It may be that this particular idea could only become common sense when the earth had become small enough - that we could no longer think of it as an unlimited exploitable resource, because the accumulation of rubbish and overpopulation began to have rebound effects.
Not a bad idea, billboards of floating masses of plastic junk in the Pacific saying 'And that's why plastic bags that are not biodegradable are no longer allowed.'
William, yet we still permit pastics manufacturers to continue at the same pace or even greater, even working to permit more plastics production. That is insane!
And those 'plastic gyres' are NOW the replacement of the "Sargasso Sea" for countless sea dwelling lifeforms in their 'infant/larval' stages for protection from predation by larger sea life forms - of all types... And now humans have developed equivalents of side wheel paddle boats to rake in the plastics from the sea - and do what ??? with the "harvest"..&&& how much of the new inhabitants of the gyre are sucked up in these ocean sweepers ? ? ? Humans are notorious (IMO) for both creating huge problems AND coming up with equality huge problems as answers to the original problems ~ ~ ~
My thoughts here:: "Humans don't OWN anything ! We only BORROW IT (whatever it/that may be) from the future,,, but at the rate WE HUMANS are exploiting anything//everything that can be profited off of and destroying the rest,,, there won't be anything left in a future to want to survive into ~~~~~ And now - humans - are expanding out into our solar system and beyond ~ ~ ~ Exploitation for corporate//personal gain ~ ??? ~
Oh shit, you are correct. These floating islands of plastic house plankton that is the basis of the food chain, and sweeping them up, sweeps up the plankton and little fish that hide in them.
On the other hand plastic does break down to micro and nano globules, and are consumed by plankton and fish, which are consumed by bigger fish and which wind up in human bodies. We are killing ourselves, and maybe that is a good thing.
Look at what we do to ourselves in the name of race, religion, ideology, greed, power and patriarchy.
As for the future, I'm 85 and have come to realize that there is nothing I can do about it, I would like to see a sane future, sustainable, where people don't need to slaughter and dominate others because of religion,ideology, resources or money, but that will never happen
A leopard can't change his spots. Voltaire said a man can't change his character, and neither can humans. We are essentially the same as when our earliest ancestor grabbed the thigh of a mammoth or jaw bone of an ass and killed someone who had what he wanted or felt that was a threat.
Chimpanzees fueled by testosterone, get excited, go into a war dance, whooping it up, until they are properly charged and then run off as a band to attack,kill and eat a neighboring tribe.
We are no different, just more complicated and with more reasons to dominate and attack others, in raw or sophisticated ways.
Not to worry, global warming will take care of the problem.
I can’t even imagine the words he’d use to define it; I can tell you, no one would be able to understand the gibberish coming out of his mouth. I can guarantee we would all have a good laugh about his word salad though.
It already has. Many are in denial. Those of us who aren't in denial find it hard to change our lives in the society as it is structured. So we make small changes but don't opt out.
Absolutely true. In the era when the Old testament was written, world population was something like 2% or 3% what it is now. Just a bit over that for the New Testament. And you only have to go back to the 1970's when it was half what it is today. Population has grown so rapidly that it has outpaced human societal thinking on the subject. This is especially so since all or nearly all of the world's major religions have their roots in those times long ago, when the finiteness of the earth was not so evident. And those religions have guided human behavior ever since, even today. That and just plain old greed and short term thinking.
You mean there aren't already rebound effects? What about the presence of plastics everywhere on the planet, and inside most of its animals, including us?
I agree that the rebound effects include the ubiquity of plastics. Their invention has been very much an ambiguous blessing. Maybe a best-selling history of plastics and their effects on the world is waiting to be written!
It would have the advantage of historical perspective, certainly. But the ambiguity of what seemed like a wonderful invention would have emerged early , with plastic explosives. The harm from plastic containers which weren't bio-degradable took a generation to begin to become evident.
"32 cases filed by state attorneys general, cities, counties and tribal nations against companies including Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell. The lawsuits cite extensive news reporting — including investigations by the Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News — showing oil companies’ own research projected the dangers of climate change decades ago, even as the industry tried to undermine scientific consensus about the crisis.
Those practices, the claims argue, violate a variety of laws including consumer protection, public nuisance, failure to warn, fraud and racketeering. Some of the lawsuits seek to force oil companies to help pay for the damages caused by climate change. Others aim to impose penalties for the use of deceptive business practices. Some want to compel the companies to fund a corrective education campaign about the climate threats they once downplayed."
What big oil is doing in the US is bad, but pales in comparison to what it is doing in countries like Ecuador. Chevron refuses to comply with a lawsuit filed by the Ecuadorian people to get out of a National Park. There was even a referendum voted on by the people of that country for them to leave, which won over 60% of the vote, and they still will not go. In the lawsuit they lost, they went after the American lawyer who helped an Amazonian tribal group win, so they accused him of "racketeering" and he was jailed by a New York Court. I think people recognize the point that growth is not always good, but corporations, like those you name above, are desperately attempting to keep their profits high at a cost to people and the planet.
In the 1970s we let a junta nationalize Ecuadoran oil. Check out the history of Phoenix Canada. In this country, the unseen hand of OPEC has undermined our economy and elevated Russia and Iran, who are waging proxy wars against us. Meanwhile Americans don't necessarily control those companies.
Wayne, The Venezuelan problem was the result of Hugo Chavez, foolishly believing that the Oil in the ground of Venezuela actually belong to Venezuela, and that pissed off Exxon Mobil and it's shareholders, so they went to work and did what they have always done, used their monetary might to get the U.S,. Government to overthrow the Venezuelan government, using the CIA, plots that Chavez foiled,.
Failing a coup, they have used sanctions, which crippled the nation and forced them to turn to our enemies.
The sanctions have hurt the people, and the middle class, the well to do middle class, that rode to comfort and luxury on the back of the peasant were discomfited and inconvenienced, so they have taken what money they have and bought plane tickets to Mexico, where they disembark and catch buses to the U.S. border.
True. In fact if you want to foul up a country almost anywhere, discover oil, or gas, and open it for international exploitation. Surrogate wars can spring up almost overnight. Another example is the gas fields of Cabo Delgado in Mozambique. Suddenly Islamic militants show up, destabilize the countryside and allow heretofore uninvolved countries to show up. Rwanda came to quell the militants, and UAE corporations show up to claim part of the gas fields. What does Mozambique get out of this? Not much and it is too soon to tell, but rest assured that the gas will flow to Europe to replace that which used to come from Russia before they invaded Ukraine. The complexities of international energy, causing climate change and conflict. Perhaps we should focus on planting trees, which leaves everyone better off.
Mozambigue would be in the other category, but shipping it is expensive, it has to travel around the Horn or via the Suez, which is under attack by Yemeni's
Closer is Asia, and cheaper to transport. In any event the windfall falls to the Muslims
That was Shell Oil, damaging the Nigerian environment since the colonial era. The damage there is similar to that done in the Mississippi Delta, but Nigeria lacked a clean water act, so it may have been even worse. Ken Saro-Wiwa was murdered by the Nigerian government for protesting the devastation of the delta by Shell Oil. Blood and oil mix and the companies actively promote the suppression of their legitimate opponents.
I once sat on a plane next to a Shell Oil environmental engineer side eye reading his reports and tables (marked confidential) on his laptop. Pure whitewash and lies. I don’t know how those people sleep at night.
Oh, they sleep very well, they don’t care about people or the environment, money and the power their money can buy are all they care about. I don’t know if there is a hell or not, but if there is, may they all burn in it.
Africa is a resource rich country, Exxon, Total S.A., Chevron, Shell,BP, Sudapet, LNg and others you never heard of are exploiting Africa, In Nigeria there are pirates who tap into pipelines, steal the oil and even run their own refineries, and pollute the environment ground, water and air.
There are rare earth minerals, cobalt, lithium, gold diamonds that are exploited, by African Presidents, and backed by Russia's Wagner group who guard and oversee the mining operations, taking their cut as payment.
This private confiscation of the wealth of a country, motivates thugs to create private armies, instigate coups and wage civil war.
The latest 'resource' out of Africa is Copper. I recently read that the largest (potential) source of Cu is directly under a village (don't remember where) and about 1 mile deep into the earth and could supply world copper demands to the tune of 300 tons (or million tons ?) = per year for who knows how long and is moslly owned by foreigners and they are styming that country from upping their investment ownership in their own resource `
Which country is that. Foreign corporations buy up local leaders, and those left out of the business are jealous and form a guerrilla army to displace and replace the benefactors, That is what is happening in Africa right now be it Mali, the DRC, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia. armed insurgency is the only way to obtain power, control and wealth.
Except where religion is used, even race, as an excuse it is all about grabbing power to control the resource and the source of wealth. Maybe race and religion are just an excuse to hide the real motive.
The Foreigners are corporations, oligarchs, individuals, who have the economic power to use the political, financial, and military resources of their government for access and control of those natural resources. Like Exxon Mobil did when Chavez was so fool hardy to think that the oil in the ground of Venezuela belonged to Venezuela and not Exxon Mobil.
I agree but that can not be our excuse!!! We sell water to Saudi and other countries and we still allow grocery stores to use plastic bags - and not all stores charge for plastic.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the Peninsula and Horn of Africa countries produce nothing but oil. The birth rate and population of these countries is monitored by their import of Pampers.
