Party Trained – Polarization - Europe vs the US

It’s happening everywhere. Right-Wing populism/nationalism vs progressive liberalism. The United States is hardly unique. Maybe not in the existence of a left-right schism… but definitely unique as to the level of extremism. If irreconcilable differences were the measurement of whether unifying the political divisions might be possible, Europe seems to be on that track while the United States seems headed in the opposite direction.

It’s happening everywhere. Right-Wing populism/nationalism vs progressive liberalism. The United States is hardly unique. Maybe not in the existence of a left-right schism… but definitely unique as to the level of extremism. If irreconcilable differences were the measurement of whether unifying the political divisions might be possible, Europe seems to be on that track while the United States seems headed in the opposite direction.

David Lauter, writing for the May 10th Los Angeles Times, summarizes the result of a recent survey from the prestigious Pew Research Center: “Anyone who has watched U.S. politics in recent years knows that a widening gap between left and right, Democrat and Republican, has defined our era. Hardly a week passes without fresh evidence.

“Americans — and some Europeans — have often talked of similar divisions in Western Europe’s major democracies. Divisive issues like Brexit in the U.K. and the rights of religious minorities in France drive comparisons to U.S. polarization… But the U.S. differs notably from those other countries: Our ideological gaps are much wider on big cultural issues, according to a major new study by the Pew Research Center.

“Pew began to study the comparison during Britain’s divisive debate over leaving the European Union and the campaign leading up to Donald Trump’s election as president. Researchers ‘really wanted to see what the concepts of nationalism and cosmopolitanism mean in the modern era,’ said Pew’s Laura Silver, one of the lead authors.

“What they found provides insights into America’s divides and how those differ from other wealthy democracies. The numbers, based on surveys of more than 4,000 adults in the U.S., France, Germany and the U.K., provide important context for understanding the Republican Party’s continuing evolution away from the country’s business establishment and toward becoming a more populist party of the right.

“On several big issues, the center of gravity among conservatives in the U.S. stands further to the right than it does among their ideological counterparts in Europe, Pew’s numbers show. On the other end of the spectrum, liberals in the U.S. have moved further to the left in the last four years.

“A large share of U.S. conservatives support restrictionist views of national identity, such as believing that ‘truly belonging’ requires being native born or being a Christian. A large number also believe that discrimination against minority groups is an exaggerated problem.

“Since 2016, across all four countries surveyed, the public has shifted toward less restrictive stands on issues of national identity. In Europe, that shift took place across the ideological spectrum. In the U.S., it did not… U.S. liberals moved left — in some cases further left than their European counterparts. U.S. conservatives, however, started off further to the right than Europeans and did not move… ‘Generally, we saw gaps closing in Europe,’ Silver said. ‘The gap didn’t close comparably in the U.S.’” The big 2016 political factor in the United States was obviously the election of a rather atypical Republican candidate, a populist/nationalist who completely redefined the Republican Party, leaving an indelible mark that has fractured GOP traditionalists from this rising and clearly minority view of this Trump-dominated reconfiguration.

Demographic realities are squarely against the GOP shift to a science averse, racially intolerant body of social conservatives. The Trump effect created a young voter turnout of unparalleled proportions, joining minorities of color and a surprising number of suburban women… all favoring the election of Joseph Biden by a wide margin. As the incumbent white traditional population is hitting birth rates at well below replacement value, population (and much economic) growth is dependent on immigration, a policy which the populist movement is dead set against. Not being white, Christian (preferably protestant) or born in the United States carries a “non-American” taint with this neo-nationalist movement. Yet younger voters are overwhelmingly against Trumpist populism, just as minorities of color are expanding compared to white traditionalists. The hard demographic numbers are seriously bad news for the recently readjusted GOP.

The GOP could have embraced pro-Latino policies, noting that those committed to a sincere practice of Roman Catholicism have inherently conservative values, but the Republican party eschewed the welcoming arms extended by Ronald Reagan and George W Bush to Latino immigrants and instead labeled them as a huge problem. To compound their self-destructive political realignment, they have marginalized climate change disaster (one of the future’s greatest threats to rising generations) and made it very clear than gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer and transgender people are not welcome as fully equal Americans. Misplaced support of “whatever the police do is OK,” that anything they oppose is automatically either part of a defined group (except there is no such group in reality) called “antifa” and/or “creeping socialism” has been their modest platform. “Fake news” is now the basis of major GOP political direction, notwithstanding the serious damage to democracy itself embedded in their efforts.

