Decrease in fossil-fuel CO2 emissions due to COVID-19 detected by atmospheric observations

Synoptic CO2 variations decreased at Hateruma Island, Japan, during February-March 2020

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Research News

 

IMAGE: BIRDS-EYE VIEW PHOTO OF HATERUMA ISLAND (LEFT) AND THE MONITORING STATION ON THE ISLAND (RIGHT). view more 

CREDIT: NIES

Tracking emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases by atmospheric observations is a major challenge for policymaking, such as the Paris Agreement. Huge atmospheric observation networks comprised of a variety of platforms including satellites have been developed to monitor regional/country-scale changes in the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The outbreak of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) has been affecting the global socio-economic activity, leading to a significant reduction in fossil-fuel-derived CO2 (FFCO2) emissions and other anthropogenic air pollutants in the world. This situation gave us a unique opportunity to assess our ability to quantify the changes in the regional FFCO2 emissions using atmospheric observations. However, there are few reports of observational evidence for CO2 emission reduction due to the COVID-19 lockdown, although a large number of publications have reported reductions in short-lived air pollutants from various parts of the world.

In Scientific Reports by Nature Publishing, researchers from the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan, and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) analyzed atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations observed at Hateruma Island, Japan, which is located in the continental margin of East Asia, and detected signals related to the FFCO2 reduction in China caused by the restrictions associated with the COVID-19 outbreak in January-March 2020.

We estimated that the FFCO2 emissions decreased by about 20% during January-February 2020 as a result of the measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within China and to the outside world. While a significant reduction of the atmospheric pollutants has been reported, papers on the atmospheric signals of the FFCO2 reduction are yet to be found in the published literature. "The size of the atmospheric reservoir of CO2 is quite large and the atmospheric CO2 has a relatively long lifetime. These characteristics make the change in the atmospheric CO2 concentrations caused by the COVID-19 influence quite small", stated Prabir K. Patra, co-author of the study and researcher at JAMSTEC.

To detect such faint signals in the CO2 variations, the research team of NIES and JAMSTEC focused on the relative variation of the atmospheric CO2 and CH4 observed at Hateruma Island for the past 20 years at daily time intervals. "The atmospheric observation at Hateruma Island is often influenced by the continental emissions during winter due to the airflow pattern caused by the East Asian monsoon. We know that the temporal variations in the atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations show considerable similarity, and the temporal change in the ratio of CO2 to CH4 variations trace very well the temporal change in fossil-fuel emissions in China for the years before 2020", said Yasunori Tohjima, lead author of the study and researcher at NIES. "Thus the variation ratio of CO2 to CH4 was expected to detect the signal reflecting the change in the continental CO2 emissions related to COVID-19 restrictions."

The research team found that the monthly average ratio of the atmospheric CO2 to CH4 variations in January, February, and March tracked the yearly increase in FFCO2 emissions from China during 1997-2019. However, the ratios showed significant decreases in February and March 2020, which coincided with the lockdown period in China. "The relationship between the variation ratio and the FFCO2 emissions from China should be evaluated by using an atmospheric transport model and a set of CO2 and CH4 flux maps", said Yosuke Niwa, co-author of the study and researcher at NIES. "We used multiple simulations of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 at Hateruma Island for various emission reduction scenarios of fossil-fuel CO2 by using NICAM-TM." The study thus concluded that China's FFCO2 emissions decreased by about 30% in February and about 20% in March 2020. "Our approach presented in this study has the potential to detect signals from the emission reduction from any specific region in near-real-time using continuous and high-precision measurements of CO2 and CH4", mentioned Prabir K. Patra.

CAPTION

Temporal change in monthly averages of the variation ratio of the atmospheric CO2 to CH4 in January, February, and March observed at Hateruma Island since 1998. The grey thick line represents the smoothed trend curve, and the grey-shaded area represents the 95% range of the variations from the trend curve. The black solid, broken, and dotted lines are the estimated fossil-fuel-related CO2 emissions from China.

Plastics and rising CO2 levels could pose combined threat to marine environment

UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH

Research News

 

The combined environmental threat of plastic pollution and ocean acidification are having significant impacts on species living in our oceans, according to new research.

An international team of scientists found that after three weeks of being submerged in the ocean, the bacterial diversity on plastic bottles was twice as great as on samples collected from the surrounding seawater.

However, in areas of elevated carbon dioxide, a large number of taxonomic groups - including bacteria that play an important role in carbon cycling - were negatively impacted.

Conversely, other species - including those have previously been shown to thrive in areas of high ocean plastics and to potentially cause disease on coral reefs - were enriched by it.

The research also showed that while many groups of bacteria were shared between plastic, free-living and particle-associated samples, almost 350 were found uniquely on plastics.

Writing in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, researchers say the study adds to growing evidence that the increasing presence of plastic marine debris is providing a novel habitat for bacteria.