Oil producers also produce the plastic, right? Similar to the old joke that the machine making the feeding hole in the nipple of baby bottles was the same machine being used to punch minuscule holes in condoms. More babies > more bottles > more dollars.
Oil producers don't own chemical companies outright, but there are
1. Interlocking boards of directors
2. Corporate investors like Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street own majority shares, and they also own shares in the petro chemical complex, media, especially electronic, health care, insurance.. and are basically USA. Inc.
Indeed• the mining rights that were forced past the UN ; Now scientists revealed " nodules are creating oxygen on the ocean floor " - the data was around for years.We need SUSTAINABILITY- not degradation. Respectfully ,thanks
If the Republicans get thrashed in November, so that the Democratic party wins both houses of Congress as well as the White house, enabling the impreachment and removal of SCOTUS judges convicted of lying to Congress (at interview), perhaps the next generation of Democrats will change things?
Exactly! I hope the Democrats come out in full force and take back the House, Senate and Presidency. There are more Democrats than Republicans, if, and that’s a big IF, the Dems come out in force we can win and the House can start impeachment proceedings, send it to the Senate for approval, then let the impeachments begin, while expanding the SC and placing term limits on all Justices. Lifetime appointments should never happen in any government position.
I've been reading your comments about healthcare, Gloria, both here and on Hartmann's forum, and I agree completely.
I'm quite cognizant of the stark choice we have in November. I have no illusions about what a second tRump term would be like.
And yet.....throughout most of my 48 voting years, I've heard some variation of, "Vote Dem, or else." Even so, there have been 6 Dem Presidents in my lifetime, and still no single payer (not to mention a minimim wage that's been stagnant for 15 years). The ACA happened after Obama reneged on his single-payer promise, and is a giveaway to Big Insurance. Unless one is truly destitute, premiums are high and rising, the deductible is high, and coverage is minimal. The privatization of Medicare that was begun under Bush II has continued through every administration since.
So we're told to just get Harris in office, and then we'll worry about healthcare and all those other issues. We've heard that before, and I, for one, am getting pretty frustrated. Not holding my breath.
After my emails to the White House VP repeatedly failed to deliver, I tried phone calls that didn't even connect me to a person, so I wrote a letter and put it in the mail. A mail campaign to Harris to add single-payer to the agenda could get through to her. Is she in a bubble now that she has the nomination? We have lost our Democracy anyway if we can't meet the needs of the people and our representatives ignore us. The Teamster's president spoke at the Republican convention to warn the Democrats that they shouldn't automatically count on union votes. We need to take a stand. We need Harris to lead the way FDR did; "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Yes, pretty appalling that Sean O'Brien spoke at the RNC convention. However, my husband was a Teamsters member for a few years, and discovered that, at least at the local level, the organization was corrupt and useless when it came to fighting for members. Perhaps the rot goes all the way up.
I'm not optimistic that Harris will back single payer, but we'll see. If---and it's a big "if"---the Dems win big in November, and nothing has changed by the midterms, they will have forever forfeited the right to make promises to the working class.
You wouldn't think it was appalling if you listened to his speech. It took courage to stand in front of that crowd and say what he did. O'Brien should be allowed to make a similar speech at the Democratic convention. There may be local corruption, but being nearly useless in fighting for members is the fault of the SCOTUS. Until I did a deep dive into SCOTUS decisions, I blamed the unions for the decline of union membership.
When I was looking for a union to help me organize the most disgusting excuse for a nursing home, the INA wouldn't help us, but the Teamsters showed up and helped us organize on behalf of the patients, their families, and the workers. The NLRB is weak and needs the budget and support to do what it is intended to do. Take care.
Denise, you are correct about what we have been lead to believe from the democrats. The irony is that the republicans are not any different. The only solution is to vote and support those individuals who support our democratic principals
Daniel Soloman, excellent. I hope every single case is won with triumphant just consequences. And the world will smile. Do you know if other countries have brought suit and won?
I binge watched Suits and am binge watchiing Billions.
Although the two are an over dramatization of real life, just like war movies are (except maybe Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers). They still reflect reality, the personal agendas, power plays and corruption of government officials as deals are made, promises made, favors traded and money exchanged..Quid pro quo is the name of the game judges, lawyers, executives, boards of directors.
But we have to try. What ever happened to the rail roads in the wake of East Palestine, or have the people of East Palestine been made financially whole?
The Question was rhetorical, nothing and nothing.
If a corporation wants your land to build a casino, a mall or just for access, they will get it via eminent domain.
The Dakota access pipeline and the Keystone XL pipeline were abandoned, not because of activists or law suits, but because the price of oil had fallen and they were considered unprofitable.
The Dakota access (DAPL) pipeline was to move tar sands to the gulf for refining, only the oil would scour the pipes and cause serious leaks, while the tar sands require special refineries to be built, and then there is the problem of waste disposal, meanwhile the price oil doesn't justify the expense. and it is not stable either.
You nailed it William. Fracking is another bogus BS enterprise from the oil companies. The oil deposits are very deep. Almost all BELOW the ground water tables. They drill through these and line the holes with steel pipes. Then they inject water and toxic chemicals into the oil layers to break up "fracture" the oil trapped in the geological formations and pump it to the surface. Don't worry they say, "the steel casings will keep the chemicals from mixing with the ground water". Maybe for now, but what will happen 50 or 100 years from now when those casings rust through and fail. Most of us today won't live to see it but future generations will and they will pay the price. They will wonder "just what the f*** were we thinking to allow this to happen?
Fracking also causes land subsidence and earth quakes. Saudi Arabia wanted to become grain independent, it sits on a massive 10,000 year old lake, (there is more water under the soil than above it, the continents float on a virtual lake,so they say.
Anyway they used the new irrigation technologyh where they drill a hole as a pivot point, then they have irrigators, an1/8th of a mile, or more, that rotate around the pivot point and irrigate a quarter of a mile in cirumference, if you fly over eastern Washington and grain growing stetes you can see these green circles.
Anyway, they used up so much water that the land subsided, and they had to give up the enterprise.
Fracking has already poisoned water tables for communities in Wyoming, North Dakota, California, Pennsylvania, and New York.
What you don't see is the power of insurance. Most cases settle to the extent of coverage. Among the 182 kinds of cases I heard were environmental and nuclear whistleblower cases. Many of the whistleblowers were at a high level -- the first bank case, the whistleblower was the CFO. Not completely due to a sense of justice. They know they are personally liable.
Don't whistle blowers wind up on the short end of the stick? Maybe you could not stand Suits and Billions, I can't stand War Movies either, for one thing they hash together hundreds of individual and isolated incidents and then compress them into a singular story about a men, men or a battle. And then they have logic gaps,which I can't tolerate because I know too much. I watched one movie where paratroopers boarded a C-47 and jumped out of a C-130, and then there is the revolver which they load on Sunday and fire till Friday without reloading. Or the automatic weapon that is not belt fed that fires thousands of rounds., and the action movies, like john Wick who never misses no matter the target or how far away..
Suits and Billions are like that, always cliff hangers. I know and expect that, but there are kernels of truth around which the stories are built.
Insurance companies stay solvent and produce positive returns for investors by denying claims, and they find every excuse to deny claims.
I had a hot water heater fail in the garage apartment I rent. My insurance company cleaned up the mess (sent out that company that advertises "like it never happened" but it took a week, but when it came to repairs, they sent out an assessor, to see if the heater failed because I didn't replace it. Fortunately it was an outlet connection, two different metals, copper and steel, and electrolysis corroded the connection, it took over 40 years, so they paid for the repairs.
Insurance companies will use any excuse to deny a claim or refuse service (health insurance especially)
There are several types. Some do it as an occupation. Qui tam litigants. The IRS and SEC have special programs that are effective. I know physicians who make a living using the Medicare/ CMS procedure. I heard 22 different types of whistleblower cases.
Here's the SEC variation. I did not hear them, but I did hear Sarbanes Oxley Dodd Frank whistleblower cases.
Daniel... the information you provide is informative and vital. I see no solution unless government is strong enough to enforce protective environmental legislation when it exists. Nuclear waste, forest/habitat destruction, decreasing dependence on fossil fuel are mandatory priorities. Self policing by companies is unrealistic when erratic CEOs like Elon Musk in the neighborhood, AI and Bit coin energy consumption proliferates and voters are too dumb to understand what is at stake. Allowing only truthful media to exist would be a grand first step.
If you have the understanding of human beings as a particular species, it's obvious that, unlike other species with natural limits to growth, ours has managed to overcome the limits of habitat, predators, etc.
In the past our population has been limited by disease and warfare. It's up to us now to use our superior ability skills to save ourselves by limiting growth and not just ny vanquishing every other species.
You reminded me of a scene in the film "The Gods must be crazy" that goes (after switching from the life of bush people in the Kalahari to urban Johannesburg) "Civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment. Instead he adapted his environment to suit him. So he built cities, roads, vehicles, machinery. And he put up power lines to run his labour-saving devices. But he didn`t know when to stop ..."
Thoughtful people will limit growth but the GOP is promoting large families. I’ve become so cynical nowadays that I think they do this so there will be lots of cheap labor for the rich.
It used to be that the less economically advantaged were viewed as prime recruits for the military. I can remember a WWII veteran telling me that he loved the Army because you got regular meals. I know he ate his share of rations because he had been in WWII and the Korean War. But coming out of the Great Depression and the Dust Bole, it was one of the things he appreciated as a young man.
