Difference between Democrats and Republicans...

... from the perspective of the 2020 elections:

planet earth = terminally ill cancer patient suffering great pain

treatment options from Republicans/Democrats:
Republicans: assisted suicide
establishment Democrats (party organization): non-prescription analgesics and smiles
progressive Democrats: try to push patient into remission... that will buy time to try to find a cure

Monoculture of nation-states

Barack Obama held a town hall in Berlin recently. [As an aside, his intelligence and oration are such a refreshing contrast to POTUS DJT.] Part of his answer to a question was (~20:10):

[in a democracy]... you never get 100% of what you want...

So far as it goes, this is true. But there also seems to be the presumption that what the consensus agrees to is the 'right' or 'best' answer... what if it's not? The political consensus on nuclear weapons had the U.S. build and stockpile thousands of nuclear warheads, enough to push the entire planet into nuclear winter several times over. And the slow pace of political solutions to climate change would see the likely decimation of the human population due to wars, famines and disease brought about by climate disruption before a 'political' solution is considered.

This reminds me much of the dangers of agricultural monoculturing, when corporate commercial farming grows only the most productive/mechanization friendly strain of any single crop and through their neglect, lose the genetic diversity of less 'useful' strains. Small farms will grow other strains for other reasons (flavor, growth conditions, resistance, etc.). Monoculturing only preserves the information of one strain while the vast information in other strains are lost. Nation-states are similar in that the ideas and memes of the powerful become dominant and other ideas are muted to the point of loss. The lack of diversity in ideas and approaches also means little to no opportunity to test social solutions. Smaller units of governance means more units of governance which increases diversity and diversity/flexibility of thinking is the source of innovation. Small units of governance are flexible in contrast to the rigidity of large nation-states.

Biological Solution?

NPR has reported that photosynthesis has been hacked! Their story focuses on effects on food production... but there may also be a climate effect. These plants grow faster by being better at converting atmospheric carbon dioxide to plant matter. This is a more effective biological method to pull carbon dioxide (the climate change gas) from the air. The next step is long term storage of carbon based plant material in a way that doesn't release climate gases into the atmosphere - essentially 'fossilize' fresh plant material into fossil fuels and minimize its use as energy source.

Get to work scientists!

Daniel Ellsberg interviews

TRNN has a 13 part series posted where Paul Jay interviews Daniel Ellsberg. He essentially says: given current nuclear stockpiles, a nuclear war would set off climate conditions similar to those of the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs. Terrifying. 

My comment in part 9:

In this segment and the last segment, Daniel Ellsberg described a nuclear and war-making policy largely determined by (1) a capitalistic military-industrial-complex whose raison d’etre is the pursuit of profit without regard to consequences and, (2) military commanders whose raison d’etre is ‘victory’, pyrrhic and otherwise. The absence of morality is so striking that the only rational conclusion is that the MIC and military consists solely of sociopaths. This would also explain their absolute resistance to rational reform their war planning. 

The performance of DJT as POTUS has illustrated the need to consider the mental health status of presidential candidates. This series of interviews highlights the need for a similar mental health review for leaders in other areas including military and industry {such as MIC). Sociopaths might make the best commanders for immediate [hot] combat, but their lack of empathy, morality and remorse makes them unsuitable for high level leadership positions.

My comment in part 13:

For the vast majority of people without bubble hideouts in New Zealand to wait out a nuclear winter, the only rational response to a nuclear strike is to immediate travels *towards* the first strike zone. Should humanity come to such a pass, it will prove itself not worthy of saving and not deserving of any efforts on its behalf. Let the 'true believers' of rapture inherit the destruction they will have wrought.

New value system needed

Good interview at TRNN with climate scientist Will Steffen.


My comment:

"All of these [efforts to mitigate climate change] need to be underpinned by new value systems that value stabilizing the earth's systems as the highest priority that any economy must strive for." 

This should be the take home message of every economics course/lecture from now on. Economics and the values of economics must be defined beyond goods/services and financial return. My preferred definition of economies are self-organizing and self-sustaining systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that promote the well-being of all participants. Capitalism would not be an acceptable primary economic system under this definition because it is not self-sustaining... using fossil fuels will eventually degrade the environment to the point where it cannot sustain human life as we know it. Placing profit and 'economic growth' above all else is the source of climate change, income inequality, health care crisis and many other social ills. But economies are human made social constructs; humans made/make them, humans can reshape them.