However, their results highlight that environmental conditions and local ecological processes will play an important role in determining its broader impact over the coming decades.

The study was led by the University of Tsukuba (Japan) and the University of Plymouth (UK), in collaboration with Keimyung University (Korea), Kyungpook National University (Korea) and Nanjing University (China).

Scientists submerged a number of plastic bottles in seas off the Japanese Island of Shikine, a region renowned for its CO2 seeps where the escaping gas dissolves into the sea water and creates conditions similar to that expected to occur worldwide in coming years.

They then used a combination of DNA sequencing and statistical techniques to analyse how bacteria colonise the plastic in comparison to the surrounding natural environment, and whether the increased CO2 levels would cause changes in the bacteria's distribution.

Lead author Dr Ben Harvey, Assistant Professor at the University of Tsukuba's Shimoda Marine Research Center and a graduate of the BSc (Hons) Ocean Science programme in Plymouth, said: "Discarded plastic drinking bottles have become a common sight in our oceans and we were expecting to see them being colonised by different types of bacteria. We also predicted that raised CO2 levels would cause significant changes in the bacterial colonies, but it was still surprising to see the extent of that change and how the raised levels affected species differently. To see beneficial species dwindling while harmful species thrive is an obvious present and future cause for concern."

Researchers from Tsukuba, Plymouth and other collaborators have published several studies over the past decade showing the threats posed by ocean acidification in terms of habitat degradation and a loss of biodiversity.

It is also the latest research by the University of Plymouth into plastics, with it being awarded a Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2020 for its ground-breaking research and policy impact on microplastics pollution in the oceans.

Jason Hall-Spencer, Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Plymouth and senior author on the study, added: "Up to 13 million tons of plastics from land end up in the oceans each year and they have been shown to affect all types and sizes of marine species. Combine that with rising CO2 levels and the threat posed to the global ocean is stark. It reinforces the importance of taking steps to meet the standards demanded by international climate treaties so as to reduce the impact of ocean acidification and warming. It is also within our power to change cultures so that litter created on land does not become an environmental hazard in our oceans, both now and for future generations."

###

RACIST AMERICA

Black patients with RA less likely to receive biologic, more likely to get glucocorticoids

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF RHEUMATOLOGY

Research News

 

ATLANTA -- A new study reveals that Black patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were less likely to be prescribed a biologic treatment and more likely to use glucocorticoids, which carry a risk of serious long-term side effects. This study highlights ongoing racial disparities in the care of patients with rheumatic disease. Details of the study was shared at ACR Convergence, the ACR's annual meeting (RA is the most common type of autoimmune arthritis. It is caused when the immune system (the body's defense system) is not working properly. RA may cause pain and swelling in the joints as well as affect multiple organ systems such as the lung and eye. RA is treated with disease modifying anti rheumatic drugs, including biologics, to help stop joint pain and swelling, and also prevent joint damage. "

Racial disparities in access to care and effective treatment regimens are poorly understood in the RA population, but past research shows that non-white RA patients have a lower frequency of biologic use versus white patients, even when accounting for comparable disease activity and access to treatment. This new study looked at racial disparities in RA treatment and emergency department use in patients with RA at a single, tertiary academic center in Pennsylvania.

"With the explosion of effective therapies for rheumatoid arthritis, it is particularly important to make sure that we are treating patients in the best way possible," says the study's co-author, Michael George, MD, MSCE, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. "Variability in practice, and disparities in treatment, suggest that there is room for significant improvement. We hope that this study will add to the existing literature about disparities in rheumatoid arthritis care-understanding why they exist and finding ways to address them are key to improving the health of patients with RA."

The study used electronic health record data from 1,831 patients with RA from 2010 to 2018. Patients had at least two RA diagnoses from a rheumatology outpatient encounter and at least one prescription of a disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) during the follow-up period, or from their first to their last clinic visit. The researchers also measured patient demographic information, medication use and comorbidities at the baseline visit and at any point during the follow-up period.

The researchers then compared the differences in patient characteristics and visits between Black and white patients. Of the 1,831 patients in the study, 82% were female, 35% were Black, 54% were white and the mean age was 55. The average follow-up period for all patients was 6.97 years. Black patients were more likely to be older, have a higher body-mass index (BMI), were former or current smokers and had higher rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

The researchers found racial disparities in how RA was treated with prednisone and conventional synthetic DMARD treatments used significantly more often in Black patients than whites: 79.3% of Black patients used prednisone compared to 69.1% of whites, and 96.7% of Black patients used a conventional DMARD compared to 93.5% of whites.

Additionally, white patients in the study were significantly more likely to use a biologic, a more advanced, expensive, and effective treatment for controlling RA disease activity and preventing joint damage. According to the data, 74% of whites and 67% of Blacks were prescribed a biologic drug. Black patients also had significantly more visits to the hospital emergency department (ED) over the eight-year period.

