Bjorn Lomborg again

April 14, 2020

Revised 8 May 2020

I’ve been reading quite a bit of Bjorn Lomborg recently, for my research on climate technologies and their social consequences – and I’ve been reasonably critical of some of his writing and mode of argument (see [1], [2]). However, somewhat to my surprise I found it possible to extract an interesting, and relatively consistent position on climate and ecological problems from his work.

The main problem with Lomborg is that he almost always seizes on the most optimistic figures for the economic and other consequences of climate change, and never questions the consequences of current economic structures and drives. He is similarly cheery about the consequences of the current pandemic and the ways to deal with it. He always appears to try and diminish the problems. This ‘optimism complex’ (found in those supporters of renewables as well, who think transition is inevitable and easy) is a problem when the situation seems a lot worse than most people realise.

Another problem is that he appears to not ‘think ecologically’ ie in terms of complex systems. Thus he appears to argue that a few degrees cannot make that much difference – we can all survive 2 degrees no real problem. However, a minor change in one part of the systems can make massive amounts of difference as it courses through the systems, triggering other effects and compounding crises. For example, global warming will probably not just mean our highest temperatures are one or two degrees (the average) higher but much higher, and the high temperatures will not be separated out into single days which might not be too harmful, but over continuous days or even weeks. This significantly magnifies human and animal deaths, water and crop problems, so that they can become catastrophic. These failures then add to other stresses (say pandemic, flood, fire etc) on what should be manageable days. The more stressed the society, the more vulnerable it becomes, and the more catastrophic minor incidents become.

Finally he does not seem interested in any action which restricts air pollution, or emissions. It is probably right to be cynical about the bone fides of any position which claims to be about benefiting human life and which does not recognise air pollution as important harm.

However, this post is an attempt to summarise what I believe to be the strongest points of his underlying argument. The result may not be exactly what he would put forward himself, but seems worth considering. While I don’t agree with all aspects of this argument, and would be far more intense about the problems we face, it does seem to be a useful position, and I have put it as strongly as I can.

  1. At the moment, the whole world faces a set of interlinked problems that cannot be solved by a narrow focus on just one or two of these problems. We have to approach these problems from many directions, and be generalists.
  2. There is a climate crisis which needs to be fixed. It may not be immediate, and it may not be the primary problem we face today, but we do need to fix it. Now, I do think it is an immediate problem, but Lomborg tends to postpone it, as part of his optimism complex. However, let’s begin with it.
  3. The current systems of climate talks, agreements and targets are not working. The Paris targets are costly and nowhere near strong enough, and we are failing to achieve them anyway. There is little point continuing on in the same way and keep failing.
  4. We do not have anything like the amount of green energy we need. We may be increasing green energy enormously, but we have been increasing fossil fuels even faster, so the percentage of truly green energy remains tiny. According to the IEA, the OECD has 2.3% hydro and 2.6% of “geothermal, solar, wind, tide/wave/ocean, heat and other.” To this we can add 9.6% Nuclear and 6.1% of Biofuels and waste, if you really wish to classify these other sources as clean (IEA 2019 Key World Energy Statistics, p7.)
  5. Governments should immediately stop subsidising fossil fuels, at all stages of production. This is a complete waste of money and time. It helps make the situation worse. If companies go bust, then they go bust; that is the market in action. Established companies which depend on bailouts and subsidy should not be supported, as their weakness indicates either bad management, poor financial choices, unwanted products, or some combination of the three.
  6. Pollution and ecological destruction should not be free. At the very least, we need a mechanism to establish a carbon price to help fund research. Lomborg’s position is inconsistent and it’s easy to find counter examples, but I think his position moves towards this over time. I’d add that other ecological destructions should not go uncharged, and uncurtailed, either..
  7. Green energy should not be subsidised. This might result from good intentions, but it is distorting and, according to the IEA, governments are spending way too much for the observable results. Strangely, while Lomborg questions calculations for fossil fuel subsidies he does not seem to question the figures he objects to for renewable subsidies. For example, does the IEA count feed-in-tariffs as subsidies when these could be considered the price paid for electricity generation? We need to be sure what is a subsidy.
  8. Some of the processes receiving subsidy are not that green to begin with. For example, carbon capture and storage is a waste of money. It has no hope of solving the problem, and merely prolongs fossil fuels use.
  9. In the US and Europe, wood burning is classified as green or renewable. This is also deceptive. Burning wood emits more CO2 than coal, and destroys forests and wildlife. The forests may not be replanted, either and it is dubious planted forests have the bio-complexity and resilience of natural growth in any case. Biofuels take away land from agriculture, especially from poorer farmers, and they are largely energy inefficient with low EREI.
  10. Green energy’ should mean every energy source without GHG emissions after set up, including small scale nuclear.
  11. Currently, research into green energy does not receive anything like the money needed.
  12. Instead of subsidising renewables, governments should put at least half that money (or “an annual global commitment of some $100 billion”), into research into green energy [1], [2], [3]. This could be funded from abolished fossil fuel subsidies, so it is not an extra cost. Government led research is effective, and stripped of commercial bias. It can also lead to ‘public domain’ patents, available to all, thus increasing economic productivity.
  13. As we are on track for climate or ecological devastation in the long term, we also need to increase societal resilience.
  14. Poverty and disease are major causes of suffering and decrease societal resilience Removal of poverty also increases life-span and productivity.
  15. Most people who suffer badly from disasters [and climate change] are the poor. The better off people are the better able they can handle, or negotiate, disaster.
  16. Poor people tend to be less worried about climate than about day to day survival. Action on climate often may not seem to benefit, or engage, them but action on their immediate problems can be embraced enthusiastically. However, it can be added, that given that some problems are already coming from climate change, we should not ignore this either.
  17. One reason for massive fossil fuel use is that this easily available, well understood, and centralised form of energy is promoted as helping to lower poverty in the developing world. Without solving the poverty problem, we will not solve the pollution and ecological destruction problems.
  18. There is little point having green energy if it seems to be as harmful to people in poverty, as fossil fuel energy generation and mining can be. We should probably stop coal mining were it hurts, or displaces, poor locals.
  19. We need to keep the economy strong enough and organised enough to lift people out of poverty.
  20. It is notable that Lomborg does not ask whether the current structure of the global economy enables a general lifting out of poverty without harmful consequences. For example does the increase in living standards in the ‘third world’ or ‘the South’ come at the cost of increasing inequality of wealth and power in ‘the North’, along with the decline of the ‘first world’ working and middle classes? Do current methods of raising living standards destroy ‘community’ and mutual aid? Yet the general idea of raising living standards and prosperity, as a help towards problem solving, increasing political participation and resilience, is important and requires more investigation.
  21. These problems also stretch to his support for ‘Free Trade’. The problem is we don’t get really free trade. Neoliberal free trade, has tended to suppress government programmes aimed at providing the social amenities and common good which was not provided by ‘the market’ in the vague hope that they would be provided by the market. This amounts to a suppression of democracy in the corporate interest. Free trade negotiations also seem to have allowed the market to be regulated by the major players in the market to benefit, and protect, themselves. So care is needed here.
  22. Another cause of instability and suffering is disease. TB, for example, is debilitating, and could apparently be eliminated with enough spending. The same is true of Malaria.
  23. Governments also need to protect water and its flows. Improved sanitation and latrine technology help reduce disease, and no one can live without drinkable water. Convenient water also frees up time from collecting it. At the moment we seem to be damaging water at an increasing rate. In dry countries, like Australia, it seems obvious to me that projects which could harm, or restrict, the water supply, even in 200 years or more, should not be considered. It is easier to damage than to protect water supply, in particular underground water.
  24. Research is needed into improving agriculture and food supply in the long-term. It is obvious that short term improvements should not be at the expense of long term sustainability. Although Lomborg does not seem to mention it, this may require research into regenerative agriculture. At the least we need to lower the emissions from agriculture and stop leeching soils of nutrients, salt rising, topsoil loss, and deforestation to provide new fields because old fields are exhausted.
  25. Indoor air pollution from cooking, needs reducing. I would suggest solar cookers, where possible, as this allows wood to remain uncut and dung to fertilise the soil, but Lomborg goes for ventilation – this is also useful and cheap addition. Outside air pollution is also a problem. The World Health Organisation estimates 3.8 million people die per year from household pollution and 4.2 million people die from outdoor pollution. This requires reduction of burning, of coal, gas, oil and so on, but Lomborg seems largely uninterested in lowering this cause of death.
  26. Another source of instability and poverty is the lack of effective birth control, [1], together with the lack of educational and economic opportunities for women. Again it is relatively easy and cheap to fix this – although it will encounter a lot of religious opposition and the amounts being spent seem to be declining.
  27. By reducing the number of children, birth control helps provide better nutrition for existing children and this renders them more physically and mentally capable of education and resilience.
  28. Education needs improvement and more accessibility, especially pre-school – but this is difficult as some dominant groups don’t want people to be well informed, or able to think critically or creatively; they just want them accepting and obedient. A critical and creative population is dangerous for incompetent, or unjust rulers.
  29. It also needs to be added to this summary of Lomborg’s remarks, that any reform program that is actually going to deal with this whole series of problems which interact with each other and magnify each other, may involve a disruptive politics. Particularly when one of those serious problems, is the structure of power relations themselves, and those power relations will affect all attempts at reform.