The battle to oust and replace House GOP Republican Conference Chair, Liz Cheney (opposed to Trump and the Big Lie), is additional evidence of the lemming-like march to self-destruction that the Republican Party has embraced in addition to a party-wide effort across virtually all red states to suppress and marginalize those categories of voters most likely to oppose Republican candidates… And where they think they can, most evidenced in the non-legally relevant Arizona “fourth” recount, to nullify anti-GOP votes even after the ballots have been cast.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if 2020 is any reflection of the negative reaction of younger and minority voters to Trumpism, we can expect a comparable backlash in the 2022 mid-terms against the effort to disenfranchise non-GOP voters.

Methane – Insane

First, what is it? “Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula CH4 (one atom of carbon and four atoms of hydrogen). It is a group-14 hydride and the simplest alkane, and is the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Earth makes it an economically attractive fuel, although capturing and storing it poses technical challenges due to its gaseous state under normal conditions for temperature and pressure.

First, what is it? “Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula CH4 (one atom of carbon and four atoms of hydrogen). It is a group-14 hydride and the simplest alkane, and is the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Earth makes it an economically attractive fuel, although capturing and storing it poses technical challenges due to its gaseous state under normal conditions for temperature and pressure.

“Naturally occurring methane is found both below ground and under the seafloor, and is formed by both geological and biological processes. The largest reservoir of methane is under the seafloor in the form of methane clathrates. When methane reaches the surface and the atmosphere, it is known as atmospheric methane. The Earth's atmospheric methane concentration has increased by about 150% since 1750, and it accounts for 20% of the total radiative forcing from all of the long-lived and globally mixed greenhouse gases.” Wikipedia. It is over 23 times denser than carbon dioxide (CO2), and even when it burns (adding oxygen), it leaves lots of CO2 in the atmosphere: CH4 + 2 O2 → CO2 + 2 H2O (residue is carbon dioxide and water).

Atmospheric methane is one of the biggest offenders in the acceleration of greenhouse gasses. In addition to the obvious leaks of that gas simply during extraction, transportation and utilization to generate power and heating/cooking, there are a number of issues buried in man’s responsibility for global warming. For example, in the massive Arctic tundra (think Siberia, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia, etc.) are huge cashes of methane trapped in frozen earth, generated by the aggregation of prehistoric organic matter over millennia. To the extent there is ice and snow remaining, this white surface deflects the sun’s rays (heat). When tundra melts (pictured above), it reveals darker land or seawater underneath, which absorbs heat and raises global temperatures accordingly. Hence, even more ice is melted, revealing more heat absorbing darkness, and the cycle becomes self-fulfilling and potentially never-ending until all that ice is gone.

But wait, greenhouse gas fans, there’s more. Aside from normal agricultural consequences – e.g., the massive emissions from cattle ranching – there are additional issues from surprising sources. Some of that menthane danger has always existed in nature… but an increasing amount is generated by human activity (anthropogenic). The Yale School of the Environment – in a study entitled Aquatic Ecosystems Source of Half of Global Methane Emissions – has made some startling conclusions, as noted in the April 9th edition of Yale News: “Atmospheric methane has tripled since pre-industrial times. It traps heat far more effectively than carbon dioxide and accounts for 25% of atmospheric warming to date.

“And much of that methane is coming from aquatic ecosystems, with human activities contributing to the emissions levels, a new paper published in Nature Geoscience has found… The global contribution and importance of aquatic ecosystems as methane emitters has been underestimated, says Judith Rosentreter, postdoctoral associate at the Yale School of the Environment (YSE) who led the study with a team of 14 researchers worldwide.

“The study authors reviewed methane fluxes from 15 major natural, human-made, and human-impacted aquatic ecosystems and wetlands, including inland, coastal, and oceanic systems. They found that when methane emissions are combined from these aquatic ecosystems, they are potentially a larger source of methane than direct anthropogenic methane sources, such as agriculture or fossil fuel combustion. Aquatic ecosystems and wetlands contribute at least as much as half of the total methane emissions budget.

“‘An accurate accounting of the sources of methane from aquatic ecosystems, and if they are impacted by human activities, is important to understanding atmospheric methane concentrations,’ says Peter Raymond, professor of ecosystem ecology who co-authored the study.

“One issue that stood out is how humans have impacted methane emissions from aquatic sources… ‘Anything human-driven or human-impacted had much higher fluxes than more natural sites,’’ says Rosentreter, a Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies Hutchinson Fellow.

“Globally, rice cultivation releases more methane per year than all coastal wetlands, the continental shelf and open ocean combined. Fertilizer runoff causes nutrient-rich lakes and reservoirs to release methane. Coastal aquaculture farms have methane fluxes per area that are 7-430 times higher than from non-converted coastal habitats, such as mangrove forests, salt marshes or seagrasses…

“‘Reducing methane emissions from aquatic systems will be an important part of stabilizing the Earth’s temperature,’’ says co-author Bradley Eyre Director, Centre for Coastal Biogeochemistry at Southern Cross University in Australia… Bringing awareness to the amount of methane emissions coming from aquaculture and other water systems can help inform new monitoring and measurements that identify where and how methane emissions are being produced and change over time… ‘With this awareness is also the possibility of helping to keep our waters cleaner,’ Rosentreter says.”