Miland, have you read The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis? He documents Frump's actions when went into office last time. He asked for names of all those researching climate, etc., to be rid of them..just a taste of all he wants to wreck!
Marilyn: no, I haven't read Michael Lewis' works, but he looks like an interesting author. I can believe Trump neglecting important matters of state (like reading his Daily Brief). I can imagine him neglecting departments whose outlook he doesn't agree with, such as those concerned with environmental protection. I suppose if he comes to power in November (which may Heaven prevent), under Project 2025 he will simply abolish them. firing all their staff.
And he did that to most if not all depts! Im surprized the fed. Govt. Didnt just implode. Energy, Agriculture etc etc. WE CANT LET HIS WREC KING CREW NEAR ANY OF IT AGAIN! You may not sleep after reading it!
To be honest, a story of various government departments being injured by neglect by Trump sounds dry to me, because it's a story about organisations rather than individuals. But if I were a US citizen and politically active there, I might well read it and wonder how the country could be saved. Perhaps it gave you sleepless nights!
What you say is spot on, but you are preaching to the choir. Your message needs to be heard by all the school children across the country. That’s how we make things happen.
We also need to take action. Get involved with your local area. What is your city doing to help. I discovered that the tree population in my city was reviewed and they discovered that most of the trees are in bad shape. There has been some movement to try and encourage citizens to plant new trees, including offering free trees.
I live in a town in the Pacific Northwest. Even here, our tree canopy is lower than suggested in our area. Planting trees is so important, but let's be sure we are planting the right ones for our are3aq.
Professor Reich: i agree completely. this was one of my first questions i asked Thomas Piketty in a live talk he gave at a university in Germany: "how is it logical to expect unlimited economic growth on a finite planet?" His answer was unsatisfying, to say the least. (I've since done more reading and discovered that Piketty is not the real enemy here, but he sure doesn't represent biodiversity, environment and climate concerns very well.)
Hopefully, your question planted a seed for more thought on his part.
I’ve been trying to listen to one of his audiobooks, “Capital and Ideology”. It’s interesting but not one that I can easily listen to while performing other tasks.
We have known these things since at least the 1970s. I think it was the Carter admin that tried to put some laws(?) in place. I just remember that the store where I worked part-time turned the air conditioning up so it was quite warm for the workers who had to wear smocks.
I don’t recall which president admin this happened under, I think one of the Bush’s’, but NASA created a report that talked about climate change. The administration wouldn’t allow it to be published until the White House lawyers had edited it. As you can imagine, it was very watered down.
Thats why this moment in time is pivotal for GenX. It’s far past time to teach the planet destroyers a lesson on what happens when you fail to respect future generations. I’m here for it.
I’m saying this from memory, so that’s shaky, but it seems I recall that the last big world climate event that Greta Thunberg attended, she was very disgusted because it was filled with lobbiests and financial types and not very effective. You have to figure out how to talk louder than money.
I am 68 years old. My chemistry teacher in high school was already talking about climate change. "Money talks!💩 walks" seems to be a true statement. Big Oil 💰 money bought the government
Environmentalists believe that the companies (or other entities) responsible for these externalities should pay for them. If they commit an oil spill, they should pay triple damages
I live in Pennsylvania- we have about 500 abandoned COAL MINES ; the owners just walked away YEARS AGO( they leak methane gas ). They didn't fund the required financial accounts to close them. EPA is under funded/ staffed ( before tracking) ; it's an up Hill battle . Thanks, respectfully 🌱🌿
What?? That’s ridiculous. It’s like walking away from an oil spill and shrugging it off like nothing happened. How in the hell did they get away with it?
Coal companies have been especially guilty of generating egregious unpaid for "externalities". They have repeatedly befouled the air, water & land, harming the environment & people's health to the extreme.
I was at NJDEP and then EPA enforcement for over 20 years - very little "watching" going on at best. You can dig up the reported inspection frequency on EPA web pages. I dont think anyone has ever watched the more numerous nonmajor smaller permitted facilities..
I wonder why the US Forrest Service is letting so many loggers cut down the giant sequoias? That seems, I don’t know, a bit barbaric and disrespectful 🤷♀️
They are? That should be absolutely forbidden. Giant sequoia provide a unique ecosystem that was historically far more widespread millions of years ago. It's a dwindling ecotype that must be conserved. They're the largest & among the oldest trees in the world.
Tell me about it. “The largest logging projects I’ve ever seen are targeting the last, best remaining old growth trees left in the country,” said Chad Hanson, a forest ecologist and co-founder of the John Muir Project.
Regardless of the pretense for logging, why is it up to the loggers? The trees should be protected and if they come down they should come down by the state or federal experts; not private operators only interested in profits. That will never make sense which is why it doesn’t work.
The Forest Service in southern Illinois clear cuts areas of Shawnee National Forest and sells it to mulch makers. It’s a travesty! Only forests in the National Park Service had some protection.
clear cuts at national forests are shocking and common. A national forest is essentially a federal [taxpayer] subsidy for the logging and pulp and paper industry. The feds build the roads at taxpayer expense, then the industry loggers swoop in and clear it for cheap, and the Congress gets campaign donations-- YAHOO! its never restored.
Politics the head of the USDA , Tom Vilsack, a lobbyist, makes decisions based on politics and the lumber industry has a lot of money and clout.
In Washington, Weyerhauser is the big Kahuna, Oregon and in northern California.it is Sierra Pacific, whole towns depend on them for jobs, basically they are company towns and votes.
My wife has kin that lives in Grey's Harbor, WA it use to be a lumber town, but it lumbered out, it is trying to reinvent itself as tourist, lots of luck with that.
That is a really nice area & deserving of tourism, I suppose. It's kind of out of the way, but it's not far from the magnificent Olympic Peninsula, home of a rare temperate rainforest.
But to your point, short-sighted, unsustainable logging projects such as what we're discussing here, eventually wipe out the products & therefore the industry, as well as devastate the ecosystem.
I can drive 10 minutes, park my car, look out across the Georgia Strait and see the Olympics, and in a clear day Mt Rainier go into reverse drive another 60 seconds park my car and see Mt Baker
The area is beautiful, Most of the timber on this island was planted by the settlers, there are no old growth forests, but driving south on I-5 from Seattle, and turning off and heading east after Olympia, you soon enter Weyerhauser land, all the old growth forest has been removed, and you see planned forests planted by Weyerhauser, and they are the ugliest and most depressing thing you have ever seen., it is a green desert is the only way to describe it.
Uglier and more depressing than the Mohave, which is actually surprisingly exciting and pretty, even Death Valley.
But these Green Deserts are ugly and depressing.
If you graduate from college or university in Washington State, you had to take one class on forestry, you learn how they used a tall pine, to haul fallen trees up the mountain, originally with donkeys, but not motorized donkeys. They leave 10% untouched on the crest of the mountain, depending on gravity to repopulate the mountain.
You can drive the passes, the highways and all you see is new growth pines, near creeks and streams you might find alder., and where I live you find madronna, in fact I have on on my property
I am sitting at my desk, I lookup and through my front window, over the roof of my barn, my house is at a higher elevation, sitting on a huge chunk of volcanic rock, older than the ice age, because you can see the scrapes of the ice, and there is a hill, pine laden hill, and none of it more than 100 years old.
Ah, you really live in a nice location! I love that area. And it is sad that they are still cutting so much of the old growth, even as we've known for a long time how important it is for the ecosystem.
They may give false pretenses for their logging. Giant sequoia are among the most fire resistant trees that exist.
It's true that fires have gotten so hot & fierce in recent years with global scorching, long, intense droughts, huge insect infestations, etc. that nothing survives in their wake, but cutting down sequoia won't help. In fact it exacerbates the problem by destabilizing the ecosystem.
No, short-sighted, greedy logging companies view sequoia as a high-profit treasure trove of massive, high-quality wood, & that is why they would fraudulently deceive government into permitting them to wipe them out.
Lisa, I’m a big believer in Hanson and his John Muir Project work and how he has thoroughly documented over a century’s worth of forest growth and density in western states in response to the USFS’s thin it, log it before it burns approach.
Can you provide a link to reporting on this? Also need to clarify which "Sequioas." Semperviron or Gigantea? Not great either way, but the Gigantea are losing the climate change battle probably inevitably. So tragic.
She probably means sempervirens (Coast Redwood), since they are widely used in construction. Years ago a knowledgeable person talked about giganteas (Big Trees) being useless because "when they were felled, they shattered and were only useful as matchsticks". My thought was, smart trees!
I still wish she could link to more detail. You surely are right. I was actually at the big Headwaters protest where Bonnie Raitt showed up and many got symbolically arrested. (One question: since when is the local County Sheriff private security for the junk bond raider from Texas?) One of the key distinctions of Headwaters was that it was at the extreme inland reach of the coastal fog rainforest ecosystem. Not a change of subject: the Park Fire is within a metaphorical inch of extincting the last wild run of Chinook salmon. Hey, since I was wishing for link from others, I went and found this: https://www.kqed.org/news/11998224/park-fire-jeopardizes-californias-iconic-spring-run-chinook-salmon
Technically speaking we will not destroy the earth, we will destroy ourselves and take much of the current ecosystem with us. But Mother Earth will survive and reincarnate. Humanity, at least in it's current form, will be its own demise.