These ideas seem to be worth considering, wherever they come from, as increasing disasters point to global systemic causes and effects, and they demand systemic strategies in response.

One final addenda. It seems common for people supporting Lomborg to say that:

Spending on green tech research,
Fighting poverty,
Doing our best to end TB, Malaria and other health issues,
Improving food and agriculture,
Improving access to drinkable water and protecting water supplies,
Lowering indoor pollution and
Boosting education, particularly for women,

is somehow incompatible with lowering emissions and pollution and reducing ecological destruction. They repeatedly imply it’s one or the other. However it is probably more accurate to say we cannot carry out Lomborg’s plans, unless we reduce pollution and ecological destruction. The poor end up with the harmful consequences of pollution and eco-destruction and usually live in the places which are most badly affected. We cannot, for example, reduce poverty when corporate or government interests are destroying local agriculture, and poisoning the water and air.

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US, Australia and pandemics again

April 11, 2020

The last post showed the figures for coronavirus in Australia and the US. It is clear that Australia is doing better than the US. They are both neoliberal governments, but the neoliberal government in the US is Donald Trump who appears incompetent. This demonstrates that there are different types of neoliberalisms and it is not accurate to say all neoliberalisms are the same. Some are actively harmful.

President Trump did close flights from China (announced 31st Jan, in place 2nd Feb), as he boasts, but originally this closure only referred to foreign nationals, and had so many exceptions that another 40,000 people entered the country from China after it was in place. Yes, that does not make sense at all. Two weeks after the flight ban he was saying the pandemic will be over by April. On the 27th Feb he was saying:

we have done an incredible job.  We’re going to continue.  It’s going to disappear.  One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.  And from our shores, we — you know, it could get worse before it gets better.  It could maybe go away.  We’ll see what happens.  Nobody really knows

Remarks by President Trump in Meeting with African American Leaders

and there appears to have been more or less no federal preparation before March. There are reports that hospital workers are still (April 11) massively under-equipped in the US, and still at risk, which will compound problems as medical support is removed by the virus.

For example, a week ago, the New York Governor was expressing gratitude for ventilators donated by the Chinese Government as New York was running out and there was no sign of availability from the US.

Louisiana, which has also been hit hard by the virus, has requested or ordered 14,000 ventilators from the federal government and the private sector. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards told NPR on Friday that the state had only received 553 so far.

Time Magazine 6 April Gov. Cuomo Says Chinese Government Delivering 1,000 Ventilators to New York

We now know that Trump’s medical advisers were asking him to issue physical distancing guidelines in the 3rd week of February, but apart from acting as a bad example, he delayed action until the 16th March.

By comparison, in Australia, on 21 Jan, Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, stated that “additional proportionate border measures” are in place. The same day health Minister Greg Hunt declared coronavirus a “disease of pandemic potential.”  Biosecurity and border security staff were meeting passengers from Wuhan to Sydney. The next day flights from Wuhan stopped. On the 29th Jan, the Queensland government requested quarantine of everyone coming from China, and the federal government released its stockpile of facemasks so hospitals would be equipped in advance. 31st Jan the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency. On the 1st of Feb Australia’s air ‘borders’ with China were effectively closed. Peter Dutton suggested Australians about to leave for any overseas holiday should reconsider their travel. Australians evacuated from Wuhan were quarantined on Christmas Island. There were immediate efforts at quarantining all people travelling in from overseas, even if it was largely voluntary. On the 18th Feb the government released its Emergency Response Plan. On the 27th February, the Prime Minister announced that:

based on the expert medical advice we’ve received, there is every indication that the world will soon enter a pandemic phase of the coronavirus and as a result, we have agreed today and initiated the implementation of the Coronavirus Emergency Response Plan…

So while the WHO is yet to declare the nature of the coronavirus and it’s moved towards a pandemic phase, we believe that the risk of a global pandemic is very much upon us and as a result, as a government, we need to take the steps necessary to prepare for such a pandemic….

we need an even greater abundance of caution to ensure that should the coronavirus move to a very extreme level or there is any particular risk that is associated with children, particularly those attending school, that we have the preparedness and the arrangements in place with states and territories. And I want to thank all of the state and territories for their engagement, whether it’s on this issue on schools or the many other issues, the health issues, that are associated… 

we’re effectively operating now on the basis that there is… a pandemic. 

27th Feb: Press Conference – Australian Parliament House

The Australian government’s approach was nowhere near perfect, by any means, there are many criticisms which could be made. For example, after advising a ban on large crowd events on the 13th March, the Prime Minister announced he would be attending a football match on the day before the ban came in. However, they had a somewhat different and more constructive approach to Trump, which has continued. For example while Trump has been trying to suggest a back to normal date is soon, Morrison has been saying:

We have seen what’s happened in Singapore most recently, we’ve seen what happened in Sweden and other countries. If you take your eyes off of this thing, and it gets away from you, it writes its own rules, so we do need to understand what the prerequisites are, the things that we have to achieve before we can start to ease some of those restrictions…

I do want to caution Australians that we’re not in that phase yet we’re many weeks away I think from being in a phase like that.

Interview on Sunrise 14th April 2020

Right wingers often say, no doubt inspired by Trump, that there were howls of ‘racism’ from the left, about his blocking of flights from China. I did not hear those howls personally, and some reports seem exaggerated by those being criticised. I did hear people saying that banning flights was not enough, which is true, and perhaps Trump should have done more than think he could wall off trouble? People, such as the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and others did make requests for politicians to stop encouraging people to avoid or scream at Chinese Australians, or not go to Chinese Restaurants. That kind of internal disunity and pointless conflict is not helpful in containing a pandemic, although it does allow deflection of blame, which is why Trump loves it. People have also criticised his use of the term ‘Chinese virus’ when the virus has a proper name, and is not the only virus originating in China, but again I guess using the term serves to imply that Trump’s bad performance can be blamed on the Chinese, and that the threat is insidious and cunning – and it also feeds into the laregely right wing narrative that the virus is a Chinese bioweapon, that they decided to test in their own country rather than just release in the US (imagine how much worse the US response would have been if they had no warning there was a problem).

Closing borders as much as possible is a standard response to pandemics, and, apart from when bringing people home from foreign shores, is exactly what you would expect. Queensland has tried to close its borders to the rest of Australia as has Western Australia. That is difficult but not unreasonable. It is normal. It is routine, but it needs other backing as well.