It is clear that there continue to be insufficient countermeasures against climate change within the major polluting nations. Our rejoining the Paris climate accord is profoundly inadequate. Global governmental and business forces continue to be unwilling to assess the trillions of dollars of hard dollar costs (many issues with long-term ramifications) against even the most flagrant emitters of greenhouse gasses. Instead, these governments reactively respond to the flooding, coastal surges, wildfires, amplifying cyclonic/hurricane destruction, devastating droughts, migration of disease carrying insects to climates more consistent with their biological design, and searing heat that will eventually render significant regions as uninhabitable. It is profoundly inefficient and much more expensive to react than prevent. While smaller efforts are being mounted globally, the timeline for full implementation falls short of stemming this existential threat.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the continued denial and marginalization of climate change, relating to its containment and reversal, will simply make cleaning up the damage vastly more costly – in hard dollars and human misery – than would be the job-creating commitment to prevention.

Lazy Americans and Other Mythologies

I think the two-party system – and yes, there are other smaller parties with meaning – is an essential part of the American Democracy. Until Donald Trump won the presidency, the parties were generally divided between fiscal conservatives with a socially conservative bent and liberals believing that government has an obligation to support its citizens and provide safety nets when they trip and fall. Minimalist government favoring letting the marketplace decide versus a government that guides, regulates and supports its citizenry. But that was before right-wing, white traditionalism trumped fiscal conservatism as the driving force within the GOP. That nationalist, populist turn needed people to blame – mostly immigrants south of our border, the “radical” left and China – for what seemed to ail a working class slammed by change. Apparently being super-sensitive – labeled “woke” – was far more objectionable than being racist.

I think the two-party system – and yes, there are other smaller parties with meaning – is an essential part of the American Democracy. Until Donald Trump won the presidency, the parties were generally divided between fiscal conservatives with a socially conservative bent and liberals believing that government has an obligation to support its citizens and provide safety nets when they trip and fall. Minimalist government favoring letting the marketplace decide versus a government that guides, regulates and supports its citizenry. But that was before right-wing, white traditionalism trumped fiscal conservatism as the driving force within the GOP. That nationalist, populist turn needed people to blame – mostly immigrants south of our border, the “radical” left and China – for what seemed to ail a working class slammed by change. Apparently being super-sensitive – labeled “woke” – was far more objectionable than being racist.What America truly needed was fiscal conservatives, and those who championed religious priorities, keeping America from spending itself into oblivion to solve this nation’s problems. The exception was wartime spending to defend the country, or so it seemed until the attack, which killed more Americans within our borders than had ever been killed since our Civil War, came from a virus that absolutely required the same centralized planning and action that was required in any war. 

When they politicized a safe and medically necessary path to contain the coronavirus, that “city-slicker sickness hoax” – not much worse than an ordinary flu – millions of Americans (even in small, relatively isolated rural areas) succumbed to the infection as close to 600,000 Americans (900,000 according to new examinations of mortality statistics) died. Most of those negative statistics could have been vastly reduced if monied interests had not pushed to ignore the necessity of containing a pandemic. The resistance to vaccinations shows the continued pernicious mythology, embraced within social media by Russian spreaders of disinformation and populist conspiracy theorists, is literally preventing achieving herd immunity. And then there are the economic myths.

After deficit hawks swallowed hard and passed a corporate tax cut that create virtually no new jobs, jacked the stock market through the roof, exploded CEO pay to even more absurd level, they seem to ignore the massive two trillion-dollar deficit that they created. After those pigs slorped at the fatted trough, they pretended that there were always against deficits. Right… 

I have no issue with fiscal conservatives arguing for conservative spending and minimalist government during normal times. I just wish they would stick to the facts, rail against fiscal irresponsibility (in their eyes) and stop manufacturing reasons why cutting taxes for rich people is good for everybody. It isn’t. There is no “trickle down” benefit of job creation, the rising tide does not float all boats, and the clear beneficiaries are the rich. The result has been the erosion of our public educational system, the vast reduction of job-creating government funded research and the inefficient and very frustrating slow collapse of our aging infrastructure. On a more horrific but more abstract view: the demise of upward mobility and the most divisive income inequality in the developed world.