I think this is the big blind spot. We talk about the earth as if somehow it represents us. We are just temporary tenants, wrecking the joint. We are mortal.
The way I see it, we of the capitalist and communist worlds see ourselves as having dominion over nature rather than part of it. This egocentric viewpoint is not ony destructive but dehumanizing. All this god made man to have dominion over the earth bullshit.
Consider too the cost of allowing untested chemicals to be sold before their potential toxicity has been established. Teflon for example. If companies were subjected to proper safety tests before sales are allowed then many environmental disasters and human deaths would be averted. The cost and damage of Teflon outweighs its convenience. Is scrubbing an iron fry pan that much of a chore? Companies will whine such a requirement will stifle innovation. Such a requirement will also prevent human suffering and painful deaths.
You speak of the built-in failure of the EPA as Erin Brockovich has documented. When the agency was set up, tens of thousands of existing chemicals were grandfathered in. In addition, the rules contain loopholes that allow producers to prevent independent testing by giving them control over "proprietary" formulations. So, for instance, Monsanto (now Bayer) adds something to the active ingredient in Roundup (TM) and they can then sue any university that does toxicity testing.
This could be fixed by requiring all products to be exempted from proprietary protections until proven safe by independent double blind testing at P = 0.01 and setting a timetable for the testing of grandfathered products. But lacking public outcry, most of the politicians will find no appetite for legislating it.
Sustainability is facing two major obstacles: 1) Wealthy corporations are ever fixated on becoming wealthier. Because of that fixation, _they don't care_ about the damage they cause. Cleaning up the mess their production leaves behind is somebody else's problem. The ONLY reason they do anything towards cleanup is because they are **forced to**. (And then their PR flacks spin the notion that they are doing it because they are eco-friendly, like their efforts had been their own idea all along.) 2) The world is probably past the Point Of No Return in regards to the Environment. Given continuing population growth worldwide, the "maintenance level" of consumer goods alone is enough to continue wearing down Mother Nature's immune system. Then pile on the gratuitous pollution caused by the conspicuous consumption of industrialized nations like the US and the UK and China, and it guarantees that the Earth is in critical condition and fading fast.
Like the Red Queen said to Alice, "It takes all the running you can do to just stay put. If you want to get anywhere, you have to run twice as fast!" -- which is something the large majority of Humanity seems disinclined to even try. (Another applicable quote from "I Dream of Jeannie": "What they used to say in Baghdad was 'Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.'")
I had a refrigerator that I bought in 1984 and was still running fine when I donated it in 2023. Manufacturers can make things to last decades, but they want to waste resources (both the earths and ours) to make more money. Idk how you fix a thing like this.
I'm thinking of numerous movies where one character asks, "What do we do now?" and the other character, a realist, replies, "Now we die." Not surprisingly, most people are NOT willing to accept an inevitable Bad Ending..... so they live in denial, expecting that _something_ or **somebody else** WILL swoop in to save the day -- right until the bitter end.
In essence, the foundation problem is that what We need is the majority of people -- NOT just many -- to actively DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. But the majority are too lazy or too apathetic or too far into denial to make that effort. And as a result, We will ALL suffer the consequences. [Except for those of Us "lucky" enough to shuffle off their mortal coil before that Bad Ending arrives. (Me, for instance. At 72, I'll most likely be checking out in the next decade or two, just before the REALLY Bad stuff becomes commonplace.)]
P.S. It's called "planned obsolescence". Very popular production philosophy these days.
Fantastic, Prof. Reich! Once again, you've scored points (hopefully, Kamala will appoint you as her special adviser for climate change economics). Indeed, I trust that when she wins this November, according to my calculations by 11 million votes, she'll come here to Rio, along with you, to sign on to Ana Toni's proposal to tax the world's 200 richest billionaires to transition from fossil fuels to maglev and vactrain technology. Further details on our plan to do precisely this, on a planet-wide basis, can be obtained at tonyzineski74@gmail.com - I hope to hear from both you and Kamala soon and see you in Rio in November at the G20 meeting, and also next year at COP30 in Belém. Soak it to 'em!
The Earth is a uniquely poised planet of almost unimaginable beauty, life, and diversity, in a solar system of planets that are likely devoid of life. Why, on Earth, would anyone want to blow vast sums of money to build a spaceship to go to Mars - a cold dead rock with little in the way of intrinsic beauty - further polluting Earth in the process? Unless, he is on the spectrum....
YEEEESSSSSS!!!! Say this louder and more often! Limit our consumption A LOT rather than build more nuclear power plants to "meet a growing NEED" - not need, if we weren't consuming so much we wouldn't NEED so much...
The industries create the toxic waste that the environment can’t process or degrade and absorb. They expect the burden of clean up to be left to the consumer—the people who are working to raise their families. The industries should not create the offending waste in the first place or if they do they must at the same time create the means and infrastructure for its safe disposal.
But nature can’t be replaced or duplicated. When it’s gone it’s gone. Forests are the lungs of the planet.
to stop economic growth would we not to also need to stop population growth? With more people on the planet we get more housing, more roads, more iPhones? Just what is a sustainable population for the planet? Have we already surpassed that number?
If people would live more sustainably, it would help. Why should we replace our iPhones every 3 years. Unnecessary. Why do people have more than one house? Unnecessary. Look at lifestyles and you could see lots of places for improving sustainability. Manufactured items can be made to last decades but companies want you to keep buying.
perhaps-and wait til we have a billion climate refugees -low birth-rate countries like Japan are paying people to have more babies-understandable on a small scale but unsustainable on a global scale-people still don't understand that perspective-and most don't want to
Yes we have long since surpassed it. According to William Rees, ecological-economics professor emeritus at University of British Columbia, sustainable is around 2-3 billion. Human population remained below that level for the first 200,000 years of our existence, until 200 or 250 years ago when the development of fossil fuel energy allowed us to overcome the natural feedback loops that kept us in check until then.
Cellular renewal in our bodies is a good thing, too — when it’s regulated. When it’s not it’s called a cancer, and, untreated, it usually kills the body whose cells it commandeers.
This line of argument seems so blindingly obvious that it is incomprehensible that mainstream economists have not taken it more seriously. But they have not and we march onward to the beat of the growth drum, whatever end of the political spectrum. However, it seems that the future will not so convincingly replicate the past due to two parallel consequences of the post war years: Climate change and demographics. Both cry out for a new radical formulation of economics that can deliver a worthwhile future for humanity while we grapple with the catastrophe and practical problems of climate change and a population that threatens collapse under its own weight. However I see nothing, nothing at all on offer.
One of your best. It ought to be common sense.
I've discovered over the years is that common sense isn't as common as you might wish :(
It may be that this particular idea could only become common sense when the earth had become small enough - that we could no longer think of it as an unlimited exploitable resource, because the accumulation of rubbish and overpopulation began to have rebound effects.
Maybe posters of the giant floating plastics gyre in the Pacific on every billboard?
Not a bad idea, billboards of floating masses of plastic junk in the Pacific saying 'And that's why plastic bags that are not biodegradable are no longer allowed.'
Most recyclable plastic never gets recycled, we need bio-based.
Yes, I should have said 'biodegradable' - edited now.
Plastic can be used as fuel, but then the power plants need scrubbers to remove pollutants.
I sailed through that gyre years ago: a floating desert of plastic detritus in the middle of the ocean. No one talked. It was like watching a funeral.
There are two plastic gyres in the Pacific and two in the Atlantic, North Pacific and North Atlantic, south pacific and south Atlantic
Columbus saw a Sargasso sea of seaweeds, it is now a sea of plastic and seaweed
William, yet we still permit pastics manufacturers to continue at the same pace or even greater, even working to permit more plastics production. That is insane!
Slow suicide. Plastics enter the body through Plastic bottles and containers and the seafood we eat. They have discovered plastic in the penis's.
All seafood now has plastics, and we eat the seafood. Except vegetarians.
And those 'plastic gyres' are NOW the replacement of the "Sargasso Sea" for countless sea dwelling lifeforms in their 'infant/larval' stages for protection from predation by larger sea life forms - of all types... And now humans have developed equivalents of side wheel paddle boats to rake in the plastics from the sea - and do what ??? with the "harvest"..&&& how much of the new inhabitants of the gyre are sucked up in these ocean sweepers ? ? ? Humans are notorious (IMO) for both creating huge problems AND coming up with equality huge problems as answers to the original problems ~ ~ ~
My thoughts here:: "Humans don't OWN anything ! We only BORROW IT (whatever it/that may be) from the future,,, but at the rate WE HUMANS are exploiting anything//everything that can be profited off of and destroying the rest,,, there won't be anything left in a future to want to survive into ~~~~~ And now - humans - are expanding out into our solar system and beyond ~ ~ ~ Exploitation for corporate//personal gain ~ ??? ~
Oh shit, you are correct. These floating islands of plastic house plankton that is the basis of the food chain, and sweeping them up, sweeps up the plankton and little fish that hide in them.
On the other hand plastic does break down to micro and nano globules, and are consumed by plankton and fish, which are consumed by bigger fish and which wind up in human bodies. We are killing ourselves, and maybe that is a good thing.
Look at what we do to ourselves in the name of race, religion, ideology, greed, power and patriarchy.