There have also been attempts to say that virus is so bad in the US, because ‘the left’ has sabotaged Trump’s attempts to make firm borders. However, Trump had two years with a friendly congress to do whatever he wanted like make stronger borders or fix Obamacare etc. If he didn’t do it then, he either was not capable, uninterested, or there were good reasons for not doing it, which he is ignoring to now try and build political capital by blaming other people (as usual) for his inabilities. I could suggest that the demand for cheap labor by US business was one reason the borders were not closed. Anyway, the virus seems to have come into Mexico from the US, rather than the other way around. So the issue is irrelevant, and nobody has attempted to prevent him from preparing for a pandemic.

Trump continually says no one could have expected this situation. This is clearly not true. The world has been preparing for a pandemic for years. The possibility is glaringly obvious, and many of us were fearing a much worse event than the current one. Mass globalised air traffic, is an invitation for pandemics and, if you don’t know that, then you should not be in politics.

I quote a comedian – because we are in that realm in which comedians have better political knowledge than presidents. I guess the fools have always known more than would be kings:

“First, Obama officials walk Trump aides through a global pandemic exercise in 2017. Then, in 2017 and 2018, threat assessment intelligence analysts even mentioned a close cousin of coronavirus by name, saying it had pandemic potential. Then in 2018, the director for medical and biodefense preparedness at the national security council told a symposium that the threat of pandemic flu is our number one health security concern. Then, top administration officials said last year that the threat of a pandemic kept them up at night. Then, White House economists warned in 2019 a pandemic could devastate America. Then, intelligence reports warned of a coronavirus crisis as early as November. And then, US intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic.”

The Guardian 10 April Colbert interviews Sanders

Then:

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York….

Experts agree that it is only a matter of time before one of these epidemics becomes global—a pandemic with potentially catastrophic consequences. A severe pandemic, which becomes “Event 201,” would require reliable cooperation among several industries, national governments, and key international institutions.

http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/

Furthermore, on the 29th January Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro, circulated a memo warning the administration that a coronavirus pandemic that could wipe out hundreds of thousands of jobs, erase trillions of dollars in economic activity. “The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil,.. This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.” He also argued that “the clear dominant strategy is an immediate travel ban on China.”

Truly no one could possibly be prepared if they didn’t want to listen.

I have heard right wingers say that Event 201 is suspicious, and shows some deep state planning to run a pandemic to undermine Trump. But that just shows you that they can escape any reality. This was a public event, warning of the possibility of pandemics. If Trump had listened he might have been better prepared, no matter how Machiavellian the organisers were. But he did not listen, and it does help the US to be unprepared if you cut CDC funding by 80%, disband the National Security Council’s global pandemic team, opt to discontinue the “Predict” program which monitored the threat of animal-born diseases crossing over to humans, which is the probable origin point of the current coronavirus, or allow stockpiles of respirators to break down because you cut maintenance contracts. That’s life.

Donald Trump has not had good relations with many States in the US, so coordinating responses has not been wonderful. He has gone so far as to argue the Federal government should not take responsibility for action, and largely left it to the States to do it by themselves.

we had to go into the federal stockpile, but we’re not an ordering clerk. They have to have for themselves. 

Rev: Donald Trump Coronavirus Briefing Transcript April 3

He also decided to end federal support for coronavirus testing sites, leaving the States with the responsibility for testing – although that move may be being reconsidered. He has also blamed the States for failures. So presumably his primary strategy is to end his responsibility and shift it, and the blame, elsewhere. He has helped create a toxic political environment, by this refusal to take responsibility, ‘forgetting’ what he said the day before, saying that he would not have contact with governors who were critical of him, and blaming everyone else for his own mistakes.

The context for Trump’s relationships with the US states is provided by the resentment of aid to Puerto Rico, and his blaming of California for its fires and his twitter threat to order Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to cease helping victims of those fires, despite the fires starting on Federal land. During the pandemic, on 27 March Trump declared when asked about his responses to the Governors,

I think we’ve done a great job for the State of Washington and I think the governor, who is a failed presidential candidate as you know, he leveled out at zero in the polls, he’s constantly chirping, and I guess complaining would be a nice way of saying it. We’re building hospitals. We’ve done a great job for the State of Washington. Michigan, she has no idea what’s going on. And all she does is say, “Oh, it’s the federal government’s fault.” And we’ve taken such great care of Michigan…..

All I want them to do, very simple, I want them to be appreciative. I don’t want them to say things that aren’t true. I want them to be appreciative. We’ve done a great job…

You know what I say? If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call. 

Rev: Donald Trump Coronavirus Task Force Briefing Transcript March 27

According to some reports the friendly governor of Florida received 100% of its requested medical supplies  including 430,000 surgical masks and 180,000 N95 respirators while Massachusetts, which is not so flattering, received a mere 17% of what it requested.

It appears that the only way, that Trump could see the toxic environment ending is if everyone keeps telling him that he is the best president ever.

Other accusations seem more serious:

the White House seizes goods from public officials and hospitals across the country while doling them out as favors to political allies and favorites, often to great fanfare to boost the popularity of those allies. The Denver Post today editorialized about one of the most egregious examples. Last week, as we reported, a shipment of 500 ventilators to the state of Colorado was intercepted and rerouted by the federal government. Gov. Jared Polis (D) sent a letter pleading for the return of the equipment. Then yesterday President Trump went on Twitter to announce that he was awarding 100 ventilators to Colorado at the behest of Republican Senator Cory Gardner, one of the most endangered Republicans on the ballot this year. As the Post put it, “President Donald Trump is treating life-saving medical equipment as emoluments he can dole out as favors to loyalists. It’s the worst imaginable form of corruption — playing political games with lives.”

Talking points: PPE and Ventilators Becomes Patronage in Trump’s Hands

See also: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-washington-seize-coronavirus-supplies

Australia’s Prime Minister has been much better, despite similar political views, and despite the support of the Murdoch Empire. The Australian PM may have tried to model himself on Trump but he appears never to have been in that league and, he seems to have improved since the bushfire debacle, which is a good sign he can learn to be better.

Our main source of infection in Australia seems to have been people from the Ruby Princess cruise ship. There are questions as to why they were allowed to dock, including allegations that it could dock because it had Hillsong Church friends of the Prime Minister’s on board, and because home affairs intervened to let them dock. Whatever the results of the current police investigation, it should never have been allowed to dock once, never mind twice. But anyone can make a mistake. So it could be a mistake. A severe one, but a mistake.

We now know that unfortunately, many Qantas flights into the country had infected crews, because apparently crew have not had to quarantine if it turns out there were infected passengers on board. Another mistake, but its not sure whether that is the regulator or the business’ fault. Again another mistake.

Border force, or whoever is responsible, should also have been doing the kind of temperature checks in Australia that you get at overseas airports by distance, or forehead, thermometers. I’ve no idea what has been happening in the US. These thermometers have been available for years. The government has now finally started to take temperatures (I know people who came into the country two weeks ago, and they were checked everywhere other than at Sydney). Apparently the new temperature checks are being done manually – which does risk transmission without extraordinary care, and anecdotally this care is not happening. IF this is the case, and has been for more than a day or so, then it is monumentally stupid as well.

It also would have been good for the Government not to encourage queues of people at Centrelink offices, as that was not helpful, but again that was a mistake anyone could have made – initially. It helps you to make that mistake if you think Centrelink’s prime purpose is to punish people on welfare, but this could be changed. How long the mistake lasted or whether it is still happening, seems to be a subject of dispute and its not like the Republicans in Wisconsin forcing people to queue to vote, despite any rational person knowing at this stage this would be a problem and increase the seriousness of the epidemic. But then Republicans apparently ‘know‘ that mailing the votes in, which allows better checking for voter fraud, would mean no Republicans would be elected. I personally think that some Republicans would be elected, but the fear and the preference to sacrifice voters to power is extraordinary. Let us hope this event was just massive incompetence, instead.

