Two Year Cooling Trend?

As Sandrine Dixson-Declève and Anders Wijkman call the lack of an emergency plan to deal with climate change a massive scandal, Berkeley Earth reports that 2018 ranks as the fourth warmest year on record--behind 2016, 2017, and 2015.

Update (January 30):  Jennifer Francis explains how climate change can bring extreme cold weather.

Because of rapid Arctic warming, the north/south temperature difference has diminished. This reduces pressure differences between the Arctic and mid-latitudes, weakening jet stream winds. And just as slow-moving rivers typically take a winding route, a slower-flowing jet stream tends to meander.

Large north/south undulations in the jet stream generate wave energy in the atmosphere. If they are wavy and persistent enough, the energy can travel upward and disrupt the stratospheric polar vortex. Sometimes this upper vortex becomes so distorted that it splits into two or more swirling eddies.

These “daughter” vortices tend to wander southward, bringing their very cold air with them and leaving behind a warmer-than-normal Arctic. One of these eddies will sit over North America this week, delivering bone-chilling temperatures to much of the nation.

Update (February 3):  Robert Hunziker points to a study from Hadley Centre that expects one of the largest increases in carbon dioxide concentration in 62 years due to weaker carbon sinks.

Update (February 6):  NASA and NOAA confirm 2018 as the fourth warmest year on record.

Update (February 26):  Robert Hunziker argues the Paris Agreement is failing. And Mel Gurtov draws several conclusions from recent climate reports.

First, planet-wide environmental deterioration is happening faster—much faster—than scientists had anticipated. Second, the kind of deterioration now taking place, involving oceans and glaciers in particular, tell us that life itself is already endangered in many parts of the globe. Third, some consequences of climate change, such as rising seas, are irreversible. Fourth, resistance to scientific findings and their implications for political, economic, and social changes constitutes nothing short of criminal negligence. Fifth, people are more aware of and concerned about climate change than ever before, if [a recent U.S. poll] is accurate. Sixth, solutions to the problem must be up to the scale of the problem. Tiny, personal steps to reduce carbon footprints feel good, but it’s panic time, folks.

Update (March 3):  Posted at Collapse of Industrial Civilization:

Humans recognized decades ago the threats they are now facing, yet nothing was done due to political inaction and industry malfeasance which continues to this very day. ... Anyone waiting for some sort of seminal climate change event that is going to galvanize the world’s leaders into action will be tragically disappointed. ... The time to act would have been before we were seeing all these environmental degradations and tipping points, not afterward.

Update (March 11):  Paul Street bemoans the round-the-clock coverage of practically anything but the looming climate catastrophe.

In a remotely decent and intelligent society, public and political "elites" and "leaders" and the dominant media and politics culture would be fervently focused first and foremost on this problem.

Update (March 25):  The International Energy Agency reports that global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions increased by 1.7 percent in 2018, the fastest growth in five years.

The United States’ CO2 emissions grew by 3.1 percent in 2018, reversing a decline a year earlier, while China’s emissions rose by 2.5 percent and India’s by 4.5 percent.

Europe’s emissions fell by 1.3 percent and Japan’s fell for the fifth year running.

Wealth Tax

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently brought up the idea of a higher marginal income tax rate and now Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes a new annual tax.

Warren, who hopes to secure the Democratic nomination for president, announced Thursday that she would levy a 2 percent tax on assets over $50 million and a 3 percent tax on assets over $1 billion.

Nomi Prins notes that property taxes are also wealth taxes and quite regressive since the rich have a much smaller proportion of their wealth in real estate as opposed to a middle class homeowner.

Sophia Tesfaye adds that the richest 1 percent of families currently pay 3.2 percent of their wealth in total taxes on average while the bottom 99 percent pay 7.2 percent relative to their wealth.

Update (August 14):  Rick Baum discusses the wealth tax using Federal Reserve Board data.

[D]uring the previous ten years, the total wealth of the top 1% increased from $14.08 trillion to $31.91 trillion, or by over $17 trillion. If the growth in their wealth continues to rise at this rate, Warren’s tax would come to less than 16% of the increase in their wealth, not touching their current wealth.

Open Letter on Venezuela

U.S. support for an attempted coup is condemned in a letter signed by 70 activists and experts.

The United States government must cease interfering in Venezuela’s internal politics, especially for the purpose of overthrowing the country’s government. Actions by the [von Clownstick] administration and its allies in the hemisphere are almost certain to make the situation in Venezuela worse, leading to unnecessary human suffering, violence, and instability.

