Ocean Acidity

Taro Takahashi of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University has published the most comprehensive map of ocean pH levels.  And according to a report from the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, the acidity of the ocean surface has increased about 26 percent since pre-industrial times.  The cost in lost ecosystem services could reach $3 trillion per year by 2100.

Do elections matter?  Only if you are concerned about the future of life on the planet.

Update (November 15):  An interview with author Gaia Vince about "the uncertain future of life on Earth".

Top Tenth Equals Bottom Ninety

A paper by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman documents the declining share of wealth by the bottom ninety percent of U.S. families over the past thirty years while the top one tenth of one percent is now nearly an equal share.

Update (November 11):  The Saez/Zucman paper also finds wealth thresholds, averages, and share for segments of the population.

Aftermath

Any election is a mixed bag.  I'm reminded of the thought that unrealistic expectations are the major cause of unhappiness.  Analyses consider the roles of low voter turnout, bungled Democratic strategy, Republican manipulation, the record-breaking use of "dark money". Progress appears more likely at the local level.  Nationally, we are stuck in a cycle for who's in and who's out.  Andrew O'Hehir considers ways of breaking the cycle, but doesn't like what he sees.

How we might possibly get out of this mess has been the subject of considerable magical thinking on all sides. I’ll take these propositions one at a time, but here are the four big ones I see. First, there’s the idea that we’ll elect some president so charismatic and large-spirited and post-partisan that he or she will heal our wounds, reach from one fortified bunker to another and forge a new way of consensus or compromise. Yes, it’s the “transformational figure” fantasy, and you can stop laughing now. Or is that crying? Then there’s the alluring notion, extensively indulged in online comments forums, that one party will conclusively win the ideological debate and banish the other to near-permanent secondary status. (This sounds comical now, but remember that when Republicans won the House in 1994 they ended 40 uninterrupted years of Democratic majorities.) Next comes the allied but distinct notion that demographic change will doom one party to irrelevance, or force it to change into something unrecognizably different. (You get only one guess.) Finally, if we conclude that none of those things is likely to happen any time soon, we introduce a fourth possibility, the big unforeseen event that leads to implosion, collapse, transformation or revolution. That one sounds the most far-fetched, but it’s a little like Nietzsche’s proverb about the abyss: The longer you look at it, the more irresistible it becomes.

All those far-fetched possibilities, taken together, add up to a not-impossible medium-term future in which the United States either ceases to exist – an event, sad to say, that would be widely celebrated around the world – or becomes something very different from what it is now. If such a thing happened, it could go in all sorts of dreadful directions. But I’m honestly not sure it would be worse than the more plausible disaster scenario, the world-historical transformation that is already well underway.

That’s the one in which the United States is slowly bankrupted into permanent dependency by endless, secret foreign wars while tiny cadres of the ultra-rich squabble over control of the economy. Electoral politics is angrily contested over a narrow but contentious range of lifestyle issues, and drives away all but the most committed culture warriors on either side. Nothing is done about the warming climate, the poisoning of the air, water and soil, the elimination of biodiversity or the mass extinction of other species. Lost in our 14-hour workdays and our consumer bubbles of pretend affluence, we don’t really pay attention, although we’re sad about the pandas and the polar bears and we hope somebody will do something about it eventually. In due course the political stalemate between Republicans and Democrats stops mattering, stops existing and is gone with the wind.

Update (November 12):  It must be nice to get elected by running against all the problems you helped to create.

Update (November 23):  The prospects for future elections looks rather dismal.  One imagines that the lowest turnout in 72 years must be considered a great success by the party who benefits. Lynn Stuart Parramore considers how so many people are traumatized by modern life in America.

Trauma is not just about experiencing wars and sexual violence, though there is plenty of that. Psychology researchers have discussed trauma as something intense that happens in your life that you can’t adequately respond to, and which causes you long-lasting negative effects. It’s something that leaves you fixated and stuck, acting out your unresolved feelings over and over.

Trauma occupies a space much bigger than our individual neurons: it’s political. If your parents lost their jobs, their home or their sense of security in the wake of the financial crisis, you will carry those wounds with you, even if conditions improve. Budget cuts to education and the social safety net produce trauma. Falling income produces trauma. Job insecurity produces trauma.

What then, are we supposed to do with our anguish? Part of our despair comes from participating in a system that is so damaging to so many, so brutal to our natures, both the physical environment and our internal selves. I eat a tomato knowing that the person who picked it may well have been an abused undocumented immigrant. I use products like Google knowing that my personal information is being used for purposes of profit and control. I vote for a candidate knowing that inaction and betrayal are the likely outcomes of putting this person in power. I can’t get away from it.

I think we all have many selves, and I know that I have a self that is so angry and disgusted it simply wants to numb out, to immerse itself in the distractions of shallow consumer culture and look away from things it feels helpless to change.

In the act of writing to myself and to you, I am reminded that we are bound, and that even if a dark age is looming, we can still pass the light between us. I can't fool myself into thinking that the ogre is not coming — but walking to meet him together is much better than standing alone.