It is probably a good idea to argue for random temp checks of the populace, as well as as much coronavirus testing as possible, although to excuse the PM we have not yet built up supplies of reliable checks (it’s not easy, and you need a decent sample size, and duration of testing to find if a test is working properly). Certainly this action is better than the current chorus of righteous demands for old people to die so the economy can get going. People over 60 have lived their lives don’t you know – but even Trump seems to realise that is probably not a vote winner – especially if older people are his main voters, and they all die off.

The Australian prime minister has been incredibly fortunate. If it had been a Labor person acting as he has done, we would be hearing nothing but screaming about how the party was sacrificing Australia’s economy and prosperity and how it was all financially irresponsible, a suppression of liberty, and an encouragement of dole bludging. But he isn’t, so thankfully he can be largely be left to get on with what is necessary. He has also been lucky that Peter Dutton has been sick with coronavirus and Tony Abbott is outside parliament and that Abbott has only been trying to take credit for it all, which is pretty mild for him.

I’d personally would have preferred it if Morrison had not tried to shut parliament so that there was no supervision or questioning of the government. There are many ways around the contagion problem, as nearly every office based workspace has discovered, and we could still function as some kind of participatory democracy.

So the US and Australia are different, and we are left with the proposition that all neoliberalisms are not equally deadly in every situation.

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US, Australia and Coronavirus

April 10, 2020

Now these are the figures at this moment 10 April 2020. They could change, but they seem to speak for themselves.

The US population is about 334,000,000 and the Australian population is about 26,000,000 (as you can imagine population figures are a bit slippery). So the population of the US is about 13 times greater than that of Australia.

The figures come from wikipedia today. That sources seems to be being updated regularly, and currently is compatible with other sources… but will be changed, so don’t expect the same figures if you look.

First case of coronavirus in the US announced 20th Jan.
First case in Australia 25th Jan. So pretty comparable.

Current confirmed cases in US: 469,021
Current confirmed cases in Aus: 6,109
The US has 77 times as many confirmed cases as Aus.

Current deaths in the US 16,675
Current deaths in Aus 54

The US has 309 times as many deaths as Australia….

It is highly probably that the US figures are under reported because people can’t afford to get into hospital or see doctors. The ‘at home’ death rate in New York has supposedly risen quite sharply [1], [2].

So to recapitulate, the US has:

  • 13 times the population of Australia
  • 77 times as many cases of coronavirus as Australia, and
  • 309 times as many deaths

Who says all forms of neoliberalism are the same?

Its a complex situation, but does seem like the US is heading for a much worse situation than Australia. Although some reports suggest that Australians love of Easter Holidays will radically stuff up the situation here.

Addenda

Today, 12th April:

he US has suffered more confirmed coronavirus deaths than any other country, and on Saturday was poised to soon reach 20,000 Covid-19 fatalities, new data indicated…

By Saturday evening, Johns Hopkins University’s tally of US Covid-19 fatalities was at 19,877. Italy followed with 19,468. The US was also the first country to report 2,000 deaths in a single day, with 2,108 people dying in the previous 24 hours.

The Guardian 12th April Coronavirus: US overtakes Italy as country with most deaths

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Biased Political Announcement

April 6, 2020

Right wing plan:

1: Make money for, or give money to, your mates.

2: Read Murdoch Empire.

3: Believe Murdoch’s ranters rather than science.

4: Call the ranters “quiet Australians” or “silent majority.”

5: Kick a few powerless people if any are available.

6: Claim to be a victim.

7: Claim anyone who disagrees with you, is:

  • a) politicising the subject,
  • b) drinks white coffee or Chardonnay,
  • c) a traitor,
  • d) a communist seeking tyranny,
  • e) just upset, and of no consequence.

8: Find some one else to blame, who had no power to change anything.

9: Give special treatment to some righteous fundamentalist Christians.

10: Destroy the ecology some more.

11: Ignore feedback from reality.

12: Repeat.

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Pandemic and Climate Action

April 1, 2020

The pandemic has shown the world is quickly able to organise against crisis. Charles Eisenstein claims the pandemic “breaks the addictive hold of normality.” Others propose that the coronavirus has “killed neoliberalism,” changed the practical ideology of neoliberal governments, or changed the world. Neoliberal governments have decided to support workers laid off during the pandemic, even casual workers. Retired politicians in Australia, such as ex-state premier Bob Carr, and ex-leader of the opposition, John Hewson, have been agitating for climate action following the response to the virus. George Monbiot points to the growth of bottom up, and often localised, support actions by ordinary people, as showing that communal processes are not dead. Electricity consumption is going down in some places, air flights have been cancelled, oil remains unburnt despite its low price, CO2 emissions are falling, showing what a low carbon future might look like and so on – although it is not certain that it will be long term.

Many are asking whether these systemic changes can be carried into action on climate. To explore this question we must look at the differences between pandemic, and climate, action.  Some of this may sound cynical, but it is also plausible, and given we do not (and cannot) have full knowledge of what is happening, plausibility may act as a tool to help us uncover the problems we face.

Differences

Monetary

Firstly, few organisations stand to make billions out of ignoring the virus. Cruise ships and airlines are losing money, and therefore could downplay the crisis, but they are fighting against fears that the virus comes from outside (encouraged by right wing politicians and media – the “Chinese virus” etc.), and from travellers being easily identified by authorities as infection vectors, so this is difficult. In Australia, Virgin air, despite not being profitable for seven years, is requesting a $1.4 billion government loan to get it through the pandemic. Qantas has argued that if Virgin receives this money it should “get A$4.2 billion in funds because its revenue is three times larger”. In the US, the government has offered airlines $US29 billion in payroll grants, $US3 billion to contractors and 29 billion in loans. Tony Webber, the former chief economist of Qantas, said “Every airline around the world needs help, it’s not just Qantas and it’s not just Virgin, they will run out of cash eventually.” So airlines have an interest in supporting recognition of the pandemic as it will help keep them in business 

On the other hand, many powerful, wealthy and socially central organisations (fossil fuel, mining and energy companies, car manufacturers, etc.) profit out of downplaying the climate crisis, and may lose financially from recognising it (for instance subsidising fossil fuels would look odd, if governments recognised these fuels are destroying us).

Disruption and pollution

The pandemic disrupts ordinary life styles, while pollution, ecological destruction and fossil fuels help to continue these modes of living, until it’s too late. Pollution and ecological destruction are also frequently less visible, or easier to hide away, than sickness. It is common for pollution and destruction to primarily affect the poor or be located away from large influential populations who might notice it. Coal mines are rarely in central public parks.

Escape

Wealthy and powerful people are less likely to think that they can completely escape the pandemic through their wealth and power; they may even say coronavirus does not care about wealth from within a bathtub with floating rose petals. Well-known people like Prince Charles, Boris Johnson and Australian politician Peter Dutton have caught the disease (as have presumably some of those close to them), although, as none of them have apparently died, they might come to think it has been exaggerated. Doctors have died. Even if you can escape to the high-seas in a well-armed private yacht, you still have to come to land to take in food, water and possibly disease, and you may need treatment.

While the wealthy cannot escape completely the disease will affect poorer people more severely. In the US because they cannot afford health care, or time off, and elsewhere because the essential services workers have to interact with other people and live in more crowded conditions. The rich can isolate much easier.

Precedent

We have dealt with pandemics before, the historical guidelines for action are quite clear, and we know how bad they can get. We have precedents for action on disease, but we only have recent, largely unfamiliar, models for climate change and no heritage of action. Action on disease is habitual and uncontroversial, action on climate is not, as there is no routine.

The timeline and future of a pandemic is pressing and short. Intense immediate action is required, but will probably, although not certainly, be over in a year or less. The timeline within which climate change will become an ongoing crisis is absolutely uncertain, and is not marked by a brief agreed upon period of transition from good to bad, and back again. Most people are able to behave as if climate crisis will be at least 50 years away (rather than that we may have already passed, or be passing, the tipping points), so there is apparently no reason to discomfort ourselves or engage in major political struggles against power and wealth elites now. It is easy, and less painful, to postpone action.