Update (January 27):  It looks like other countries are willing to follow the U.S. lead and support the coup leader.

Update (January 28):  John Bolton says "all options are on the table" regarding Venezuela and his yellow notepad was spotted with the words "5000 troops to Columbia". Bolton had more bad news:

Pleased to hear that my good friend Elliott Abrams is rejoining State as Special Envoy for Venezuela. Welcome back to the fight.

Update (February 9):  The administration is holding secret talks with members of the Venezuelan military to urge them to support the coup.

Update (February 13):  Vijay Prashad argues the U.S. desire to overthrow the Venezuelan government comes down to "crush the alternative".

Key here is the idea that the United States must be the most powerful country in the world and that no one will be allowed to threaten this power militarily or with an alternative economic agenda. Chávez attempted an alternative in Venezuela and, worse for the United States, through the Bolivarian project across Latin America. The Bolivarians understood that there was no hope for their revolution if they remained within their borders. They had to build bridges with their neighbors on a new foundation.

Update (April 30):  Unfortunately, the situation may be heating up in Venezuela.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó launched his most drastic attempt yet to oust President Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday morning, when he appeared in front of armed forces and called for an uprising against the government.

The politics from Secretary Pompeo is so blatant.

Today interim President Juan Guaido announced start of Operación Libertad. The U.S. Government fully supports the Venezuelan people in their quest for freedom and democracy. Democracy cannot be defeated.

Update (May 3):  U.S military intervention is still a possibility, but  Dave Lindorff describes the efforts this week as a failed coup.

Update (May 8):  Dave Lindorff goes further and reports that many of the facts about the so-called coup were simply made up.

The whole thing was a fraud, staged at the instigation of Washington in hopes that the Venezuelan people and rank-and-file troops would fall for the trick and think an actual coup was underway.

Update (June 6):  A leaked audio recording of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reveals his frustration with the failed coup.

Our conundrum, which is to keep the opposition united, has proven devilishly difficult.

Defining a Moral Choice

Richard North Patterson argues that

climate change is the quintessential test of moral character and imagination. Its ultimate impact will be more profound than nuclear war. Yet, like nuclear war, we can dismiss its menace in the moment ― or reason that the damage we now visit on the planet may foreclose the future of others but not our own.

So while the Pentagon reaffirms climate change as a national security threat, the Republican platform is all about denial.

In 2016, Republican voters got exactly what they voted for: an adamant climate change denier, the most relentlessly anti-environmental president in modern U.S. history.

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers point to the underlying problem.

At the heart of the issue is capitalism, a root cause of many of the crises we face today. Capitalism drives growth at all costs including exploitation of people and the planet. It drives competition and individualism instead cooperation and community. It requires militarism as the strong arm for corporations to pillage other countries for their resources and militarized police to suppress dissent at home.

They describe the Green Party platform:

The Green Party divides the Green New Deal into four pillars: An economic bill of rights, a green transition, financial reform, and a functioning democracy. The economic bill of rights includes not only a job at a living wage for all who want it but also single payer healthcare, free college education, and affordable housing and utilities. The green transition to renewable energy sources includes building mass transit, "complete streets" that promote walking and biking, local food systems and clean manufacturing. Financial reform includes debt relief, public banks and breaking up the big banks. And the democracy section includes getting money out of politics, guaranteeing the right to vote, strengthening local democracy, democratizing the media and significant changes to the military.

It's a huge task--essentially impossible to imagine under our current political situation. Stan Cox injects a dose of reality into our moral decision.

A socialist transformation is necessary, but that in itself won’t be sufficient to reverse Earth’s ecological degradation unless it is also dedicated to drawing the human economy back within necessary ecological limits while ensuring sufficiency for all and excess for none.

Solving climate change is incompatible with capitalism and although proposals call for greater popular control, Cox has me wondering if solving climate change just might be incompatible with democracy itself.

Any effective strategy to drive emissions down to zero cannot also expect to spur aggregate growth; it would in fact curtail and even reverse the growth of GDP.

Although it really is possible to scale back our economy in a way that improves life for all Americans, such an effort will face stiff opposition at the top of the economic pyramid, the place where the fruits of GDP growth always tend to accumulate. That doesn’t mean just the 1 percent. I have argued that it’s the 33 percent of American households with highest incomes who would need to experience the steepest economic degrowth.

The impacts will come from several directions. An effective climate/equality strategy would reduce profits in industries not involved in green energy conversion or production of needed goods and services. Stock prices of companies not working toward the conversion would fall. Stockholders, owners, investors, and upper managers, the great majority of whom belong to the 33 percent, would bear the brunt.