Economic policy is not based on science

Comment at TRNN:

Trump's plan would mean 'a huge increase in the budget deficit primarily to give tax cuts to the richest people in the country,' says economist Dean Baker. 'I don't think most people would think that sounds like a very good idea'
 That climate change is occurring and caused by human activity is at near universal consensus of climate scientists. And it doesn't take a degree in economics to understand that climate change will have devastating effects on economies. One simple equation: climate change = less food = fewer or hungry people = smaller economy. And yet there are economists who argue climate mitigation to too expensive and bad for the economy. According to economists, science is bad economics.  The tax policy DJT is proposing is based on supply-side-economics and the Laffer curve which has essentially no scientific consensus; the Laffer curve doesn't even have units. According to (some) very influential economists, no science is good economics.   So is economics a science or ideology? I once compared science and religion (ideology): While there are some similarities, they are very important and significant differences. Both science and religion arise from the same social need; in the face of complete uncertainty, people want rules of behavior/conduct to avoid catastrophic outcomes. Religions codify collections of old anecdotes into rules of conduct. For example, biblical strictures against adultery/infidelity likely arise from a tragic outcome of a few adulterous incidents. But not all affairs will end in tragedy. This is akin to associating good fortune to a charm because you happened to be wearing it on the day of a good event (promotion, favorite team winning). Religions use anecdotes to predict the future. Scientific conclusions are based on carefully controlled and precisely collected data (if properly controlled, a set of anecdotes is data). Scientific predictions based on data are restricted to well defined circumstances. For example, science predicts two doses of measles vaccine are 97% effective. When sufficiently complete data is available, science is remarkably accurate in its predictions. 

[Climate] Science predicts coming changes in the climate will cause sea levels to rise, increase storm severity, and increase severity of droughts and floods, all of which will negatively impact economies. Most orthodox [neoliberal] economists pooh-pooh the predictive value of [climate] science in favor of data-free economic theories, more ideology than science.

…DJT’s tax plan is nonsense, like almost all economic policy.

Post title: Trump's Tax Cut Plan Alienates His Base

Polluting for Profit

Comment at TRNN at post title, Coal Power Plants are the Largest Source of Toxic Water Contamination: 

Like all forms of industrial pollution, toxic byproducts of coal are driven by economic profit. Producers of polluting fertilizers & agricultural chemicals profit from the sales of these materials to farmers who use it to increase their farm profits. Fossil fuel & petroleum industry extract, process & sell their products for profit. Polluted water, air and climate (including climate change) are all byproducts of profit driven polluting industries. Americans need to understand that mitigating pollution and climate change is not anti-economic. It's a economic evolution analogous to the industrial revolution - change or be left behind. This is particularly important in light of the regressive policies of DJT. The U.S. dominated technological innovation in the past but DJT's retraction from already poor investment in science (cutting funding to FDA, EPA, anti-science rhetoric) and education will decimate any hope of American revival. DJT's business specialty is the making and selling of his brand, *not* cutting edge innovation. He's a good hire to put on a spectacle but lousy at the STEM fields which will drive the economy forward. The choice to pollute [ignore pollution] for profit is an economic decision. The choice to *not* pollute for the sake of profit is also an economic decision. We consumers have the power to influence that choice. Demand transparency; be informed consumers.

Sixth mass extinction

I've written about how ecosystems are a metaphor/model for economies.

In Part 5 of the series, Figure 6 illustrates that economies rely on functioning ecosystems. In this TRNN interview, Professor Gerardo Ceballos talks about his research suggesting an ongoing mass extinction which threatens the stability of many ecosystems. If only for selfish reasons, the future of humanity requires the preservation of natural environments.

Science is based on data

Comment at Down with Tyranny:

"Replace "climate" with "hell" and this would be the same reasoning used for the fire and brimstone version of religion."