Command and Control

As Charles Eisenstein points out, pandemics can be handled within a ‘command and control’ power structure. Violence and penalties are implemented mainly against the general populace rather than the power elites themselves. Again this is a familiar route and, for some politicians, suspending parliament or democratic process presents them with an opportunity to extend their power, as in Hungary, decrease opposition and bring in business as in Australia, or delay elections and hinder public protests [1], [2], [3],[4] – it is hard to protest if people cannot gather in groups larger than two as in NSW. The chances of absolutely unexpected or unknown consequences from these authoritarian actions seem relatively low. With climate change, the elites resist, the chance of unintended consequences is high, and we are not sure how to proceed, or even if we can proceed, without long term disruption. Command and control is not always the best way of dealing with complex or ‘wicked’ problems, so we would have to develop new modes of acting, which adds to the difficulty of agreement.

The technology for pandemics is generally clear. Quarantine, medical treatment and working on vaccines. We do not have to hope for major breakthroughs to deal with the problem. Climate technologies are new and expensive substitutes for already functional technologies which are strongly tied into modernist power, wealth and energy structures. Climate technologies are resisted by those tied to established technologies, and are not always easy to implement without disrupting more people, as when agricultural land is taken for solar panels. The unintended consequences of these technologies are largely unknown, even if the dire unintended consequences of established technologies are known.

Mess of Information

While lots of disinformation and misinformation circulates about the pandemic, with a possible tendency to wander off into political polarisation, or even US vs China slugfests (apparently to diffuse blame for one’s own group’s, or President’s failings), there are currently no major media organisations, or corporately sponsored think-tanks, promoting an anti-medical agenda. They may want to distract from any role they played in helping the initial situation get out of hand, agitate for special compensation or make political capital out of the aspects of the response, but they are not banking on building a political alliance out of pretending the pandemic is unreal (at least not yet). Even Fox News changed its initial tune, possibly after people in the organisation became ill – although it now seems to be trying to exonerate Trump by implying China is the real source of the US’s problems [1], [2], [3], even if other countries are doing much better in the same situation.

One of the main ways of making money from the pandemic, or attempting to lower fear, is through promoting fake or untested medicines [1], [2], [3], but most large businesses are aware that this could lead them into financial, or legal, trouble. So it is mainly small concerns that benefit from this, but they gain no benefit in denying the pandemic.

An interesting perspective on disinformation is visible through the way that President Trump has changed his stance. His initial reaction was to deny there was a problem, state that it would be over quickly, that criticism of him (or alarm at the virus) was a hoax by the Democratic Party, that it was no worse than the flu, and that everything would be over by Easter. Now he is claiming that “I’ve always known this is a real — this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic”, and if there are less than 200,000 deaths he will have done a good job. “The president repeatedly asserted that millions would have died if he hadn’t stepped in.” He may have made this change by seeing the effects of the virus on hospitals in Queens NY, and infecting people he knows, or because people from Fox told him that there was a problem. This does indicate importance of personal reference, and the vague possibility that he might be able to change track on climate change with equal speed.

Ecological Disruption and Economics

A major problem revealed by the pandemic is how important ecological destruction is to the workings of our system, despite talk of nature sending us a message. In the US the Environmental Protection Authority has announced it will not be policing pollution because of the outbreak (but see this), and rules for fuel efficient vehicles are to be scrapped. The crisis has not stopped, or slowed, the taking away of Native American land, or stopped Amazon’s anti-union, anti-worker’s rights activity [and 1]. “America’s wind and solar industries have been left out of a $US2 trillion economic stimulus package released by the federal government” leading to job losses. Various companies see the pandemic as an excuse to bring back ‘one-use’ plastic bags. Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia have taken the opportunity to outlaw disruptions of ‘critical’ infrastructure‘, which includes oil and gas fields, through protest or ‘riot’. Building the Keystone pipeline will begin, despite the dangers of pandemic, with massive investments and loans from the Alberta government, and was welcomed in Montana as bringing jobs shut down by the pandemic, as if contagion did not apply to construction work. One paper claimed that “

The construction of the pipeline is deemed critical infrastructure by the US Department of Homeland Security and therefore is allowed to continue as planned provided measures are implemented and followed for safety under current orders.

Other promotions of US fossil fuel continued.

[T]he Interior Department wrapped up an auction to sell oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico, offering up some 78 million offshore acres ― an area roughly the size of New Mexico. It proved to be a bust, bringing in approximately $93 million for just shy of 400,000 acres, the smallest total for an offshore auction since 2016…..

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a panel voted 2-1 to rubber-stamp construction of both the Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas export terminal in Oregon’s already-polluted Coos Bay, and the 230-mile Pacific Connector Pipeline. The decision, The Oregonian reported, stunned Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D), who warned that the state had not yet approved permitting in the midst of a national emergency.

Huffington Post 21st March 2020

Former US Energy Secretary Rick Perry warned that warned that US fossil fuel companies were under threat of collapse due to lack of demand and flooding of cheap oil imports.

I’m telling you, we are on the verge of a massive collapse of an industry that we worked awfully hard over the course of the last three or four years to build up to the number one oil and gas producing country in the world, giving Americans some affordable energy resources

Fox News 1 April 2020

Perry also warned of the collapse of the shale gas industry, and suggested government intervention. Other commentators say that the shale gas and fracking industry in the US has never made a profit: “companies spent $189 billion more on drilling and other capital expenses over the past decade than they generated from selling oil and gas.” Fox news reports that the fossil fuel industry and “our energy workers” are supporting the fight against the pandemic by providing energy, and they are threatened by ingratitude and any Green New Deal. So it is conceivable crisis money may be used to defend established corporations against the consequences of destructive and foolish investments, or their refusal to branch out into new forms of energy or more environmentally friendly business. Below-cost oil could also undermine energy transitions.

A $2tn US coronavirus relief package will dole out billions…. and offer low-interest loans that fossil fuel companies could compete for – without requiring any action to stem the climate crisis.

The Guardian 27 March 2020

Despite the ideology that the free market comes first, neoliberals have always been prepared to bail out and support or build up, established, and well connected, wealthy companies, and it seems like the justification for a intensification of that process is beginning. Therefore, we should probably check all the spending of taxpayers’ money to make sure it is not just the normal transfer from ordinary taxpayers upwards.

The trend of defending the past is not just manifested in the US under Trump. China issued permits for more new coal-fired energy stations in the first three weeks of March 2020 than for all of 2019 and has halved subsidies for renewables to balance the budget. The virus has slowed solar installation in Australia’s Victoria. In NSW, an Independent Planning Commission inquiry into the Narrabri gas fields will be launched despite difficulties for audiences or public participation. Coal mining has been approved under Sydney’s reservoirs. So far in NSW, building of toll-roads does not seem to have been affected by quarantine restrictions. The Federal Government is “agreeing to stimulate demand for a fossil fuel” to keep the price stable. The International Energy Agency has warned that political action to deal with the virus could derail the energy transition.

Perhaps the pandemic has been used to cover these economic actions, perhaps they are seen as necessary to recover ‘ordinary destructive order’ after the pandemic. Whatever the case, it does seem that without a lot of political pressure and action from ordinary people, the historical devotion to environmental destruction will continue, even though the pandemic has demonstrated the possibility of enacting radical and rapid social and economic change, largely for the public good.

Conclusion

So we know the modern neoliberal state can act swiftly and intervene in the Economy and life, but what have we learnt of the difficulties of acting on climate?

We have to be prepared for resistance from wealthy and powerful elites, who can pretend that their mode of destruction is necessary for the continuance of contemporary life and its improvement. For them, postponing the appearance of crisis is important for contemporary life to continue, as is postponing the realisation that climate change and ecological destruction affect everyone. If the economy is destroyed through environmental destruction, there is little in the way of further wealth production.