Update (December 6):  Anat Shenker-Osorio and Jeffery Parcher urge what might be called evidence-based activism.

We have a choice. We can continue to lament election results and the seeming lack of active constituency to make America less plutocratic or we can learn from hard data and reorient our efforts along lines we know will activate our base, persuade Americans in the middle, and call out those who profited from plunging us into recession and fight to keep clutching the spoils.

Update (January 4, 2015):  Sean McElwee says that a liberal resurgence requires the mass mobilization of voters, a stable of progressive leaders, and getting money out of politics.

Update (January 16, 2015):  People outside the United States are inclined to ask, "Is this country crazy?"  Yes.

Update (February 8, 2015):  Bill Curry says a progressive movement is more important than winning elections.

Groundwater Crisis

An article in Nature Climate Change describes the growing depletion of aquifers worldwide. Exceeding the rate of replenishment, in some cases due to drought, threatens agricultural production.

The ongoing California drought is evident in these maps of dry season (Sept–Nov) total water storage anomalies (in millimeter equivalent water height; anomalies with respect to 2005–2010). California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins have lost roughly 15 km3 of total water per year since 2011 — more water than all 38 million Californians use for domestic and municipal supplies annually — over half of which is due to groundwater pumping in the Central Valley.

Changes in groundwater mass are tracked by NASA's GRACE satellite.

Update (June 28, 2016):  A study from Stanford shows nearly three times as much ground water in California's Central Valley than previously estimated. But it may be threatened with contamination from oil and gas drilling.

Eight Facts About Inequality

Pierce Nahigyen presents these facts about the United States:

1) 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. 

2) America has the second-highest level of income inequality, after Chile. 

3) The current state of inequality can be traced back to 1979. 

4) Non-union wages are also affected by the decline of unions. 

5) There is less opportunity for intergenerational mobility. 

6) Tax cuts to the wealthiest have not improved the economy or created more jobs. 

7) Incomes for the top 1% have increased (but the top 0.01% make even more). 

8) The majority of Congress does not feel your pain.

Update (October 25):  Along the same lines, Richard Escow lists seven ways the "American Dream" is coming to an end.

1. Most people can’t get ahead financially.

2. The stay-at-home parent is a thing of the past.

3. The rich are more debt-free. Others have no choice.

4. Student debt is crushing a generation of non-wealthy Americans.

5. Vacations aren’t for the likes of you anymore.

6. Even with health insurance, medical care is increasingly unaffordable for most people. 

7. Americans can no longer look forward to a secure retirement.

Update (July 17, 2015):  Larry Schwartz offers 35 facts about inequality. Just one example: Mean wealth for an American adult is between $250,000 to $300,000, but the median wealth is only about $39,000.

Inequality Still Rising

The Global Wealth Report 2014 from Credit Suisse shows that, by one measure (wealth to income ratio), wealth inequality is at the highest point since the Great Depression.  The report also says that the top one percent in the world own 48 percent of the wealth.

Update (October 25):  Lynn Stuart Parramore points out how the Credit Suisse report supports Thomas Piketty's contention that we're returning to a world of extreme inequality.

Update (November 7):  Paul Buchheit highlights five facts from the Global Wealth Databook 2014.

1. Each Year Since the Recession, America's Richest 1% Have Made More Than the Cost of All U.S. Social Programs

2. Almost None of the New 1% Wealth Led To Innovation and Jobs

3. Just 47 Wealthy Americans Own More Than Half of the U.S. Population

4. The Upper Middle Class of America Owns a Smaller Percentage of Wealth Than the Corresponding Groups in All Major Nations Except Russia and Indonesia.

5. Ten Percent of the World's Total Wealth Was Taken by the Global 1% in the Past Three Years.

Update (January 2, 2015):  An interview with Joseph Stiglitz on why the rich are getting richer and Paul Krugman worries about parallels to 1930s Europe.

Update (October 25, 2015):  Paul Buchheit again has five facts from the Global Wealth Databook 2015.

1. Of the Half-Billion Poorest Adults in the World, One out of Ten is an American

2. The Richest 1/10 of American Adults Have Averaged Over $1 Million Each in New Wealth Since the Recession

3. The US is the Only Region Where the Middle-Class Does Not Own Its Equivalent Share of Wealth

4. For a Full 70% of Americans, Percentage Ownership of National Wealth is One of the Lowest in the World

5. Only Kazakhstan, Libya, Russia, and Ukraine Have Worse Wealth Inequality than the United States

Ocean Warming Underestimated

Studies published in Nature Climate Change indicate that the upper layer of oceans in the Southern Hemisphere have been warming faster than previously suggested.

Update (October 13):  Joe Romm argues that the 2 degree Celsius limit on atmospheric warming is now even more urgent.  "It's worse than we thought."

Update (October 20):  Dahl Jamail has an overview of stories about how climate change has been underestimated.

Update (June 1, 2015):  Big changes are coming to the oceans.