This is essentially arguing [climate] science is like religion. While there are some similarities, they are very important and significant differences. Both science and religion arise from the same social need; in the face of complete uncertainty, people want rules of behavior/conduct to avoid catastrophic outcomes. Religions codify collections of old anecdotes into rules of conduct. For example, biblical strictures against adultery/infidelity likely arise from a tragic outcome of one adulterous incident. But not all affairs will end in tragedy. This is akin to associating good fortune to a charm because you happened to be wearing it on the day of a good event (promotion,favorite team winning). Religions use old anecdotes to predict the future. Scientific conclusions are based on carefully and precisely collected data (if properly controlled, a set of anecdotes can form a set of data). Scientific predictions based on data are restricted to well defined circumstances. For example, science predicts two doses of measles vaccine are 97% effective. When suffiently complete data is available, science is remarkably accurate in its predictions.

You have the right to make any choices that affect your individual well being; choose religion if that is your preference. When your actions affect the well being of the larger community, choose the path of minimum harm with most accurate predictive value. Science has proven to be a far better fortune teller than religion.

Worst case climate disruption

New York Magazine has published The Uninhabitable Earth, an article by David Wallace-Wells. Read it.

Gaius Publius at Down with Tyranny has published a commentary. My comment:

(1) Fossil fuels are a substitute for organic labor (humans and animals)... think automobiles vs. walking or horse power; hand tools/assembly vs. power tools/robots; even labor intensive harvesting of wind sailing vs. fuel burning ships. 

(2) Burning fossil fuels was/is en economic issue/problem. The economic argument against mitigating the greenhouse effect has won so far. The solution to climate change must also include an economic solution. 

(3) Ecosystems and environments capable of sustaining human life are the seed corn of all economies. Without ecosystems able to grow food crops, economies cannot and will not exist.

Energy is labor

Controlling/containing climate change is all about energy; all major greenhouse gasses are products of burning fossil fuels. Because economic activity is so dependent on fossil fuels, it has been claimed to keep the planet habitable, we need to shrink the economy. Whether this is true or not depends on the definition of economic activity...

Energy is a form of labor (or labor is a form of energy). Automation + energy = human labor. Easy examples are household appliances: vacuum + electricity = person sweeping with broom; automobile + fuel = human walking. So if energy becomes inaccessible due to climate issues, automation (or other powered machinery) is less available. For producers, the choice is to produce less (less energy) or produce the same or more by employing human labor. Although absolute productivity per worker drops, more people are employed which means more people have money to spend. in other words, economic productivity declines in the face of more economic trade - is that a growth or decline of economic activity?

Regardless, the way we currently consume fossil fuels is unsustainable. It's bad for the climate; it damages the environment when extracted, transported, and consumed.

Circular reasoning

Historian and political economist, Gar Alperovitz, acknowledges the threat of climate change, but his idea to use the Federal Reserve in the form of "quantitive easing, i.e. create money, to take Big Oil companies out of the equation and finance a massive green infrastructure program" is circular reasoning. My comment:

Gar Alperovitz's proposition: A movement to eliminate/minimize the policy influence of the fossil fuel industry by giving them money which they can (and will) use to buy policy influence over another industrial sector... 

Transferring the economic power of the current fossil fuel sector to possibly increasing the economic power of another polluting industry (manufacture/disposal of chemicals, solar panels, agricultural wastes, and drugs are potentially polluting) creates/amplifies another set of pollutants in lieu of heat trapping pollutants.

The climate change issue is an economic issue; so long as profit can be had, the owners of that profit making industry will fight for the 'right to profit'. By maintaining a small group with concentrated power, they will eventually set up another economic imbalance of power that threatens the lives and livelihoods of many workers and their families - in the name of profit. The real solution is to avoid massive concentration of power.

Update: Personal care products are a looming source of water pollution. Prescription drugs are also an area of concern.

Unifying Resistance

A comment I posted at Truthout. It pulls together several themes I've written about here:

"Trump is upping his game, and we, as resisters, aren't ready." 