As for the future, I'm 85 and have come to realize that there is nothing I can do about it, I would like to see a sane future, sustainable, where people don't need to slaughter and dominate others because of religion,ideology, resources or money, but that will never happen
A leopard can't change his spots. Voltaire said a man can't change his character, and neither can humans. We are essentially the same as when our earliest ancestor grabbed the thigh of a mammoth or jaw bone of an ass and killed someone who had what he wanted or felt that was a threat.
Chimpanzees fueled by testosterone, get excited, go into a war dance, whooping it up, until they are properly charged and then run off as a band to attack,kill and eat a neighboring tribe.
We are no different, just more complicated and with more reasons to dominate and attack others, in raw or sophisticated ways.
Not to worry, global warming will take care of the problem.
Why don’t they ask Trump to look at it and define what it is … he probably has never looked at it
I can’t even imagine the words he’d use to define it; I can tell you, no one would be able to understand the gibberish coming out of his mouth. I can guarantee we would all have a good laugh about his word salad though.
Thank you for your posts. Sustainability is the future. The ones creating this mess need to be accountable.
Because the regulated have captured the regulators, that will be tough.
Must reform campaign financing.
It already has. Many are in denial. Those of us who aren't in denial find it hard to change our lives in the society as it is structured. So we make small changes but don't opt out.
You’re exactly correct. It wasn’t a big problem until it was.
Absolutely true. In the era when the Old testament was written, world population was something like 2% or 3% what it is now. Just a bit over that for the New Testament. And you only have to go back to the 1970's when it was half what it is today. Population has grown so rapidly that it has outpaced human societal thinking on the subject. This is especially so since all or nearly all of the world's major religions have their roots in those times long ago, when the finiteness of the earth was not so evident. And those religions have guided human behavior ever since, even today. That and just plain old greed and short term thinking.
You mean there aren't already rebound effects? What about the presence of plastics everywhere on the planet, and inside most of its animals, including us?
I agree that the rebound effects include the ubiquity of plastics. Their invention has been very much an ambiguous blessing. Maybe a best-selling history of plastics and their effects on the world is waiting to be written!
Such a history would have to be at least hundreds of years in the future, I think, to give an accurate view.
It would have the advantage of historical perspective, certainly. But the ambiguity of what seemed like a wonderful invention would have emerged early , with plastic explosives. The harm from plastic containers which weren't bio-degradable took a generation to begin to become evident.
Greed and selfishness can make people blind to common sense. And some think common sense is for the common people and not their elite selves.
Very good Midwest!
Yes, it's the largest oxymoron in the English language.
And it frustrates those who have it and angers those who don’t.
Every company within SEC jurisdiction must be audited, and audit reports should list "contingent liabilities."
Track the environmental litigation re Big Oil. https://stateline.org/2024/04/04/after-a-long-slog-climate-change-lawsuits-will-finally-put-big-oil-on-trial/
"32 cases filed by state attorneys general, cities, counties and tribal nations against companies including Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell. The lawsuits cite extensive news reporting — including investigations by the Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News — showing oil companies’ own research projected the dangers of climate change decades ago, even as the industry tried to undermine scientific consensus about the crisis.
Those practices, the claims argue, violate a variety of laws including consumer protection, public nuisance, failure to warn, fraud and racketeering. Some of the lawsuits seek to force oil companies to help pay for the damages caused by climate change. Others aim to impose penalties for the use of deceptive business practices. Some want to compel the companies to fund a corrective education campaign about the climate threats they once downplayed."
What big oil is doing in the US is bad, but pales in comparison to what it is doing in countries like Ecuador. Chevron refuses to comply with a lawsuit filed by the Ecuadorian people to get out of a National Park. There was even a referendum voted on by the people of that country for them to leave, which won over 60% of the vote, and they still will not go. In the lawsuit they lost, they went after the American lawyer who helped an Amazonian tribal group win, so they accused him of "racketeering" and he was jailed by a New York Court. I think people recognize the point that growth is not always good, but corporations, like those you name above, are desperately attempting to keep their profits high at a cost to people and the planet.
In the 1970s we let a junta nationalize Ecuadoran oil. Check out the history of Phoenix Canada. In this country, the unseen hand of OPEC has undermined our economy and elevated Russia and Iran, who are waging proxy wars against us. Meanwhile Americans don't necessarily control those companies.
Wayne, The Venezuelan problem was the result of Hugo Chavez, foolishly believing that the Oil in the ground of Venezuela actually belong to Venezuela, and that pissed off Exxon Mobil and it's shareholders, so they went to work and did what they have always done, used their monetary might to get the U.S,. Government to overthrow the Venezuelan government, using the CIA, plots that Chavez foiled,.
Failing a coup, they have used sanctions, which crippled the nation and forced them to turn to our enemies.
The sanctions have hurt the people, and the middle class, the well to do middle class, that rode to comfort and luxury on the back of the peasant were discomfited and inconvenienced, so they have taken what money they have and bought plane tickets to Mexico, where they disembark and catch buses to the U.S. border.
True. In fact if you want to foul up a country almost anywhere, discover oil, or gas, and open it for international exploitation. Surrogate wars can spring up almost overnight. Another example is the gas fields of Cabo Delgado in Mozambique. Suddenly Islamic militants show up, destabilize the countryside and allow heretofore uninvolved countries to show up. Rwanda came to quell the militants, and UAE corporations show up to claim part of the gas fields. What does Mozambique get out of this? Not much and it is too soon to tell, but rest assured that the gas will flow to Europe to replace that which used to come from Russia before they invaded Ukraine. The complexities of international energy, causing climate change and conflict. Perhaps we should focus on planting trees, which leaves everyone better off.
It was LNG found in Mozambique and I had to check Europe's source of LNG
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-gas-supply/
Mozambigue would be in the other category, but shipping it is expensive, it has to travel around the Horn or via the Suez, which is under attack by Yemeni's
Closer is Asia, and cheaper to transport. In any event the windfall falls to the Muslims
Or in Nigeria...entire fishing villages are now destitute.
That was Shell Oil, damaging the Nigerian environment since the colonial era. The damage there is similar to that done in the Mississippi Delta, but Nigeria lacked a clean water act, so it may have been even worse. Ken Saro-Wiwa was murdered by the Nigerian government for protesting the devastation of the delta by Shell Oil. Blood and oil mix and the companies actively promote the suppression of their legitimate opponents.
I once sat on a plane next to a Shell Oil environmental engineer side eye reading his reports and tables (marked confidential) on his laptop. Pure whitewash and lies. I don’t know how those people sleep at night.
Oh, they sleep very well, they don’t care about people or the environment, money and the power their money can buy are all they care about. I don’t know if there is a hell or not, but if there is, may they all burn in it.
Africa is a resource rich country, Exxon, Total S.A., Chevron, Shell,BP, Sudapet, LNg and others you never heard of are exploiting Africa, In Nigeria there are pirates who tap into pipelines, steal the oil and even run their own refineries, and pollute the environment ground, water and air.
There are rare earth minerals, cobalt, lithium, gold diamonds that are exploited, by African Presidents, and backed by Russia's Wagner group who guard and oversee the mining operations, taking their cut as payment.
This private confiscation of the wealth of a country, motivates thugs to create private armies, instigate coups and wage civil war.
The latest 'resource' out of Africa is Copper. I recently read that the largest (potential) source of Cu is directly under a village (don't remember where) and about 1 mile deep into the earth and could supply world copper demands to the tune of 300 tons (or million tons ?) = per year for who knows how long and is moslly owned by foreigners and they are styming that country from upping their investment ownership in their own resource `
Which country is that. Foreign corporations buy up local leaders, and those left out of the business are jealous and form a guerrilla army to displace and replace the benefactors, That is what is happening in Africa right now be it Mali, the DRC, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia. armed insurgency is the only way to obtain power, control and wealth.
Except where religion is used, even race, as an excuse it is all about grabbing power to control the resource and the source of wealth. Maybe race and religion are just an excuse to hide the real motive.
The Foreigners are corporations, oligarchs, individuals, who have the economic power to use the political, financial, and military resources of their government for access and control of those natural resources. Like Exxon Mobil did when Chavez was so fool hardy to think that the oil in the ground of Venezuela belonged to Venezuela and not Exxon Mobil.
I agree but that can not be our excuse!!! We sell water to Saudi and other countries and we still allow grocery stores to use plastic bags - and not all stores charge for plastic.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the Peninsula and Horn of Africa countries produce nothing but oil. The birth rate and population of these countries is monitored by their import of Pampers.
Oil producers also produce the plastic, right? Similar to the old joke that the machine making the feeding hole in the nipple of baby bottles was the same machine being used to punch minuscule holes in condoms. More babies > more bottles > more dollars.
Oil producers don't own chemical companies outright, but there are
1. Interlocking boards of directors
2. Corporate investors like Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street own majority shares, and they also own shares in the petro chemical complex, media, especially electronic, health care, insurance.. and are basically USA. Inc.
Wayne Teal, it's so heartbreaking and maddening. Thanks for relaying the Ecuadorian story. I'm with the people in spirit.
Indeed• the mining rights that were forced past the UN ; Now scientists revealed " nodules are creating oxygen on the ocean floor " - the data was around for years.We need SUSTAINABILITY- not degradation. Respectfully ,thanks
Daniel, I believe you are as unrealistic that the courts will work as they are supposed to as I am that we will all ever have a right to health care.