As GOP resistance to infusing the economy with more government stimulus rises, it’s not really about ferreting out ineffective expenditures as it should be. Instead, there is a powerful need to pretend that Americans are just plain so willing to live off of governmental largesse and not accept the jobs that are clearly going unfilled as our economy recovers, because not working is so much more lucrative than working. Really? They think that little of the citizens who voted for them? That many are scared to return to a workplace where not all the employees are vaccinated, that they are unwilling to let their children return to schools were COVID infections still lurk, that there is no viable and affordable childcare, that rent and housing costs are soaring such that the meager, low-paying offerings are out of touch with that reality… well, those could not be the reasons, right? Republican pablum.

OpEd contributor to the Los Angeles Times (May 8th), Michael Hitlzik, lays it on the line: “In a rational world, employers desperate to fill jobs would do everything they could to make their workplaces seem attractive: They’d raise wages, offer bonuses and show themselves to be caring and respectful bosses.

“In our world, just the opposite is happening. Wages are stagnant, especially in low-paying sectors, and employers are demonstrating utter contempt for employees they’re trying to lure back to work… They’re casting blame for their difficulties elsewhere — especially the purportedly lavish unemployment benefits provided by the federal government.

“As part of its pandemic relief program, Congress enacted unemployment benefits of $300 a week to augment state benefits. The addition will continue through early September in states that accept it… But in Montana and South Carolina, business leaders enlisted their governors to drive people back to work by canceling that unemployment assistance. No one should be shocked to see other red states join them.

“The notion that unemployment benefits are keeping able-bodied workers home has become an article of faith among employers and their lobbyists, despite a lack of any evidence that this phenomenon is endemic… In some places, the business community hasn’t been shy about demeaning workers who aren’t clamoring to join their staffs. Typically they portray the workforce as an army of layabouts.

“Here’s the insulting way that John Kabateck, California state director for the small business lobby group the National Federation of Independent Business, put it: ‘The federal government’s extra $300 it added to state unemployment benefits comes to an end in early September, so it will be a matter of time before showing up for work is a better-paying proposition than remaining on the couch watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island.’…

“No one is disputing that some employers are having difficulties recruiting workers. Nonfarm employment rose in April by a meager 266,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday [5/7]. This confounded economists who had expected a second straight month of employment gains of more than 900,000.

“Yet the statistic sent a mixed signal. Employment growth was actually strongest among restaurants, bars and hotels (up by 331,000). That’s the sector where employers are squealing the loudest about their inability to recruit staff. It was down in manufacturing and in professional and business services, where wages tend to be higher than in hospitality and leisure.

“Some economists who expect strong growth to resume in coming months counsel not to make too much of a single month’s data… The question is not whether employers are scratching for staff, but why… ‘Employers simply don’t want to raise wages high enough to attract workers,’ observes Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist for the Department of Labor who is now policy director at the labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute. ‘I often suggest that whenever anyone says, ‘I can’t find the workers I need,’ she should really add, ‘at the wages I want to pay.’ ’”

In the end, truth is writhing, perhaps facing an agonizing death spiral in a world of “whatever I need to say to get elected” false narratives. That democracy itself is at risk seems irrelevant. That non-existent voter fraud is used as the excuse to create legislation clearly aimed to disenfranchise non-white traditionalist is among the most blatant recent trends. What is amazing that the usually pro-business Republican functionaries have actually embraced stopping individuals who might vote against them as a priority over and above catering to business.

“Texas Republicans doggedly courted corporate America for decades, an approach personified by former Gov. Rick Perry, who took to radio airwaves in California to urge businesses to ‘come check out Texas.’… When it comes to voting restriction bills now being considered in the Texas Statehouse, however, GOP lawmakers have broadcast a different message to the business community: Back off.

“Be it Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick berating American Airlines for opposing the legislation or lawmakers floating proposals to punish companies for speaking out, the effort to tighten Texas’ already strict voting rules has spurred unusual acrimony between the majority party and corporations, its usual allies.” Melanie Mason and Molly Hennessy-Fiske writing for the May 8th Los Angeles Times. That the GOP is embracing a highly destructed form of populism, with affiliation to white supremacists, insane conspiracy theorists, ultra-conservative religious factions with views widely divergent to those of the vast majority of Americans and right-wing militia is now viewed as an existential necessity. Sorry Liz Cheney, the GOP is firmly committed to self-destruction just to keep enough Republican in power in 2022… even if it means losing sway with independents and traditional Republicans.

I’m Peter Dekom, and slow self-destruction is never pretty to watch and often even harder to stop.

Ukraine – Again and Again

Ukraine suffers. It seems to be a national infection that pops up to devastate like a lethal game of whack-a-mole. In the late 1920s, for example, Ukraine was subjected to the Soviet move to collectivize farming everywhere. While that effort succeeded to be implemented smoothly else where in the USSR, Ukraine – blessed with some of the richest and most fertile soil in the nation – pushed back. Reluctant landowners were extracted from their land and “resettled” in places like Siberia, where many perished. 