Bringing realisation of the crisis into the lives of the power and wealth elites is important, as they generally see prosperity as arising from their actions rather than destruction, and the media tends to reinforce this, only partially accurate, attitude. The crisis affects them, and their businesses, and they should not expect to be bailed out, when they fail.

Everyone, even the wealthy, is vulnerable to this ecological destruction. This is an important message. It is also important to make people aware of the harsh normality of this irreparable destruction rather than to participate in its cover-up. People should be encouraged to keep protesting against things like the Sydney coal mines and the destruction of water tables, online and through letters, even if they cannot gather safely together. They need to keep trying to hold governments and businesses, accountable for their actions and their spending, whatever is happening elsewhere, and to keep organising themselves to provide support for each other, both physical and emotional. We cannot assume that money will be spent primarily to defend people rather than big business.

Personal experience seems able to change misinformation. When the problem hits misinformers and the problem affects them, their associates or their local areas, then change can come. From Trump and Fox, we know people can do a u-turn while pretending otherwise. There is no point berating them for their previous misinformation, but there is a point to encouraging the spread of reality and accurate information. This does not stop overseas interests from trying to interfere and disrupt connective action, but it will lessen their impact.

There is a romantic glory in fighting against established power. This is the case with fighting for climate action and needs to be made more of. At the moment, the romantic vision is commandeered by the power and wealth elites, in an unlikely pretense of fighting against all powerful science and socialism.

We need to explore how previous civilisations fought against ecological destructions and learn from them, whether they failed or not. This gives us experience we don’t have.

Managerial theory is finally trying to get beyond command and control, to encourage bottom up organisation of the kind that is occurring spontaneously in the pandemic. People naturally function in co-operation as well as competition, but our neoliberal societies discourage co-operation unless it is organised from above, probably because of the fear of revolution or loss of elite property – after all property is a fiction usually imposed by violence and the right to exclude others, and if people refuse to co-operate with the violence and exclusion, then property could get shared and the profit appropriated be diminished.

Community democracy and self-organisation is important to fighting environmental destruction. Few people want their own living spaces to be poisoned. Neoliberalism dismisses this resistance out of hand as NIMBYism (unless it is a new industry like windfarms), in effect saying that corporate profit justifies the destruction. But if you can’t object to your own way of life and your environment being destroyed, when can you object? and if you can collectively organise your environment to be more pleasant and liveable and sustainable, and safe from corporate exploitation and destruction, is that not good?

Finally, most people do not realise the ways that contemporary forms of economic activity destroy their home. This, to me, seems a major point of understanding. Once people get this reality, and it is a reality, then they can truly start to wonder if there is another way of conduct manufacture and trade, which retains freedom to trade with lack of permission to destroy and imperil everyone. Human logic, and civilisational experience, implies there is. So we need to discover the rules by which this new game can be played – and it probably comes down to fluid democracy again, rather than to command and control businesses devoted to authoritarian ways of proceeding.

So climate action is connected to freedom to live, and to freedom to act with others, and by oneself, without being imperiled by corporate power, or by the governments that support that power over the people.

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The old just die out…. and things get better

March 27, 2020

There is an argument going around that all we have to do to solve the climate problem is to wait for all the old people to die off.

Most versions of the theory just assume this is completely obvious and needs no justification, however, one version of it goes something like this: Thomas Kuhn in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions shows that arguments and experiments by new scientists never produce a paradigm shift, or a shift in world view, but the old scientists just die off, and as they die the new view takes over. (I’m not actually sure that is an entirely accurate way of summarising Kuhn’s work, but it is a possible way of summarising parts of it).

The position assumes that all old people are the problem, not some older people, and that the only important factor is age, not social patterning, technological positioning and lock-in, power and class, ideologies, economic hierarchies etc. Just old people.

In reality, only particular powerful and probably wealthy older people are a problem, and they are generally representatives of groups of people, both old and young, and that group benefits from generating the climate problem, sees themselves as benefiting from what causes the climate problem, cannot see how to live without generating climate change, or thinks change is more costly than non-change like Bjorn Lomborg does. So this idea deletes a lot of social and political reality, and that is never good.

This generation war meme, is nowadays, used to explain almost anything, from crap jobs, to lack of housing, to broadcast music, and it is distracting people from other social dynamics which are probably more important. That is probably why it is encouraged; just as ‘progressives’ in the US are being taught to focus on Joe Biden’s weaknesses rather than Trump’s massive failures.

It works, without having to be thought about, because most spirited young people have problems with their parents and parental restrictions, and it can easily feel like their parents, and old people in general, are the cause of many of their problems, so why not add a few more to the list?

As well as cultivating unconsciousness, and misdirecting anger, the meme acts to prevent alliances and all of this benefits the established groups with wealth and power. We can observe that many climate protests are full of older people and quite young people.

As far as the power hierarchy goes these young and old people, must be prevented from allying, after all experienced demonstrators could probably teach a few effective tactics and give a few cautions, like taking heroin is not radical :).

There don’t seem to me many middle period people at demonstrations, and these people are the next generation to come to power, and if this problem is all about generational movement, you could expect things to get worse rather than better, because of this apparent disinterest. But I suspect many midlife people are busy with children and other stuff, and they are as varied as anyone else, and as open to alliances as everyone else. So they should not be ignored – and they vote.

Anyway, even if dying off, bought positive changes on some occasions, it does not mean it is beneficial all the time. The changes from die off could also be negative. When the old union-based democratic socialists died off you got the neoliberals, stagnant wages, lowered conditions of labour, political exclusion and heightened environmental destruction. Not necessarily an improvement for everyone.

As far as I can tell one of the problems with the youth rebellion of the 60s was precisely that they thought that they would inevitably win, as the old faded away to almost quote The Who. The problem was that real hippies and revolutionaries, although they represented the image of a generation, were probably at the most, 10% of the population. Other people their age, where roughly carrying on previous traditions and views, so no radical change in general could be expected (although feminism and anti-racism became relatively mainstream despite the recent fight backs), and the right found the way of splitting the radicals through libertarianism and anti-Statism, which seamlessly merged into neoliberalism and environmental destruction…. and led to where we are now.

In summary: Youth movements cannot assume they can win simply by old people dying off. They can lose a large number of supporters through those deaths, and the struggle continues anyway against their own generation, because they cannot assume that their own voices and beliefs are those of the majority of that generation. And the fight may really be against social processes, destructive economics, and power/energy relations, and those are what have to change.

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Lomborg cannot be blamed for this

March 25, 2020

The article by Bjorn Lomborg I discussed recently was followed by an editorial in the same Newspaper which significantly distorts Lomborg’s position, twists it into total denial, and do-nothingness, and shows the dangers of that position once it becomes political and is used to argue much harder and far more incoherently than Lomborg himself.

The editorial asserted that the problem with the bushfires was simply their visibility through social media. There was no mention of the clouds of smoke dust and ash which hung around the city making the fires visible to everyone outside social media, of course. Presumably we are expected to have short memories.

The other problem was apparently the unscrupulous “climate evangelists” who were prepared to exploit this visibility through social media: “People have promoted misinformation to push a policy barrow.”

We might even be able to agree with this, but it may not only be the climate activists who have promoted misinformation, or even illogic, for political reasons.

Use of the word unprecedented has been instrumental; by politicians, activists and journalists. It has been deployed since November last year in an attempt to invoke climate change as the root cause of the fire disasters.
This has been contrived and dishonest.

The editorial argues that the reality is that the fires were a once in a generation experience, but we have them all the time (yes the argument was that coherent). They continue by suggesting that maybe the fires were unprecedented, but not all of the fires were unprecedented, so none of them were unprecedented. There have been lots of fire disasters in Australian history, so to say that this one was unprecedented, is dishonest.

Fires are not a new threat, and, even if they were, they cannot be neutered by climate policy, they will still exist.