If the Republicans get thrashed in November, so that the Democratic party wins both houses of Congress as well as the White house, enabling the impreachment and removal of SCOTUS judges convicted of lying to Congress (at interview), perhaps the next generation of Democrats will change things?
Exactly! I hope the Democrats come out in full force and take back the House, Senate and Presidency. There are more Democrats than Republicans, if, and that’s a big IF, the Dems come out in force we can win and the House can start impeachment proceedings, send it to the Senate for approval, then let the impeachments begin, while expanding the SC and placing term limits on all Justices. Lifetime appointments should never happen in any government position.
I've been reading your comments about healthcare, Gloria, both here and on Hartmann's forum, and I agree completely.
I'm quite cognizant of the stark choice we have in November. I have no illusions about what a second tRump term would be like.
And yet.....throughout most of my 48 voting years, I've heard some variation of, "Vote Dem, or else." Even so, there have been 6 Dem Presidents in my lifetime, and still no single payer (not to mention a minimim wage that's been stagnant for 15 years). The ACA happened after Obama reneged on his single-payer promise, and is a giveaway to Big Insurance. Unless one is truly destitute, premiums are high and rising, the deductible is high, and coverage is minimal. The privatization of Medicare that was begun under Bush II has continued through every administration since.
So we're told to just get Harris in office, and then we'll worry about healthcare and all those other issues. We've heard that before, and I, for one, am getting pretty frustrated. Not holding my breath.
After my emails to the White House VP repeatedly failed to deliver, I tried phone calls that didn't even connect me to a person, so I wrote a letter and put it in the mail. A mail campaign to Harris to add single-payer to the agenda could get through to her. Is she in a bubble now that she has the nomination? We have lost our Democracy anyway if we can't meet the needs of the people and our representatives ignore us. The Teamster's president spoke at the Republican convention to warn the Democrats that they shouldn't automatically count on union votes. We need to take a stand. We need Harris to lead the way FDR did; "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Yes, pretty appalling that Sean O'Brien spoke at the RNC convention. However, my husband was a Teamsters member for a few years, and discovered that, at least at the local level, the organization was corrupt and useless when it came to fighting for members. Perhaps the rot goes all the way up.
I'm not optimistic that Harris will back single payer, but we'll see. If---and it's a big "if"---the Dems win big in November, and nothing has changed by the midterms, they will have forever forfeited the right to make promises to the working class.
You wouldn't think it was appalling if you listened to his speech. It took courage to stand in front of that crowd and say what he did. O'Brien should be allowed to make a similar speech at the Democratic convention. There may be local corruption, but being nearly useless in fighting for members is the fault of the SCOTUS. Until I did a deep dive into SCOTUS decisions, I blamed the unions for the decline of union membership.
When I was looking for a union to help me organize the most disgusting excuse for a nursing home, the INA wouldn't help us, but the Teamsters showed up and helped us organize on behalf of the patients, their families, and the workers. The NLRB is weak and needs the budget and support to do what it is intended to do. Take care.
Denise, you are correct about what we have been lead to believe from the democrats. The irony is that the republicans are not any different. The only solution is to vote and support those individuals who support our democratic principals
I know the Repubs are the same (for some reason, every time I make a negative comment about Dems, some people automatically think I'm a Repub).
Yes, I think you've hit it exactly, Dave---support people who stand behind democratic principles. People, not party.
Simon Rosenberg at noon today with Fred Wellman for Forgotten Democrats. https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEscOCopjsqG9JzrFKgkbSrklap79NQnBeJ#/registration
Thank you for helping me tune in.
But shareholders demand quarterly returns—efficiency over resilience every time. I am reminded of Louis the 14th…”After me, the Deluge”.
Daniel Soloman, excellent. I hope every single case is won with triumphant just consequences. And the world will smile. Do you know if other countries have brought suit and won?
Daniel, I would hope that lawsuits are an answer.
I binge watched Suits and am binge watchiing Billions.
Although the two are an over dramatization of real life, just like war movies are (except maybe Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers). They still reflect reality, the personal agendas, power plays and corruption of government officials as deals are made, promises made, favors traded and money exchanged..Quid pro quo is the name of the game judges, lawyers, executives, boards of directors.
But we have to try. What ever happened to the rail roads in the wake of East Palestine, or have the people of East Palestine been made financially whole?
The Question was rhetorical, nothing and nothing.
If a corporation wants your land to build a casino, a mall or just for access, they will get it via eminent domain.
The Dakota access pipeline and the Keystone XL pipeline were abandoned, not because of activists or law suits, but because the price of oil had fallen and they were considered unprofitable.
The Dakota access (DAPL) pipeline was to move tar sands to the gulf for refining, only the oil would scour the pipes and cause serious leaks, while the tar sands require special refineries to be built, and then there is the problem of waste disposal, meanwhile the price oil doesn't justify the expense. and it is not stable either.
You nailed it William. Fracking is another bogus BS enterprise from the oil companies. The oil deposits are very deep. Almost all BELOW the ground water tables. They drill through these and line the holes with steel pipes. Then they inject water and toxic chemicals into the oil layers to break up "fracture" the oil trapped in the geological formations and pump it to the surface. Don't worry they say, "the steel casings will keep the chemicals from mixing with the ground water". Maybe for now, but what will happen 50 or 100 years from now when those casings rust through and fail. Most of us today won't live to see it but future generations will and they will pay the price. They will wonder "just what the f*** were we thinking to allow this to happen?
Go Kamala. Donate and vote Blue. Cheers... GH
Fracking also causes land subsidence and earth quakes. Saudi Arabia wanted to become grain independent, it sits on a massive 10,000 year old lake, (there is more water under the soil than above it, the continents float on a virtual lake,so they say.
Anyway they used the new irrigation technologyh where they drill a hole as a pivot point, then they have irrigators, an1/8th of a mile, or more, that rotate around the pivot point and irrigate a quarter of a mile in cirumference, if you fly over eastern Washington and grain growing stetes you can see these green circles.
Anyway, they used up so much water that the land subsided, and they had to give up the enterprise.
Fracking has already poisoned water tables for communities in Wyoming, North Dakota, California, Pennsylvania, and New York.
We couldn't stand either program. Awful.
What you don't see is the power of insurance. Most cases settle to the extent of coverage. Among the 182 kinds of cases I heard were environmental and nuclear whistleblower cases. Many of the whistleblowers were at a high level -- the first bank case, the whistleblower was the CFO. Not completely due to a sense of justice. They know they are personally liable.
Don't whistle blowers wind up on the short end of the stick? Maybe you could not stand Suits and Billions, I can't stand War Movies either, for one thing they hash together hundreds of individual and isolated incidents and then compress them into a singular story about a men, men or a battle. And then they have logic gaps,which I can't tolerate because I know too much. I watched one movie where paratroopers boarded a C-47 and jumped out of a C-130, and then there is the revolver which they load on Sunday and fire till Friday without reloading. Or the automatic weapon that is not belt fed that fires thousands of rounds., and the action movies, like john Wick who never misses no matter the target or how far away..
Suits and Billions are like that, always cliff hangers. I know and expect that, but there are kernels of truth around which the stories are built.
Insurance companies stay solvent and produce positive returns for investors by denying claims, and they find every excuse to deny claims.
I had a hot water heater fail in the garage apartment I rent. My insurance company cleaned up the mess (sent out that company that advertises "like it never happened" but it took a week, but when it came to repairs, they sent out an assessor, to see if the heater failed because I didn't replace it. Fortunately it was an outlet connection, two different metals, copper and steel, and electrolysis corroded the connection, it took over 40 years, so they paid for the repairs.
Insurance companies will use any excuse to deny a claim or refuse service (health insurance especially)
There are several types. Some do it as an occupation. Qui tam litigants. The IRS and SEC have special programs that are effective. I know physicians who make a living using the Medicare/ CMS procedure. I heard 22 different types of whistleblower cases.
Here's the SEC variation. I did not hear them, but I did hear Sarbanes Oxley Dodd Frank whistleblower cases.
https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/whistleblower-program
My feeling is that they make companies aware that they can get stuck ... and thus makes companies self police themselves.
Daniel... the information you provide is informative and vital. I see no solution unless government is strong enough to enforce protective environmental legislation when it exists. Nuclear waste, forest/habitat destruction, decreasing dependence on fossil fuel are mandatory priorities. Self policing by companies is unrealistic when erratic CEOs like Elon Musk in the neighborhood, AI and Bit coin energy consumption proliferates and voters are too dumb to understand what is at stake. Allowing only truthful media to exist would be a grand first step.
Thanks for the education Daniel.
Greed at its finest. We know we're killing the planet but the share holders don't care.
Native Americans knew that.
I hope the wisdom of Native Americans has not been lost over the years.
If you have the understanding of human beings as a particular species, it's obvious that, unlike other species with natural limits to growth, ours has managed to overcome the limits of habitat, predators, etc.
In the past our population has been limited by disease and warfare. It's up to us now to use our superior ability skills to save ourselves by limiting growth and not just ny vanquishing every other species.
You reminded me of a scene in the film "The Gods must be crazy" that goes (after switching from the life of bush people in the Kalahari to urban Johannesburg) "Civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment. Instead he adapted his environment to suit him. So he built cities, roads, vehicles, machinery. And he put up power lines to run his labour-saving devices. But he didn`t know when to stop ..."