Yes. It's also time to be proactive as opposed to reactive. But we need to understand the reflex to react and how to step back and see the forest to respond proactively. It's important to understand how politics divides people in both obvious and subtle ways. DJT is a practitioner of confrontational divisiveness; he outright declares his rejection of immigrants, Mexicans, unattractive women, prisoners of war, disabled people, etc. Divide and conquer can also be achieved by more subtle tactics, such as when Republicans and Democrats specifically void the needs of the poor by leaving them out of the debate (or DJT spotlighting the educated with his 'I love the poorly educated').  

The modus operandi of the body politic is to act on the interests of the elite at the expense of the larger population by dividing the larger group. Successful opposition would require some degree of unified resistance which is not the case with single issue movements. I would suggest single issue movements make their case under the umbrella of a larger 'meta' theme for the benefit of the larger overall. For instance, demanding that all policy be based on objective evidence would mean the numbers of gun injuries and deaths factors into gun policy and definitions of corporate personhood would correct for the differential influence such policy would confer on owners. Another useful theme would be to define economies as 'production, consumption and exchange of capital for the sustained wellbeing of humanity'. 'Sustained' would entail policy makers incorporate a long view of policy outcomes - think climate change; 'wellbeing' would require some degree of universal healthcare; and the 'economics' of warfare would be completely invalidated. A final theme would be maximize information transparency. The only way a small group (elites) can concentrate power to any extent is through the control of information. They use propaganda (selective/deceptive use of information) to create divides in the larger population and amplify infighting. Information transparency inoculates against propaganda.  

The resistance movement needs to recognize that although Trump is personally repugnant and vulgar, he is only a figurehead. The real adversaries in the long fight are the power elites.

Redress of disproportionate scale

The primary problem with the economy right now is enormous inequality expressed in many ways. On the meta level, the power of corporations to effect ecosystem scale damage threatens the survival of humanity through its impact on the environment - climate change, air and water pollution, fracking triggered earthquakes, water shortages, etc. My favorite example is the power to literally remove mountains by mountaintop coal mining. Bill Nye describes another example where tar sands oil extraction has denuded one quarter of the visible ecosystem in the Canadian province of Alberta.

As regular readers would know, my preferred solution is to make information fully transparent. Controlling information is how corporations concentrate power. There are two other options which would diffuse the ability of corporations to concentrate power. Neither would be as effective as information transparency but its always good to attack large problems from multiple fronts. One would be to force all corporations to have a fixed expiration dates. Corporations are legal entities. The Supreme Court has given them some personhood rights without the limits that natural persons experience with biologically imposed death. Corporate expiration dates would fix that problem. BTW, because corporations are owned by people, the extension of personhood rights to corporations means owners of corporations have more rights than non-owners. Its surprising this isn't seen as a challenge to one-person-one-vote.

The other option is to limit the size of financial institutions. Banks are tools by which corporations collect/borrow the money/capital to become powerful. No one individual has the money to buy the resources to blow up mountains. By pooling the money of many people, banks can collect the needed funds. Smaller banks can't collect as much money. This would not prevent the concentration of power but it would put up additional barriers because it forces the participation of more players who each would/could add their own conditions.

So not as simple as my preferred open information proposal but perhaps good options to add to the tool chest in opposition to concentrated economic power.

No Principles of Economics?

The latest episode of Economic Update, Where Economic Theories Clash, strongly implies something I feared regarding the field of Economics. In it, Richard Wolff called Neo-classical economics, Keynesian economics and Marxian economics 'theories' of economics which implies they have undergone some form of validation or testing (scientific theories are vigorously tested before they are called 'theories'). But in real economies, each of these 'theories' has failed in one permutation or other. This suggests that Economics has no unifying principles. [To use the physical sciences as an example (again): the Theory of Evolution is a unifying principle in biology - it connects all living organisms and justifies the study of model organisms to better understand life; Atomic Theory is a unifying principle of chemistry - it predicts the behavior of all matter.] An example of a possible unifying economic principle is the presumption that functional economies must yield profit; this would have strong implications for capitalism.

This is particularly troubling when it comes to policy. All public policy is economic policy and it is argued and made on the basis of Economic theory. If Economic theory is as poorly developed as implied above, then for all intents and purposes, Economic theory is ideology without basis in empirical principle. As it stands now, the science of climate change has very strong physical evidence backing it and thus should drive energy policy. In its stead, we have nonsense 'economic' arguments that the cost of protecting the biosphere is 'too expensive'. Policy makers are balancing the future of humanity against the profiteering of capitalists at our ignorance. If science can detangle systems as complex as climate to predicted global climate change, it should be able to apply similar methods to answer the question of how to best structure economies for the sake of mankind. Economies should serve humanity not the other way around.