This is proven by Bjorn Lomborg:

annual areas burned by bushfire across our continent are on a clear downward trend; and this year’s total, so far, is well below average.

Presumably what we are to conclude from all this, is that all fires are similar, and no Australian fire could ever be unprecedented in its intensity or spread, because there have been fires previously. Area of blaze is more significant than intensity of blaze. So nothing to worry about here…

Let me repeat Prof. Lomborg gives no evidence for his assertions about decline in fire areas, and does not explore alternative explanations for these figures. He merely asserts there is evidence. He may be right. He may have irrefutable evidence. But from that article we do not know.

The editorial does admit that the drought probably had something to do with the fires, but the drought is “not directly linked to climate change” – we have droughts don’t cha know? The fires could have been influenced by high temperatures and strong winds which also apparently have nothing to do with climate change. Fires were also caused by “Natural and human-induced ignition, and heavy fuel loads because of insufficient hazard reduction”. So the ‘natural’ apparently makes it ok or inevitable, and the human implies that it was all the fault of arsonists. No mention of the fact that the fire service could not find many wet or cool months to do the hazard reduction, with the addition that that had nothing to do with climate change either. Perhaps three denials of climate change in a row would look to be pushing it.

People also built houses in the bush and were not prepared. So there you are: its all the fault of the NSW State government for not finding the right times for burning, and if people had not built houses in the bush there wouldn’t have been any blaze. No they are not arguing that latter point, but they are probably trying to diminish the number of properties destroyed – by implying it was all the home owner’s fault for being stupid or unprepared. That is what I would call politicising the fires at the cost of the victims…. which is a recurrent theme of theirs used to berate people for talking about climate change.

The editorial remarks that in the good old days we would have all come together with “the all-too-familiar smell of bushfire smoke” but this time the evil greenies split us apart and those days of unity and uniform agreement with Mr Murdoch are gone forever.

Then we learn the crisis was magnified by the mainstream green left-oriented media (!!!) who are hell bent on getting revenge on the Coalition for winning an election. This ‘Love media’ includes channel 9 and “online Twitter feeders such as Guardian Australia.” (‘Love’ obviously has some unique The Australian meaning here.) And there were other jejune people on social media reporting what they experienced as “social media memes”.

“Displaying the corporate and professional memories of goldfish, they gave us a sickeningly revisionist perspective” in which climate change was relevant to the fire, when all sensible people know it was not, even if they didn’t at the time.

This green left media deliberately discourages tourism and politicises everything by disagreeing with us. They engage in abuse! People will eventually see this overreach of climate activists and come back to supporting the government – and we can live in natural harmony once more….

“Facts do matter.” Yes they do whatever the editorial writer asserts,

Whatever climate policies are adopted in Australia, they cannot change our climate because global emissions are still rising sharply.

Yes and they will continue to rise rapidly as long as we have editorials like this, prepared to sacrifice everyone and everything for the continuance of a failed and flailing order.

“Alarmism is the order of the day”. No, unfortunately this kind of editorial silliness is the order of the day: extremism posing as rationality; the victim blamers pretending to be the victim; politicisation pretending to be apolitical and dispassionate.

If “alarmism” was the order of the day, we would have policies to deal with climate change and its consequences. We would be phasing out coal mining, we would not be talking about new coal power stations, we would be limiting land-clearing and deforestation, we would be discussing how to protect our low lying areas from sea level rises, we would be building new energy grids, we would be clarifying energy regulations in consultation with industry and communities, we would enable rather than hinder community energy, we would discontinue subsidies for fossil fuel mining, we would be seriously investigating regenerative agriculture and so on. The fact that we are not doing any of these things suggests that denial, and fossil fuel companies reign supreme.

Apparently this editorial describes what many politicians might believe, or believe it is safe to believe…

To finish with a remark from Lomborg on the glaring inadequacies of the Paris agreement:

President Trump…. failed to acknowledge that global warming is real and wrongly claimed that China and India are the “world’s leading polluters.” (China and the U.S. are the largest emitters of carbon dioxide, and the U.S. is the biggest per capita.)… the White House now has no response to climate change….

The real misfortune for the planet isn’t that Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris treaty. Rather, it is that his administration has shown no interest in helping to launch the green-energy revolution that the world so urgently needs.

Wall Street Journal 17 June 2017

Just like the Murdoch Empire.

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On Pandemics

March 25, 2020

This is just what I’ve put together from various sources, to make some things clear, which do not seem clear in much public discourse about the coronavirus so far… It also represents a change of view for me. This is a general consideration of disease. If its wrong, or seriously inadequate then please let me know, so I can change it…. I’m not an expert.

Probably not good to think about, if you are truly scared in the first place.

1) The problem with disease is not just the death rate. If for instance a virus has 100% death rate but kills one person, then it’s probably no big deal.

2) An important factor/problem is the contagion rate. If the disease is communicated to 80% of the population, as opposed to 10% of the population then its death rate, even if smaller, may be more serious than that of a disease which is hard to catch. If for example it infects 80% of 24 million people that is 19.2 million people. If the death rate is 1% then that is 190,000 people dead and a hell of a lot of overfull hospitals and overworked medical staff. If the virus spreads quickly which it probably will with a high contagion rate then all of these cases happen in a relatively short period of time, further overwhelming the health system (and probably most other social systems). Another virus may have a 10% death rate but be harder to catch and only be communicated to less than 1% of the population… 1% of 24 million people is 240,000 people, 10% of that is 24,000 dead. The first virus is probably more significant, even with a lower death rate – everything else being equal.

This is the big difference between coronavirus and SARS. SARS is far more lethal, but it is much harder to catch. Coronavirus seems very easy to catch, and so will spread further and probably kill more people.

3) The third problem is what I’ll call the incapacity rating of the disease (there is almost certainly a proper medical term for this, but i’m not a doctor – as should be obvious). This is when, perhaps, few people die, but lots of people are really seriously ill, need care, or would die without treatment. Theoretically a disease could exist which may not kill or injure people if they had decent hospitalisation. So the hospitals fill up with people who would probably recover. In this factor we can include diseases which do not kill people, but leave them severely disabled, or incapacitated – this stresses social and medical mechanisms, again – especially if patients all turn up in a short period. Diseases can have both high death rates and high incapacity rates, there is no reason to assume its one or the other.

Many people and politicians seem to be only interested in the death rate, and ignore the serious problems that arise from points 2 and 3. Even if the death rate is low, there can be a case for physical isolation.

4) The fourth problem I know of is the mutation rate. Viruses are particularly prone to mutation. This one has apparently (and the apparently means i don’t know for sure, its just something i read) mutated from an animal virus, to an animal to human virus, to a human to human virus, and now to a multi-variety virus. It is much harder to develop immunity and vaccines against such viruses. This is one reason why we can be affected by flu year after year.

There is a possible good thing about a quickly mutating virus, if it can propagate without killing people, and killing or injuring people stops its spread, then it may well evolve to be less harmful in the long run, but more easily catching. However, this cannot be guaranteed, and a lot of people might be severely incapacitated in the process.

5) Pandemics may need to be treated seriously, even if they do not seem so bad at first, until we work out all these different factors.

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Spirit, soul, flesh and the climate crisis

March 24, 2020

The issue of spirituality again….

There seems to be a lot of people claiming that ‘materialism’ is the problem and ‘spirituality’ is the solution. It is not always clear what they mean by either of these terms, but these terms are binary, and define the other by what it is not. To the materialist the spirit is nothing, and to spiritualists matter is nothing. But both form a category based division of the world, which depends on each other for their meaning and sense of reality.

As I’ve discussed before binary and ‘mono-ary’ thinking are reductive. You seem to need at least three terms to start thinking non reductively, and even then it is difficult not to reduce one’s thought to the one or the two. You may always need a prime number of terms, to begin to avoid the reduction into binaries. A four term layout may easily reduce to two binaries and so on.