Miland, I love the comparison to that movie, which I also love!
Thoughtful people will limit growth but the GOP is promoting large families. I’ve become so cynical nowadays that I think they do this so there will be lots of cheap labor for the rich.
They overturned Roe because they view children as future consumers.
It used to be that the less economically advantaged were viewed as prime recruits for the military. I can remember a WWII veteran telling me that he loved the Army because you got regular meals. I know he ate his share of rations because he had been in WWII and the Korean War. But coming out of the Great Depression and the Dust Bole, it was one of the things he appreciated as a young man.
Probably, and alot of children and teenagers that should be in school!
W. Are in overshoot.
Miland, have you read The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis? He documents Frump's actions when went into office last time. He asked for names of all those researching climate, etc., to be rid of them..just a taste of all he wants to wreck!
Marilyn: no, I haven't read Michael Lewis' works, but he looks like an interesting author. I can believe Trump neglecting important matters of state (like reading his Daily Brief). I can imagine him neglecting departments whose outlook he doesn't agree with, such as those concerned with environmental protection. I suppose if he comes to power in November (which may Heaven prevent), under Project 2025 he will simply abolish them. firing all their staff.
And he did that to most if not all depts! Im surprized the fed. Govt. Didnt just implode. Energy, Agriculture etc etc. WE CANT LET HIS WREC KING CREW NEAR ANY OF IT AGAIN! You may not sleep after reading it!
To be honest, a story of various government departments being injured by neglect by Trump sounds dry to me, because it's a story about organisations rather than individuals. But if I were a US citizen and politically active there, I might well read it and wonder how the country could be saved. Perhaps it gave you sleepless nights!
I understand. What gave me pause is what the those disruptions did to and had the potential to do to me! Glad you are rooting for our democracy.
Amen!
Ought to be common sense. Exactly but....
The most difficult thing to get people to do is to accept the obvious.
What you say is spot on, but you are preaching to the choir. Your message needs to be heard by all the school children across the country. That’s how we make things happen.
True in general, but we have just about lost the oceans as a result of commercial fishing. Watch “Seaspiracy”
We also need to take action. Get involved with your local area. What is your city doing to help. I discovered that the tree population in my city was reviewed and they discovered that most of the trees are in bad shape. There has been some movement to try and encourage citizens to plant new trees, including offering free trees.
I live in a town in the Pacific Northwest. Even here, our tree canopy is lower than suggested in our area. Planting trees is so important, but let's be sure we are planting the right ones for our are3aq.
Part of science curriculum
Not just science, but also humanities. Too many students tune out the science teacher.
So true
Professor Reich: i agree completely. this was one of my first questions i asked Thomas Piketty in a live talk he gave at a university in Germany: "how is it logical to expect unlimited economic growth on a finite planet?" His answer was unsatisfying, to say the least. (I've since done more reading and discovered that Piketty is not the real enemy here, but he sure doesn't represent biodiversity, environment and climate concerns very well.)
I’ve just started a book by Ingrid Robeyns called “Limitarianism”. I had not heard the term before. I’ll see what the author has to say.
Hopefully, your question planted a seed for more thought on his part.
I’ve been trying to listen to one of his audiobooks, “Capital and Ideology”. It’s interesting but not one that I can easily listen to while performing other tasks.
🤣
I believe many of us are coming to
The same conclusion as you, Mr.
Reich; we now KNOW we must
Do something to reverse these ill
Trends. But it also looks like we
Must fight the billionaires in this
Process!
We have known these things since at least the 1970s. I think it was the Carter admin that tried to put some laws(?) in place. I just remember that the store where I worked part-time turned the air conditioning up so it was quite warm for the workers who had to wear smocks.
We’ve been talking about climate change since the day I was born in 1980. My entire life.
I don’t recall which president admin this happened under, I think one of the Bush’s’, but NASA created a report that talked about climate change. The administration wouldn’t allow it to be published until the White House lawyers had edited it. As you can imagine, it was very watered down.
Thats why this moment in time is pivotal for GenX. It’s far past time to teach the planet destroyers a lesson on what happens when you fail to respect future generations. I’m here for it.
I’m saying this from memory, so that’s shaky, but it seems I recall that the last big world climate event that Greta Thunberg attended, she was very disgusted because it was filled with lobbiests and financial types and not very effective. You have to figure out how to talk louder than money.
I am 68 years old. My chemistry teacher in high school was already talking about climate change. "Money talks!💩 walks" seems to be a true statement. Big Oil 💰 money bought the government
Environmentalists believe that the companies (or other entities) responsible for these externalities should pay for them. If they commit an oil spill, they should pay triple damages
I live in Pennsylvania- we have about 500 abandoned COAL MINES ; the owners just walked away YEARS AGO( they leak methane gas ). They didn't fund the required financial accounts to close them. EPA is under funded/ staffed ( before tracking) ; it's an up Hill battle . Thanks, respectfully 🌱🌿
What?? That’s ridiculous. It’s like walking away from an oil spill and shrugging it off like nothing happened. How in the hell did they get away with it?
Coal companies have been especially guilty of generating egregious unpaid for "externalities". They have repeatedly befouled the air, water & land, harming the environment & people's health to the extreme.
They break the law while we watch
lisa, well put!
I was at NJDEP and then EPA enforcement for over 20 years - very little "watching" going on at best. You can dig up the reported inspection frequency on EPA web pages. I dont think anyone has ever watched the more numerous nonmajor smaller permitted facilities..
I wonder why the US Forrest Service is letting so many loggers cut down the giant sequoias? That seems, I don’t know, a bit barbaric and disrespectful 🤷♀️
They are? That should be absolutely forbidden. Giant sequoia provide a unique ecosystem that was historically far more widespread millions of years ago. It's a dwindling ecotype that must be conserved. They're the largest & among the oldest trees in the world.
Tell me about it. “The largest logging projects I’ve ever seen are targeting the last, best remaining old growth trees left in the country,” said Chad Hanson, a forest ecologist and co-founder of the John Muir Project.
Pretty soon we won’t be able to see the forest for the lack of trees.
This debunk is brilliant and one that is rarely mentioned! I hope it will be developed as one of Inequality media’s videos❣️
Regardless of the pretense for logging, why is it up to the loggers? The trees should be protected and if they come down they should come down by the state or federal experts; not private operators only interested in profits. That will never make sense which is why it doesn’t work.
Wow! I had not heard this! So sad! Is this under the Dept of Interior? I will be writing!
USDA, U. S. Forest Service
The Forest Service in southern Illinois clear cuts areas of Shawnee National Forest and sells it to mulch makers. It’s a travesty! Only forests in the National Park Service had some protection.
clear cuts at national forests are shocking and common. A national forest is essentially a federal [taxpayer] subsidy for the logging and pulp and paper industry. The feds build the roads at taxpayer expense, then the industry loggers swoop in and clear it for cheap, and the Congress gets campaign donations-- YAHOO! its never restored.
Politics the head of the USDA , Tom Vilsack, a lobbyist, makes decisions based on politics and the lumber industry has a lot of money and clout.
In Washington, Weyerhauser is the big Kahuna, Oregon and in northern California.it is Sierra Pacific, whole towns depend on them for jobs, basically they are company towns and votes.
My wife has kin that lives in Grey's Harbor, WA it use to be a lumber town, but it lumbered out, it is trying to reinvent itself as tourist, lots of luck with that.
That is a really nice area & deserving of tourism, I suppose. It's kind of out of the way, but it's not far from the magnificent Olympic Peninsula, home of a rare temperate rainforest.
But to your point, short-sighted, unsustainable logging projects such as what we're discussing here, eventually wipe out the products & therefore the industry, as well as devastate the ecosystem.
I can drive 10 minutes, park my car, look out across the Georgia Strait and see the Olympics, and in a clear day Mt Rainier go into reverse drive another 60 seconds park my car and see Mt Baker
The area is beautiful, Most of the timber on this island was planted by the settlers, there are no old growth forests, but driving south on I-5 from Seattle, and turning off and heading east after Olympia, you soon enter Weyerhauser land, all the old growth forest has been removed, and you see planned forests planted by Weyerhauser, and they are the ugliest and most depressing thing you have ever seen., it is a green desert is the only way to describe it.
Uglier and more depressing than the Mohave, which is actually surprisingly exciting and pretty, even Death Valley.
But these Green Deserts are ugly and depressing.
If you graduate from college or university in Washington State, you had to take one class on forestry, you learn how they used a tall pine, to haul fallen trees up the mountain, originally with donkeys, but not motorized donkeys. They leave 10% untouched on the crest of the mountain, depending on gravity to repopulate the mountain.
You can drive the passes, the highways and all you see is new growth pines, near creeks and streams you might find alder., and where I live you find madronna, in fact I have on on my property
I am sitting at my desk, I lookup and through my front window, over the roof of my barn, my house is at a higher elevation, sitting on a huge chunk of volcanic rock, older than the ice age, because you can see the scrapes of the ice, and there is a hill, pine laden hill, and none of it more than 100 years old.
Ah, you really live in a nice location! I love that area. And it is sad that they are still cutting so much of the old growth, even as we've known for a long time how important it is for the ecosystem.
I thought they only did it to prevent massive forest fires!😢
They may give false pretenses for their logging. Giant sequoia are among the most fire resistant trees that exist.