Ukraine suffers. It seems to be a national infection that pops up to devastate like a lethal game of whack-a-mole. In the late 1920s, for example, Ukraine was subjected to the Soviet move to collectivize farming everywhere. While that effort succeeded to be implemented smoothly else where in the USSR, Ukraine – blessed with some of the richest and most fertile soil in the nation – pushed back. Reluctant landowners were extracted from their land and “resettled” in places like Siberia, where many perished. Perhaps, they were the lucky ones. Stalin’s upped his punishment of Ukraine to a level that rose to genocide. It is impossible to understand the current escalation of hostility between Russia and Ukraine, far beyond the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and the Russian undermining eastern Ukraine in the hopes of an excuse to intervene and seize more of Ukraine, without looking at the horrific history of Moscow’s repression and decimation that seems to have singled out Ukraine above and beyond any of the other Soviet republics. A little walk with history will bring this home. Looking back almost a century ago.

“The events began to unroll leading to one of the worst genocides in the entire history of the humankind. As Professor Roman Serbyn writes in his brilliant series of works on this subject, Stalin and the narrow inner circle of his henchmen embarked on a task to completely remove Ukraine out of their way, to eliminate it as a nation, a culture, and a political subject. The task consisted of four parts: (1) to destroy the intellectual core of Ukraine, its ‘brain’ – the writers, artists, scientists, engineers, managers, doctors, teachers; (2) to rip off Ukraine’s ‘heart’ – the clergy, the spiritual, religious leaders who remained outside of the control from Moscow; (3) to wipe out the Ukrainian peasantry with its traditions of individual ownership and responsibility, with its resilience against the dictatorship of the state; and (4) to kill off all the islets of the Ukrainian language and culture outside the borders of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, i.e. in Russia, including the Kuban, the North Caucasus, certain areas in the Far East etc. Stalin wanted to see Ukraine merely as a territory with rich farmland that could be exploited for his main pragmatic plan: to strengthen the army that, eventually, the sooner the better, will subjugate the whole world, molding it into his personal empire. Any other kind of Ukraine did not suit him…

“[T]he most horrific genocide was committed in rural areas. In June 1932, Ulas Chubar, then the head of the government of the Ukrainian SSR, wrote to Stalin that after the forced collectivization and the numerous requisitions of grain, Ukraine urgently needs help or, otherwise, there will be mass starvation. In response, the quotas of grain that the Ukraine farmers ‘owed’ to the government were only increased. By June 30, 1932, the entire stock of seed grain was taken away from Ukraine. On August 7, 1932, Stalin’s government issued a decree that made it a crime for a farmer to take home even a tiny amount of grain from the collective farm fields. Those who were caught gleaning grain were ordered to be executed on the spot. Only if the weight of the ‘stolen’ grain was equal to, or less than, the weight of approximately 5 kernels of wheat, the execution could be replaced by at least 10 years of hard labor with confiscation of all belongings. Children were not exempt from this barbaric law. In that same month of August, employees of all railroads in Ukraine were ordered not to let peasants board the trains going from the rural areas to big cities, unless they had a special permit from their collective farm and local Communist Party authorities. All highways and country roads were patrolled by armed special police units. So, millions of impoverished, exhausted, hungry, sick, barely moving people were herded to the collective farm fields for back-breaking labor every day, without being even minimally compensated and without any chance to escape…

“Over the fall 1932 and winter 1932-33, the rural dwellers in several major grain-producing areas of Ukraine were dying by thousands over thousands. However, the peak of the genocide was in spring and early summer of 1933, when the villagers had already eaten all dogs, cats, rats, crows, tree bark etc. When the new grass appeared, many people avidly ate it until they died of bowel obstruction. Cannibalism became rampant, people hunting and eating other people (especially children), and then, eventually, eating their own children. Because of an extremely low amount of albumin in their blood, people looked swollen and lost the capacity to use their muscles. The dead were everywhere: in the houses, in the yards, on the road from villages to the collective farm fields, and on the fields. Some desperate men and women who still could move traveled illegally to cities with the hope to get food there by begging. Most of them, however, died during the travel or soon after arrival to a city. The urban dwellers who had small rations of food were told that these new arrivals from villages are the enemies of the people who refuse to work. The police did not help the dying people and did not allow the city dwellers to help them.