If shortages and inflation were to strike, then allocation of resources could be adjusted, and price controls, subsidies, fair-shares rationing, and other policies would have to be put in place when and where they are needed. That would result in even greater shifts of income and wealth from the top toward the bottom of the economic scale.

Given a short timeline for taking action, can the wheels of democracy turn fast enough?

Update (January 26):  Sam Pizzigati explains how inequality inhibits combating climate change.

Limiting future global temperature rises ... will require “disruptive shifts” and heighten public anxieties. People will tolerate these disruptions, but only if they believe that everyone is sharing in the sacrifice — the wealthy and powerful included.

The more unequal a wealthy society ... the greater the power of the rich — and the corporations they run — to ignore their debt to Mother Earth.

Update (January 27):  Haydar Khan argues that our predicament is largely a consequence of biological senescence (essentially aging). Bret Weinstein describes it as "ideas that work in the short term but fail and cause vulnerability in the long term". Society favors short term economic benefits over long term survival.

Update (January 28):  Graham Peebles points to complacency as the underlying reason the climate problem isn't solved.

Complacency is reinforced by greed and ignorance, greed for limitless profits, short-term gain and material comfort and ignorance of the scale, range and urgency of the crisis, and of the connection between lifestyle and environmental ruin.

The system demands that irresponsible consumption not only continues, but deepens and expands into areas of the world hitherto relatively untouched by its poison; it obstructs environmentally responsible policies and lacks the flexibility required to face the challenges, certainly within the time-scale needed if the planet is to be restored to health.

Amen

Representative Rashida Tlaib is one of the first Muslim American women to serve in Congress. She addressed a crowd of supporters celebrating Democratic control of the House.

When your son looks at you and says, ‘Mama, look, you won. Bullies don’t win.’ And I say, ‘Baby, they don’t.’ Because we’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherfucker.

Michelangelo Signorile approves.

This is a man who has put children in cages, has shut down the government over his demands for a border wall, has rolled back protections for the environment and is cozying up to dictators and adversaries of this country — with whom he may have colluded to win the presidency.

Calling him a motherfucker is nothing.

Update (January 6):  I just can't believe Rep. Tlaib would use such a nasty word that the president himself has used. Andrew O'Hehir:

There’s no way to separate the exaggerated reaction to Tlaib’s remarks from the fact that her presence on Capitol Hill, and even her existence as an American citizen, pushes people’s buttons.

If one intemperate remark by one left-wing congresswoman is enough to drive all those anxious suburbanites who voted Democratic in November back into [the Motherfucker's] mealy embrace, then America is well and truly not worth saving.

Update (January 12):  I stumbled across Ernest Callenbach's last published piece, written in 2012.

As empires decline, their leaders become increasingly incompetent -- petulant, ignorant, gifted only with PR skills of posturing and spinning, and prone to the appointment of loyal idiots to important government positions. Comedy thrives; indeed writers are hardly needed to invent outrageous events.

Republican Scam

With the House of Representatives now run by the Democrats, Thom Hartmann expects Republican pundits to revive the "Two Santa Clauses" strategy developed by Jude Wanniski over 40 years ago.

At its core, the strategy is simple and elegant: When Republicans are in power, run up as much debt as possible, mostly by borrowing and giving that cash to the Republican donor class through tax cuts and corporate subsidies; when Democrats have political power, Republicans suddenly become hysterical about the debt and demand that Democrats keep taxes low while cutting social spending.

And it's been a winning strategy to combat the Democratic governmental "Santa" that started with programs created during the Great Depression.

The Republicans got what they wanted from Wanniski’s work. They held power for nearly 40 years, skimmed trillions of dollars out of the economy, gutted organized labor, and packed the Supreme Court and the entire federal court system.

Best of all, though, for the Two Santa Claus GOP, the years since 1981 have left such a massive national debt that some misguided "conservative" Democrats will again be clamoring to shoot Santa with cuts to education, infrastructure, health care, and other social programs.

The Two Santa Claus theory isn’t dead, and starting any day now we’ll see the Republicans crank up their debt hysteria. It’s as predictable as the seasons.

Update (January 4):  Matthew Yglesias explains how very high marginal tax rates are good economics.

[F]or the very rich, the subjective value of an extra dollar is essentially $0. In other words, while a poor person’s life may get a lot better if he gets a little bit of extra money, someone like Mark Zuckerberg isn’t going to care at all.