It's true that fires have gotten so hot & fierce in recent years with global scorching, long, intense droughts, huge insect infestations, etc. that nothing survives in their wake, but cutting down sequoia won't help. In fact it exacerbates the problem by destabilizing the ecosystem.
No, short-sighted, greedy logging companies view sequoia as a high-profit treasure trove of massive, high-quality wood, & that is why they would fraudulently deceive government into permitting them to wipe them out.
Ronald Reagan gave the go signal for chopping down the thousand year old Redwoods, and said "if you have seen one redwood, you have seen them all"
It is all about the dollar, and the wealthy never have enough, like sharks, the moment they stop swimming, they suffocate and die.
Lisa, I’m a big believer in Hanson and his John Muir Project work and how he has thoroughly documented over a century’s worth of forest growth and density in western states in response to the USFS’s thin it, log it before it burns approach.
Can you provide a link to reporting on this? Also need to clarify which "Sequioas." Semperviron or Gigantea? Not great either way, but the Gigantea are losing the climate change battle probably inevitably. So tragic.
She probably means sempervirens (Coast Redwood), since they are widely used in construction. Years ago a knowledgeable person talked about giganteas (Big Trees) being useless because "when they were felled, they shattered and were only useful as matchsticks". My thought was, smart trees!
I still wish she could link to more detail. You surely are right. I was actually at the big Headwaters protest where Bonnie Raitt showed up and many got symbolically arrested. (One question: since when is the local County Sheriff private security for the junk bond raider from Texas?) One of the key distinctions of Headwaters was that it was at the extreme inland reach of the coastal fog rainforest ecosystem. Not a change of subject: the Park Fire is within a metaphorical inch of extincting the last wild run of Chinook salmon. Hey, since I was wishing for link from others, I went and found this: https://www.kqed.org/news/11998224/park-fire-jeopardizes-californias-iconic-spring-run-chinook-salmon
Here’s the link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/01/us-forest-service-old-growth-trees-deforestation-logging
Lisa, the US Forestry Service reports to the USDA, the head of the USDA is Tom Vilak.
Tom Vilsack was chosen by Biden, over Marcia Fudge , to run the USDA. Fudge was a congress woman from Ohio, and a champion of small farmers.
Tom Vilsack's experience is as a lobbyist for big AG
The head of the US Forestry service does what his boss wants him to do. Tom Vilsack appointed him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Moore_(forester)
Technically speaking we will not destroy the earth, we will destroy ourselves and take much of the current ecosystem with us. But Mother Earth will survive and reincarnate. Humanity, at least in it's current form, will be its own demise.
I think this is the big blind spot. We talk about the earth as if somehow it represents us. We are just temporary tenants, wrecking the joint. We are mortal.
The way I see it, we of the capitalist and communist worlds see ourselves as having dominion over nature rather than part of it. This egocentric viewpoint is not ony destructive but dehumanizing. All this god made man to have dominion over the earth bullshit.
Agree wholeheartedly! We are a part of our ecosystem and need to learn to live in harmony with it.
Consider too the cost of allowing untested chemicals to be sold before their potential toxicity has been established. Teflon for example. If companies were subjected to proper safety tests before sales are allowed then many environmental disasters and human deaths would be averted. The cost and damage of Teflon outweighs its convenience. Is scrubbing an iron fry pan that much of a chore? Companies will whine such a requirement will stifle innovation. Such a requirement will also prevent human suffering and painful deaths.
You speak of the built-in failure of the EPA as Erin Brockovich has documented. When the agency was set up, tens of thousands of existing chemicals were grandfathered in. In addition, the rules contain loopholes that allow producers to prevent independent testing by giving them control over "proprietary" formulations. So, for instance, Monsanto (now Bayer) adds something to the active ingredient in Roundup (TM) and they can then sue any university that does toxicity testing.
This could be fixed by requiring all products to be exempted from proprietary protections until proven safe by independent double blind testing at P = 0.01 and setting a timetable for the testing of grandfathered products. But lacking public outcry, most of the politicians will find no appetite for legislating it.
Sustainability is facing two major obstacles: 1) Wealthy corporations are ever fixated on becoming wealthier. Because of that fixation, _they don't care_ about the damage they cause. Cleaning up the mess their production leaves behind is somebody else's problem. The ONLY reason they do anything towards cleanup is because they are **forced to**. (And then their PR flacks spin the notion that they are doing it because they are eco-friendly, like their efforts had been their own idea all along.) 2) The world is probably past the Point Of No Return in regards to the Environment. Given continuing population growth worldwide, the "maintenance level" of consumer goods alone is enough to continue wearing down Mother Nature's immune system. Then pile on the gratuitous pollution caused by the conspicuous consumption of industrialized nations like the US and the UK and China, and it guarantees that the Earth is in critical condition and fading fast.
Like the Red Queen said to Alice, "It takes all the running you can do to just stay put. If you want to get anywhere, you have to run twice as fast!" -- which is something the large majority of Humanity seems disinclined to even try. (Another applicable quote from "I Dream of Jeannie": "What they used to say in Baghdad was 'Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.'")
I had a refrigerator that I bought in 1984 and was still running fine when I donated it in 2023. Manufacturers can make things to last decades, but they want to waste resources (both the earths and ours) to make more money. Idk how you fix a thing like this.
I'm thinking of numerous movies where one character asks, "What do we do now?" and the other character, a realist, replies, "Now we die." Not surprisingly, most people are NOT willing to accept an inevitable Bad Ending..... so they live in denial, expecting that _something_ or **somebody else** WILL swoop in to save the day -- right until the bitter end.
In essence, the foundation problem is that what We need is the majority of people -- NOT just many -- to actively DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. But the majority are too lazy or too apathetic or too far into denial to make that effort. And as a result, We will ALL suffer the consequences. [Except for those of Us "lucky" enough to shuffle off their mortal coil before that Bad Ending arrives. (Me, for instance. At 72, I'll most likely be checking out in the next decade or two, just before the REALLY Bad stuff becomes commonplace.)]
P.S. It's called "planned obsolescence". Very popular production philosophy these days.
Fantastic, Prof. Reich! Once again, you've scored points (hopefully, Kamala will appoint you as her special adviser for climate change economics). Indeed, I trust that when she wins this November, according to my calculations by 11 million votes, she'll come here to Rio, along with you, to sign on to Ana Toni's proposal to tax the world's 200 richest billionaires to transition from fossil fuels to maglev and vactrain technology. Further details on our plan to do precisely this, on a planet-wide basis, can be obtained at tonyzineski74@gmail.com - I hope to hear from both you and Kamala soon and see you in Rio in November at the G20 meeting, and also next year at COP30 in Belém. Soak it to 'em!
The Earth is a uniquely poised planet of almost unimaginable beauty, life, and diversity, in a solar system of planets that are likely devoid of life. Why, on Earth, would anyone want to blow vast sums of money to build a spaceship to go to Mars - a cold dead rock with little in the way of intrinsic beauty - further polluting Earth in the process? Unless, he is on the spectrum....
Besos, Musk et al. are on the narcissistic, sociopathic, psychopath spectrum.
For ego—and because they see where it’s all going.
YEEEESSSSSS!!!! Say this louder and more often! Limit our consumption A LOT rather than build more nuclear power plants to "meet a growing NEED" - not need, if we weren't consuming so much we wouldn't NEED so much...
The industries create the toxic waste that the environment can’t process or degrade and absorb. They expect the burden of clean up to be left to the consumer—the people who are working to raise their families. The industries should not create the offending waste in the first place or if they do they must at the same time create the means and infrastructure for its safe disposal.
But nature can’t be replaced or duplicated. When it’s gone it’s gone. Forests are the lungs of the planet.
to stop economic growth would we not to also need to stop population growth? With more people on the planet we get more housing, more roads, more iPhones? Just what is a sustainable population for the planet? Have we already surpassed that number?
If people would live more sustainably, it would help. Why should we replace our iPhones every 3 years. Unnecessary. Why do people have more than one house? Unnecessary. Look at lifestyles and you could see lots of places for improving sustainability. Manufactured items can be made to last decades but companies want you to keep buying.
perhaps-and wait til we have a billion climate refugees -low birth-rate countries like Japan are paying people to have more babies-understandable on a small scale but unsustainable on a global scale-people still don't understand that perspective-and most don't want to
Yes we have long since surpassed it. According to William Rees, ecological-economics professor emeritus at University of British Columbia, sustainable is around 2-3 billion. Human population remained below that level for the first 200,000 years of our existence, until 200 or 250 years ago when the development of fossil fuel energy allowed us to overcome the natural feedback loops that kept us in check until then.
Cellular renewal in our bodies is a good thing, too — when it’s regulated. When it’s not it’s called a cancer, and, untreated, it usually kills the body whose cells it commandeers.
This line of argument seems so blindingly obvious that it is incomprehensible that mainstream economists have not taken it more seriously. But they have not and we march onward to the beat of the growth drum, whatever end of the political spectrum. However, it seems that the future will not so convincingly replicate the past due to two parallel consequences of the post war years: Climate change and demographics. Both cry out for a new radical formulation of economics that can deliver a worthwhile future for humanity while we grapple with the catastrophe and practical problems of climate change and a population that threatens collapse under its own weight. However I see nothing, nothing at all on offer.