“To this day, it remains unknown how many people were executed by the lethal hunger (the Holodomor) in Ukraine in 1932-1933. In the decision made by the Supreme Court of Ukraine on January 13, 2010, the number of documented direct deaths by starvation during the 1932-33 Holodomor was announced to be 3,941,000.  Of course, this is merely the tip of an iceberg because millions of deaths were not documented and millions of deaths were not directly caused by starvation but, rather, by the diseases that accompanied it. Also, any number must be supplemented by the number of unborn human beings that could have been born and lived if not for the Holodomor. Based on demographic studies, most investigators agree that in Ukraine, the man-made hunger and its consequences took lives of approximately 7 million people. About 3 million people were murdered at the same time outside of Ukraine, most of them in the Kuban region of Russia (ethnically, predominantly Ukrainian), and in Kazakhstan.” InfoNapalm.org.

In the post-Soviet era, Russia abrogated their treaty with Ukraine, whereby the latter gave up possession of its nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange for a Russian guarantee to respect Ukraine sovereignty over its lands… which included Crimea. Russia’s forced annexation of Crimea in 2014 resulted in EU’s and America’s issuing harsh economic sanctions against Russia. Putin scoffed at the effort, denied his obviously severe interference in Western elections and massive hacks of sensitive governmental installations… which only escalated… and continued to support the “green men” (Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine masquerading as local separatists favoring cessation to Russia) while recently amassing massive troops and heavy armaments in the Russian border region, claiming that such efforts were merely “training exercises.” 

The Biden administration correctly interpreted these “exercises” as intimidating threats by Russia that could possibly result in a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine. Writing for the May 7th Los Angeles Times, journalists Tracy Wilkinson and David S. Cloud explore the ramifications of this most recent provocation: “Russia recently deployed an estimated 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine… Sending a tough diplomatic warning to Russia — backed by a show of military force — the Biden administration on Thursday [5/6] vowed to stand by Ukraine and its beleaguered government in its struggle with ‘destabilizing actions’ from Moscow.

“Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, on a swing through the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, said the administration was considering more defense aid for the former Soviet republic as threats from Russia persisted… ‘We look to Russia to cease reckless and aggressive actions,’ Blinken said during a joint news appearance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky… Ukraine is often seen as being on the front lines against Russian aggression, with the defense of its sovereignty a key test for the U.S. and Western Europe…

“President Vladimir Putin then announced a withdrawal, but both Blinken and Zelensky said Thursday that ‘significant’ numbers of Russian troops and weaponry remain massed in the area… ‘Russia has the capacity on fairly short notice to take aggressive action if it so chooses,’ Blinken said.” Russia’s pledge to reduce its border troop deployment fell far short of expectations.

Strategically located between Russia and the bulk of Europe, Ukraine is of particular importance to the West in the effort to contain Russian aggression. Indeed, as Ukraine leaned toward joining the EU and perhaps even NATO, Russia made it clear that such efforts would be considered direct threats to Russia and that Ukraine’s proper place was as a pro-Russian member in good standing as a CIS nation.

Wary of provoking a military response, the West has stopped short of allowing Ukraine to join these western alliances, and there is deep concern that that corruption within Ukraine could undermine that nation’s independence. “In fact, there is little momentum behind the idea among NATO members in Europe, who fear it could spark a military crisis with Moscow. Kyiv would like Washington to supply it with more military aid, but some experts said what would help Ukraine more would be a unified political strategy with European allies aimed at raising the international pressure on Moscow to stand down.

“Meanwhile, rampant corruption in Ukrainian governments, before and including Zelensky’s, remains an obstacle to the country’s acceptance into Western alliances… ‘Ukraine is facing two challenges: aggression from outside, coming from Russia, and in effect aggression from within, coming from corruption, oligarchs and others who are putting their interests ahead of those of the Ukrainian people,’ Blinken said at the brief news conference.” LA Times. Should Russia invade, short of a military response, knowing sanctions against Russia are already substantial, the United States could cut Russia out of the global financial system as it has done with Iran and North Korea. 

Ukraine has also found itself mired in the middle of a hot political controversy that led to both the impeachment of Donald Trump, as he sought to use Ukraine to find “dirt” on Biden and his son Hunter, and the DOJ’s seizure of cell phones and computers belonging to Rudy Giuliani, possibly as an unregistered foreign agent. The potential testimony from Ukrainian officials does not augur well for either Mr. Trump or Mr. Giuliani. As they say, “it’s complicated.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and understanding the importance of Ukraine, even within our own strategic and political realities, requires a greater understanding of the relevant historical context.

Fixing Global Warming – Resistance from Developing Nations

Every year, farmers in India and Pakistan clear their post-harvest fields by burning. Smoke pours out of the various farming tracts, raising air pollution to unbreathable levels, often drifting to nearby cities and towns, where vehicular emissions, smoke from cooking fires, unchecked industrial effluents and wind-blown dust often make breathing dangerous. For example, India Today (10/14/19) reported air quality between 300 and 400 (and which can exceed 500!): “The Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) issued a health advisory, asking people to reduce heavy exertion.

