zero activist DeRay McKesson.

Colbert articulated a vulnerability that I think a lot of white Americans are afraid to cop to without resorting to anger or defensiveness: “I don’t know if I do understand [white privilege]. I can acknowledge it, but I don’t know if I understand what I can do to dismantle white privilege.” McKesson observed that Colbert has a platform and a fortune that he could mobilize; Colbert responded, with a response so straight-faced it went beyond deadpan: “You can’t have my money… And you can’t have my show.”

McKesson changed tactics. “Why do you think white people are uncomfortable talking about race?”

Colbert responded: “I can’t speak for other white people. I feel guilty for anyone who does not have the things I have. That includes black people or anyone, because I am so blessed — I think there’s always a fear that it will be taken from me.”

McKesson responded, with fully engaged sincerity: “What can you do to manage that guilt?”

And in what might be the most glorious cop-out in the history of television, Colbert joked, “I drink a fair amount,” before shifting in his seat uncomfortably, rebuttoning his blazer, and muttering, “I don’t know, I’m shooting from the hip here.” Colbert then looked at the camera for help, and perhaps sensing a chance to wrap things up, he deflected. “I had you on the show, does that help?”

It’s all there: discomfort, guilt, entitlement, and by the end, confusion. Colbert is the stubborn status quo, both trying to understand and disinterested in understanding past a certain point.

Overshoot Day

According to the Global Footprint Network, today is the earliest within the year that humanity has exceeded a sustainable level of natural resource consumption.

Update (August 22):  One aspect of our over-exploitation of the environment according to a study published in Science is that "humans function as an unsustainable 'super predator'".

Segregation and Poverty

A report by Paul Jargowsky documents how poverty is again becoming concentrated in neighborhoods along racial lines. Among the findings:

The number of people living in high-poverty ghettos, barrios, and slums has nearly doubled since 2000, rising from 7.2 million to 13.8 million.

Update (August 17):  Ben Adler highlights the role of suburban sprawl.

Voting Rights Act

President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act 50 years ago. But the battle isn't over. With new barriers to voting and the hijacking of our elections, much reform is still needed.

1. Add a Voting Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
2. National, uniform election administration
3. Automatic and same-day voter registration
4. A national holiday, weekend election day; Expanded early voting and vote-by-mail
5. End felony disenfranchisement and other racially biased discrimination like Voter ID
6. Require non-voters to opt out, rather than voters to opt in with negligible cost to them
7. Publicly fund campaigns and ban private campaign contributions
8. End gerrymandering and reform the rules concerning majority-minority districts
9. Consolidate state and local elections with presidential and congressional races
10. Abolish the Electoral College
11. D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood
12. Proportional representation and ranked-choice voting
13. End elections of judges and prosecutors

Update (August 11):  A study from Rice University finds that confusion over photo identification requirements in Texas discouraged up to 9 percent of registered voters from voting even though they actually had valid forms of ID.

Update (February 4, 2019):  Reed Hundt makes the case for abolishing the Electoral College with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

[I]f the national vote always chose the president, then the whole country would be far more likely to get what most people want from government than is the case today.

Update (November 22, 2020):  Paul Blumenthal points out how this year's election makes it even more imperative to abolish the Electoral College.

If the election were simply a measure of popular support, it would not matter if Biden prevailed in [the swing] states. And that means that [Dear Leader] would have no process to disrupt with his farcical claims of election fraud. He would also have no reason or ability to cajole, threaten or manipulate state and local officials to try to keep himself in office.

Hiroshima

Remembering 70 years since the first nuclear weapons used in war.

Protest

In the year since the death of Michael Brown and the protests that followed in Ferguson, Missouri, a poll from the Washington Post shows that 60 percent of Americans say the nation needs to continue making changes to give blacks and whites equal rights. That compares to 46 percent from a Pew Research Center poll prior to the Ferguson events.

Activism works. Inequality is a campaign issue (at least on the Democratic side). And as David Cay Johnston reminds us, it's about more than money:

It's also about education, environmental hazards, health and health care, incarceration, law enforcement, wage theft and policies that interfere with family life over multiple generations.

The Ferguson protests made a difference.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told The Huffington Post it was “a shame that we haven’t had the political will before 2014” to look at the municipal courts.   ..."[I]n areas that are not as affluent, and where folks really are struggling with issues of poverty and education and crime and everything else that goes along with it -- unemployment -- they don’t have the ability really to voice that opinion. They can’t leverage change. That’s a good thing that’s come out of all this.”

A shift in media behavior after a tragedy is not unusual, Sarah Oates, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland, told The Huffington Post. Before Ferguson’s uprising, many media outlets tended to accept police accounts as fact. Now, reporters are asking why black communities are outraged with policing. 

“What’s sad is it often takes a tragedy,” Oates said. “What happened in Ferguson wasn’t unusual -- which is awful, but true. The response was unusual, and the depth and breadth of the protests was unusual. And you could kind of see it coming from Trayvon Martin ... This rising awareness [about] race and unfairness, and this real question about what was really going on.”

Black Lives Matter activists frequently extend the conversation beyond police brutality to economic, academic and other forms of inequality. 

“When we say Black Lives Matter, we are talking about the ways in which Black people are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity,” writes co-founder Alicia Garza on the movement’s website. “It is an acknowledgement [that] Black poverty and genocide is state violence.”