With the two terms, spirit and matter, we generate ‘opposites’ and ‘oppositions’, in which one term is valued more than the other, rather than complements, but you cannot have one without the other, even if they go as far as to deny or slancer the other to give themselves meaning.

James Hillman tries to broaden thinking and perceptions, by using the old Christian terms ‘soul’ (psyche), ‘spirit’ (pneuma) and ‘flesh’ (sarx or apparently sometimes soma although this latter could mark some further differentiation ). For a long time, it has seemed odd to me that this triadic distinction gets reduced to spirit and matter, especially if you hold that God is a Trinity, which was the official position….

In Western Culture, in a slightly modified use of Hillman’s terms, ‘spirit’ is the force of ascension – that which tries to leave the world and the flesh behind. It is that which is convinced its true habitation is elsewhere in spiritual clarity of pure mind and, at the extreme, sees the flesh as a prison, a tomb, or as unreal, by comparison with the freedom, might, power and reality of spirit. Often, with visions of the spirit, individuality, isolation, etc dies in the realisation of that spirit, in its “oneness”.

Soul, on the other hand, is that which seeks meaning in the dark, in the depths, of feeling, imagery and in recognition of our unconscious. It seeks the light of nature. It is the descent into and through the flesh into this world.

It could easily be suggested, that in these terms, pure spirituality is destructive of the flesh and the body. It is the parent of lack of care for the Earth, for the trope of abandoning the Earth or destroying the prison of the Earth. In its view ‘positivity’ overcomes everything, because the world and the flesh have no mind, no thought, no real being, they are at best obstacles for spirit which have to be overcome to reach our real home in immaterial spirit and God.
In other words, the problem with our world is not materialism, but the spirituality which generates materialism as an opposite, as part of its path of ascent away from matter. It, as a matter of course, generates ecological crisis, because it has no care for such things. Nature is irrelevant. We can gather in thousands to glorify the spirit in the midst of plague and no harm will befall us.

On the other hand, again in these terms, soul accepts the reality of the world and our literal attachment to the world. It accepts it is part of the flesh, and feels the flesh, and is the ‘salvation of the flesh’ perhaps through suffering. As love it is sensitive to the movements of matter and flesh, and the images that arise from matter and are transformed and recombined by the soul into its visions, and translate the unknown and unconscious into something it can intimate. The world has meaning through its synthesis with soul. The soul does not turn away from misery, but does its best to help, and its idea of help is not to increase their suffering so that they die into spirit, but for them to live with what is, and what can be improved and transformed as in alchemy. The soul sees the divine as here already, and not as about to leave. It may even produce the divine that is here. The soul sees the golden light and mind of matter. Soul tends ecologies because it expresses them and loves them as its basis.

If we wanted to, we could say that the approach of the soul does not create a barren materialism, like the approach of spirit, but a divine materialism in which the word is made flesh, and flesh becomes the word, and is alive.

Where we to go further, we could say that this triad is a model of continual circulation. That matter is ‘coarser’ spirit and spirit ‘refined ‘matter, but never separate, and the soul is a perspective on this dynamic procession.

We descend into the world and the flesh to find experience and to imagine, think, feel, pleasure and exist, and then move into the spirit bringing what we have learnt to learn again, and then return to the flesh, bringing what we have learnt to learn again. And this is not just ‘between lives’ for those who believe in reincarnation, but within the one life. The soul holds us together feeling and imagining all as we progress. But none of the three exist apart, and cannot exist apart without collapse. The procession is circular.

Separating the flesh and spirit, which the spirit does so easily is a form of death, recombining within soul is a form of enlivening, and thus the cycle continues and the earth is continually reborn, in reality and in our eyes.

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On Joe Biden and Donald Trump

March 19, 2020

Joe Biden is not my favourite Presidential candidate, but I’m not American, so I don’t get to vote for him anyway. I do however seem surrounded by people who say that there is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, and that Biden is a senile, plagerising, neoliberal warlord, and that there is no point voting for him. Or they say that he is only the Democrat candidate because of mysterious machinations by elite Democrats who want everything to stay the same. They neglect the painful fact that he seems to have won more votes than Bernie Sanders, and a lot more votes than Tulsi Gabbard, who despite having gained a mere 2 delegates when last I heard, is supposed by some to be a sure election winner.

In my opinion, these people are following the Republican line which is being directed to ‘the left’, and which I have pointed to quite a lot – that is “there is no difference between the sides”, especially if you look at foreign policy, so you might as well refuse to vote for anyone who could win against Trump. “Go on, be really principled and vote for someone who cannot challenge him, and has no chance of victory.”

However, there are always differences. Sure they are not as big, or as many, as I might like, but if you exclusively focus on the similarities then everything will move further rightward, and Trump will remain.

The differences are important. If I had a choice whether to vote for Hitler or Mussolini I would easily vote for Mussolini. Not a perfect choice, but a choice worth making. If I had to vote between Thatcher and Mussolini, I might be harder pressed because of personal issues about Thatcher, but I would still vote for her and relatively happily. If I had to choose between Thatcher and Trump, I would likewise vote for Thatcher. I would vote for Trump before Hitler, but that is with hindsight for Hitler – no one knows what Trump might do in a second term, and I would be worried, but I’d still vote.

So what I ask is for people on the left to please stop pretending there is no difference between Trump and Biden (this is not a mistake made by those on the hard right who support Trump), and to make sure that Trump does not get a second term. If he gets a second term, he can keep showing us how fragile the laws are when it comes to preventing a President being above the Law, and that is probably not a good thing.

We now know that it is not a problem for the President to make money from policies and position.

We now know a President can escape from an impeachment case even being heard, if he has enough people in the Senate who put victory ahead of principle, and use their legal right not to hear evidence or witnesses to see if there is a problem.

We now know a President can self-declare that charges against them, have no merit and command members of his administration not to testify even when called by the house.

A President can, we now know, refuse to answer questions, brought up by the house, and certainly does not have to be questioned face to face.

We know that attempts by a President to obstruct justice are apparently ok, even if they involve attempts to blackmail a foreign power.

We know a President will not be charged with crimes or frauds, even if the case against them is open and shut, as with running his charities for his personal financial benefit, and even if the crime is admitted by that President in public, as it was with seeking Russian aid to win an election.

We know that there is no problem if associates of the President are convicted of crimes and fraud.

We know a President can pardon criminals, so nobody who has committed crimes with him need fear any charges, provided they keep loyal to him.

We know there is no penalty for a President lying continually, or threatening to revoke, or wildly reinterpret, the US constitution.

Given he did all this in his first term, what will the second term bring?

Ask yourself, do you want more of this? And….

  • Do you want a climate policy or not?
  • Do you want health care for people or not?
  • Do you want to cut social security or not?
  • Do you want even more military spending or not?
  • Do you want more tax cuts for wealthy people and increases for lower income people or not?
  • Do you want somebody who cannot take advice or not?
  • Do you want walls around your borders or not?
  • Do you want kids separated from parents or not?
  • Do you want a President who encourages racism, sexism and hard-line rightist Christianity or not?
  • Do you want public education or not?
  • Do you want a President who actively campaigns against science and accurate knowledge or not?
  • Do you want a President who encourages pollution and poisoning, restarts discontinued harmful projects and champions environmental destruction or not?
  • Do you want a President who abuses and threatens everyone who disagrees with him or not?
  • Do you want a President who betrays US allies such as the Kurds, and openly prefers dictators to democratic regimes?
  • Do you want a President who attempts to financially benefit from his position or not?
  • Do you want a President who gets members of his family to work for him, even if they have no experience or qualifications, or not?
  • Do you want a President who tries to obstruct investigations into himself or not?

If these things don’t bother you, then I guess keep saying that there is no point exchanging Trump for anyone else and that the Democrats are completely corrupt and watch the Republicans win and win, and the left lose and lose.

Up to you Americans.

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