Every year, farmers in India and Pakistan clear their post-harvest fields by burning. Smoke pours out of the various farming tracts, raising air pollution to unbreathable levels, often drifting to nearby cities and towns, where vehicular emissions, smoke from cooking fires, unchecked industrial effluents and wind-blown dust often make breathing dangerous. For example, India Today (10/14/19) reported air quality between 300 and 400 (and which can exceed 500!): “The Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) issued a health advisory, asking people to reduce heavy exertion.

“According to the advisory, ‘people with heart or kind diseases and children should avoid longer and heavy exertion. Everyone may experience health effects, significant increase in respiratory problems.’… An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered 'good', 51 and 100 'satisfactory', 101 and 200 'moderate', 201 and 300 'poor', 301 and 400 'very poor' [many nations measure “hazardous” anything over 300], and 401 and 500 'severe'. [Particulate and noxious gas measurement, based on “parts per million” metrics].” Beijing (pictured above), Delhi and Mumbai air quality can exceed 500. As Brazilian populist President Jair Bolsonaro encouraged the recapture of Amazon rain forests for mining and farming, the fires used to clear land raged, pumping horrific amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Without some rational and massive commitment to contain greenhouse gasses by all relevant nations, climate change (and concomitant global warming) will continue to threaten the ecological and environmental disasters that have only accelerated in the past few years. Donald Trump attempted to roll back limitations on the extraction and use of fossil fuels, particularly in the arena of electrical power generation. Despite his efforts, car manufacturers continued high levels of pollution controls and a shift away from gasoline and diesel fuel. Further, the shuttering of coal mines in the US only accelerated despite Trump’s promises to the contrary. There still is no such thing as commercially viable clean coal; the effluents from “clean coal” powered electrical plants are simply pumped underground for future generations to deal with.

Even as President Biden has rejoined the Paris climate accord, the United States has a lot of catching up to do… and there is still massive resistance to an all-out effort to move out of fossil fuels and into alternative energy. Despite the surge in jobs that would accompany this shift, incumbent mega-corporations are so heavily invested in legacy power generation that they used political pressure against reasonable greenhouse gas containment, and many states also are rich in fossil fuels and do not want to deny the owners of these resources denied the obvious economic benefits of those assets. But that form of resistance exists in a developed nation with the capacity to create viable technical solution is still significant, try and convince peasant farmers and legacy industrial facilities in second and third world nations to stop their traditional burning and use of fossil fuel… and well… good luck with that one. 

But what is even worse, especially given the rise of climate change-denying populist leaders in those second and third world nations, is the growing trend to reverse environmentally sound policies to end the reliance on fossil fuels, especially the biggest polluter of them all: coal. This includes our neighbor to the south, where effluents not only exacerbate climate change containment but also create pollutants that can blow across a porous airspace that does not recognize a “border.”

Writing for the April 11th Los Angeles Times, Kate Linthicum tells us: “Mexican] President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in late 2018 and started turning back the clock… The president has halted new renewable energy projects, mocked wind farms as ‘fans’ that blight the landscape, and poured money into the state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, including $9 billion for construction of a new refinery… Last month, he pushed legislation that requires that the energy grid first take power from state-run plants — fueled in large part by crude oil and coal — before less expensive wind and solar energy.

“Shortly after the president announced last summer that his government would again start buying coal from Mexico’s producers, [put laid-off coal miners were] called back to work… López Obrador’s devotion to fossil fuels and rejection of cleaner energy at a time when most nations are moving in the opposite direction have dismayed environmentalists, who warn that Mexico will be unable to meet its emission reduction commitments under the Paris climate agreement , as well as business leaders, who warn that energy costs will rise because coal and gas cost about twice as much as wind and solar.

“Experts say his policies are rooted less in climate change denial and more in nationalism and nostalgia… A populist, López Obrador is playing on Mexico’s proud history as a fossil fuel powerhouse…

“Every five years, members of the Paris agreement are expected to raise their targets for cutting CO2 emissions. But last year, under López Obrador, Mexico declined to boost its target, maintaining its original commitment of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 22% by 2030 compared with how much it would be releasing if it had done nothing at all… And while Mexico produces just 1% of the world’s greenhouse gases, environmentalists say it’s important that it pulls its weight, in part because it will set an example in the region.