Accounts due

It common knowledge that climate related treaties do not count all contributions to greenhouse warming when deciding what industrial/economic sectors to target for mitigation. From a political perspective, this may make sense - for example, the politics and narratives of food production makes it a very difficult sector to modify in terms of public opinion and policy. But it is essential that we remember that the physical, geochemical, chemical and biological phenomena of climate change occur independent of human wishes, wants and intent. Natural systems don't care about human societies and politics. Human contributed changes in greenhouses gases alters natures' normal accounting of global climate. Global accounts, or 'books', cannot and will not change just because human policy decides that certain economic sectors are exempt from greenhouse gas mitigation efforts. By granting exemptions, we are essentially creating a false set of greenhouse gas accounts. The real greenhouse gas/ climate change accounts are kept by planet Earth. Cooking the books to ease the passage of international treaties won't save us when the climate accounts are due.

What is an economy?

According to Wikipedia, an economy is an area of the production, distribution, or trade, and consumption of goods and services by different agents in a given geographical location. This came up because I just listened to the NPR story about the recent surge in black lung disease in Appalachia. It seems that the number of cases of advance black lung disease has hugely increased in the past several years even as coal production has dropped. The story ends with a coal miner saying "...if I had it to do over I would do it again, if that's what it took to provide for my family as long as I have."

 That got me thinking of economics on a meta-level: why *do* people work and often choose jobs which endanger their lives. From the coal miner's statement, it's clear that he works because he and his family need to survive. But there's an inherent contradiction in that a job that endangers his life does not support his survival. And that means the standard definition of economy is seriously incomplete. A much better definition would be a self-organizing, self-sustaining social entity that facilitates the production and exchange of surplus goods and services to promote the survival and wellbeing of all participants.

True economies take into account public heath issues and would not support the production, exchange and profiting from goods which harm public health. True economies would not support the production, exchange and profiting from goods which endanger nations of individuals. True economies would not support the production, exchange and profiting from goods which endanger the health of their workers, their children or their near and distant neighbors. True economies would not would not support the production, exchange and profiting from goods which destroy the life sustaining ecosystem of the planet.

Most of what the modern world calls 'economy' are not economies but more accurately defined kleptocracies which enable a small elite group to concentrate power. The innate consequence of the corruptive capacity of power ensures the elite will further concentrate their power, wealth and influence at the expense of workers and environment. Kleptocracies ensure economies are neither self-sustaining nor promote the survival and wellbeing of all participants.

Economic ideology of climate change

I posted a comment at Truthout:

The most neglected aspect of the climate crisis is its economic root. It's in the interest of the highly profitable fossil fuel industry to (1) push climate denial to preempt the cost of mitigation and/or loss of sales/profits; (2) promote pipeline projects to decrease their transportation costs, thus boost profits; (3) find more sources of fossil fuels to extract and sell for profit and (4) sell as much fossil fuel products as possible to maximize profit (this includes minimizing energy efficiency).

Economic ideology is the primary driver of human behavior and, as it stands now, corporate capitalism rules. Regardless of the [good] intentions of bioconservatism, it cannot override the powerful forces of fossil fuel capitalism. The only way to specifically target the fossil fuel industry is to make it unprofitable. Another way is to redirect current economic ideology away from power concentration in the elite class (oligarchs and the 1%-ers).

The biggest problem with industrial pollution (includes climate change) is scale. Large powerful nations enable large powerful corporations which extend their reach into international markets to become international conglomerates. By pooling the monies of many investors, small numbers of executives have the power to use and do use these huge sums to profit at any means and that includes polluting the environment with their toxic outputs. If economies were structured so that power is  disseminated in a way that prevents it from being concentrated in the hands of a few elites, industry could only operate on a small scale. And small scale produces less pollution.