“‘It does matter what Mexico does,’ said Carolina Herrera, a Latin America analyst with the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council… Ironically, López Obrador’s biggest constituency, the working class, may suffer the most from droughts, floods and other effects of a warming climate. ‘The people who López Obrador says he’s looking out for are the ones who are going to be really vulnerable,’ Herrera said.” The unfortunate reality is that without global cooperation, unless even poorer less developed nations join in the effort, global warming does not have an “adjustment” for those unwilling to cooperate. The problem just gets worse… and actually on an accelerated basis. And once that tipping point occurs, which is very close, the planet and every living thing on it will irretrievably be altered for the worse.

I’m Peter Dekom, and at some time in the near future, the richer nations on earth may just have to provide economic support and incentives for those countries pushing back against stemming the use of fossil fuels.

Brazil’s Trump – Deny COVID, Open Public Rainforests to Exploitation

From Mongabay.com

Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro, is considered the Donald Trump of Latin America. Like Donald Trump, even after contracting COVID-19, he continued to marginalize if not outright deny the severity of the disease, even as Brazil’s coronavirus current infection rates and deaths are second only to the devastation in India. As of this writing, there have been almost 14 million cases of infection and close to 425 thousand deaths. Hospitals, funeral homes/morgues and medical staff were/continue to be woefully underprepared for the disease, which is surging once again. A major vaccination effort there only began this month.

Even governors and mayors in Bolsonaro’s own party are railing against his lackadaisical approach to the pandemic. Bolsonaro’s term as President will continue through 2022, and many in his country worry that Brazil cannot survive his populist, science-denying and mythology-based rule. 

But Bolsonaro’s policy-directed damage to Brazil is hardly limited to COVID malfeasance – with two-thirds the US population, Brazil was the next country (after the US) to cross the 400 thousand deaths-from-COVID threshold; his environmental policies have resorted to so much deforestation (mostly through massive burn-downs followed by heavy equipment clearing), that the Amazon rainforest became a net CO2 polluter as opposed to a net oxygen generator. Indigenous tribes, deep within Amazonia, are being ignored as they protest the seizure and/or destruction of their long-standing habitats. Logging, farming and mining interests trumped environmental sustainability and claims from indigenous peoples.

At first, Bolsonaro effectively told the rising voices from the international community that chastised his exploitive policies that what was happening in Brazil was none of their business, even as smoke from massive fires (very visible from space) wafted into neighboring countries. He tried to blame natural causes, but that thin excuse fell on deaf ears. He said Brazil did not owe the international community anything. But environmental cacophony resonated within his own nation as well. The inherent racism in sacrificing indigenous peoples was hardly a popular policy.

So Bolsonaro relented, cut back on the deforestation effort and pledged to support more prudent ecologically friendly policies going forward. Words. In practice, the effort to accelerate support environmental policies was profoundly under-funded and the effort to open public lands for private exploitation continued. Much of this transition of public lands for public use was simply illegal, with a wink-wink from government officials. So Bolsonaro is currently championing proposed legislation that would make such private use of public assets legal. The world is taking notice again.

Because the UK is a major importer of Brazilian foodstuffs, the May 5th BBC.com explains the efforts of one sector in the UK to halt this legalization effort: “Nearly 40 UK food businesses have threatened to stop sourcing products from Brazil over proposed land reforms… An open letter from the group calls on Brazil's legislature to reject a bill which could legalise the private occupation of public land… The letter said the proposal could accelerate deforestation in the Amazon… The bill is being considered just months after Brazil pledged to end illegal logging…

“Under the leadership of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, the level of deforestation in the Amazon is reported as being the highest since 2008… This year alone around 430,000 acres of the Amazon have been logged or burned, according to the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project... The vast majority of land is cleared either to graze cattle for beef exports, or to grow soy, which goes in to animal feed around the world.

“At a summit in April hosted by US President Joe Biden, Mr Bolsonaro declared that Brazil would end illegal logging. The letter [from UK food business, noted below] says these measures ‘run counter’ to this ‘narrative and rhetoric.’

“The new law would allow land that has been illegally occupied after 2014 to be put up for sale. This would potentially allow illegal occupants to buy it… Similar controversial measures were first put forward in a different bill last year, but were withdrawn after more than 40 organisations made the same threat over supply chain sourcing.” 

The United States does not remotely import agricultural goods, lumber or petroleum products from Brazil at the level that European nations do – at least not yet, but our drought reality could change that – so most our concerns are related to climate change issues, only recently prioritized by the Biden administration. But what is happening in Brazil clearly not have an impact limited to that country, a reality that faces every other major emitter of greenhouse gasses – including the United States – where environmental failures anywhere on earth are often suffered… everywhere.

I’m Peter Dekom, and a modern world of shared environmental disasters and potential new pandemics mandates a level of global cooperation, even between hostile nations, that has never yet been achieved… but must be if we are to survive.