Economic drivers of humanitarian aid

One of the major themes that run through many of these posts is how entwined economic decisions are with all personal, cultural and political life at essentially all levels. A recent interview at NPR brought to mind some of the links between economics and humanitarian aid.

Firstly, the need for humanitarian aid is often (but not always) the direct or indirect outcome of economically driven policy. Two major examples: (1) war refugees - war is often waged to forcefully take resources from another sovereign nation. Civil wars are internal conflicts for control of resources. All wars have economic winners and losers. (2) climate refugees - victims of climate change intensified natural phenomena (droughts, storms, etc.); refugees whose native ecosystem can no longer grow the food needed for survival. Climate change is the consequence of economies spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere through the consumption of fossil fuels to make stuff. The fossil fuel industry and all fossil fuel powered industry have profited from this.

Three telling points/quotes from the interview:

"In your report, you found that conflicts last two times longer than they did in 25 years ago..." 

"...the aid sector is bigger than it's ever been before, with 4,500 known relief organizations around the world..."

"...Organizations have become businesses in many ways, held back by interests that are very corporate. Success is not measured in terms of the quality of the aid you provide, or how much you're working in partnership with other NGOs. It's about how many places you're in, how much staff you have, how much is in your budget..."

Put together, it seems that rich powerful players extract wealth from the poor to the point where they exist at the barest edge of survival and forced into the position of needing external aid (aid refugees). These rich powerful people then 'very generously' donate tiny amounts of the wealth they've extracted from the aid refugees to boost their charitable/humanitarian bona fides. But as the linked interview implies, much of this is a scam. The spending of aid money has more to do with boosting the balance sheet of the organization than actually helping people in need.

The worldwide economic system is set up so that resources are stolen from the poor and the supposed return of some of these stolen resources as aid are actually ways to further launder those stolen resources back to the rich. Aside from the immorality and injustice of such a system, it's also environmentally unsustainable. Either human societies lives within the constraints of the planetary ecosystem or the ecosystem will force us to. In case of the latter, recall what Tennyson wrote... "Nature, red in tooth and claw..."

Climate change is caused by geoengineering

I occasionally comment on articles at Truthout. I've seen some interesting (meaning thoughtful) discussions. Then I read a post with an incredibly silly series of comments - no I won't link to it; I don't believe in spreading silly conspiracy theories. Suffice it to say, many comments about chemtrails, contrails, geoengineering and climate change... and the majority of them very confusing. So I just wanted to make a few points:

(1) Responsible scientists do not expect or plan for the eventuality that geoengineering will rescue the planet from global environmental collapse caused by climate change. This is because there is no way to test the accuracy of climate theory before applying it and the risk of a bad outcome because a theory was incomplete is too high. There's only one planet Earth; an inadequate geoengineering theory could cause more problems than it solves.

Here's an illustration:
A pet store has a sudden outbreak of a disease in their puppies. Without knowing if it's caused by a known virus or bacteria or something completely different, it would be reasonable to theorize they have a bacterial or viral infection and thus treat all the puppies with antibiotic and/or anti-viral medication. This is because even if all the puppies in that store die, other stores have more puppies; there is no risk of loosing that breed or all dogs. If the treatment cures the disease, then the theory is likely correct and other pet stores can use the same treatment

A collector who has the only living dog would be very careful about how they treat any illness because there are no other dogs to test medications on. If the theory of the disease is wrong, the treatment may further injure the only dog in the world. With only one planet, if the climate theory is wrong, geoengineering can make matters much worst.

(2) Climate change is caused by inadvertent geoengineering. Human activity that pumps greenhouse gases/chemicals into the atmosphere is geoengineering the climate of the planet. This proves the point that without a thoroughly tested theory of climate, any outcome of geoengineering is driven in part by accident.

(3) Given we know that pumping greenhouse gases/chemicals into the atmosphere is bad and we don't have a scientifically proven geoengineering 'easy fix', the only real solution is to stop making the problem worst and support the ecosystem as best we can to help it recover.

One of my repeating themes: climate change is the consequence of human economies. The people who control the fossil fuel industry do everything they can to create demand and sell more and more fossil fuels (source of greenhouse gases) ... so they concentrate wealth. The question in the end - what can they buy with all their wealth on an ecologically ravaged planet?