"This project supports prior work showing reduced use of biologics and a greater use of prednisone in patients who were Black - which could potentially mean worse outcomes or increased steroid side effects in this group," says Dr. George. "A key next step that many are working on is understanding the key drivers of these disparities - understanding why they exist (e.g., access to medications, insurance, patient-provider communication, health beliefs, etc.) is important so we know how to address these disparities."

ABSTRACT:

Characterization of Racial Disparities in Rheumatoid Arthritis Treatment Choice and Location of Care

Background/Purpose:

Racial disparities in access to care and treatment regimens exist but remain poorly characterized in the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patient population. Previous studies using the Ethnic Minority RA Consortium (EMRAC) have demonstrated non-Caucasian RA patients have a lower frequency of biologic use versus Caucasian patients despite controlling for comparable disease activity and access to treatment. Here we explore longitudinal racial disparities in rheumatoid arthritis treatment and emergency department (ED) use in a single tertiary academic center.

Methods:

Structured de-identified data from 2010-2018 of patients who had at least two diagnoses of RA from a rheumatology outpatient encounter and at least one DMARD script during the follow-up period were extracted from the electronic health record of a single tertiary care center. Follow-up was measured from each patient's first visit to each patient's last visit within the 2010-2018 timeframe. Patient demographics were measured at the baseline visit, with medication use and comorbidities measured at baseline or at any point during follow-up. The average number of outpatient visits and ED visits per year (limited to ED visits within the health system) during follow-up were also measured. Differences in patient characteristics and visits were compared in patients who were Black versus white based on standard t-test and χ2 analysis.

Results:

A total of 1831 patients with rheumatoid arthritis were identified from 2010-2018. Baseline demographics were measured at each patient's first visit and include mean [SD] age, 55.05 [14.47] years; 1499 [81.87%] female; and 991 [54.12%] white. Average [SD] duration of follow-up for all patients was 6.97 [2.28] years. Comparing black (n=639) and white (n=991) patient demographics, significant findings include that black patients were more likely to be older, have higher BMI, former or current smoking status, and have higher rates of diabetes and cardiovascular disease (p< 0.0001). Prednisone and csDMARD use were significantly more frequent in black patients compared to white patients (79.3% vs 69.1% p< 0.0001; 96.7% vs 93.5%, p=0.005, respectively). Biologic use was significantly more common among white patients compared to black patients (white 74.3%, black 67.0% p=0.001). In terms of site of care delivery, black patients had significantly more ED visits, with a median 0.24 ED visits per patient per year versus 0.00 for white patients. A summary of the findings are shown in Table 1.

Conclusions:

Patients who were black were less likely to receive a biologic and more likely to use glucocorticoids. ED visit use was higher in black patients, which could be related to higher rates of comorbidities, although differences in geographic location could also influence whether patients visited an ED or saw non-rheumatology providers within or outside the health system. Further studies identifying drivers of racial disparities in access to care and outcomes are needed.

Black patients with lupus have three times higher risk of stroke

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF RHEUMATOLOGY

Research News

 

ATLANTA -- New research reveals that, in the U.S., Black patients with lupus have a threefold higher risk of stroke and a 24-fold higher risk of ischemic heart disease. The study also found several lupus-specific symptoms that predict stroke and IHD in these patients. Details of the study was presented at ACR Convergence, the American College Rheumatology's annual meeting (ABSTRACT #0433).

Systemic lupus erythematosus, also called lupus or SLE, is a chronic disease that causes systemic inflammation affecting multiple organs, such as the skin, joints, kidneys, the tissue lining the lungs (pleura), heart (pericardium) and brain. Many patients experience fatigue, weight loss and fever. The disease is more common among Black, Asian, and Native American people and tends to be worse in these groups.

Black people with lupus have a 19-fold higher occurrence of cardiovascular disease compared to other groups and have a disproportionately higher number of stroke-related events around the time of lupus diagnosis. Researchers wanted to know more about the specific risks and predictors of stroke and ischemic heart disease in Black people with lupus.

"The risk for developing cardiovascular disease is up to 52 times higher in patients with lupus, compared to patients without lupus. Black populations have three times higher risk to develop lupus, develop it at a significantly younger age and have more severe disease. However, most prior lupus and cardiovascular disease (CVD) studies were conducted in predominantly white cohorts, limiting the generalizability of the findings," says the study's co-author, Shivani Garg, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. "It's important to quantify the risk, predictors and timing of stroke and ischemic heart disease in Black people with lupus in order to guide early CVD diagnosis and preventive interventions in this at-risk population." The study highlights the need for aggressive heart disease preventive care to reduce these racial disparities and improve lupus outcomes, particularly in recently diagnosed patients, she adds.

The researchers collected data from the Georgia Lupus Registry of lupus patients from Atlanta. They identified patients from 2002 to 2004 who met four or more of the ACR's SLE criteria or three criteria with a final lupus diagnosis by their own rheumatologist. They matched the patients to the Georgia Hospital Discharge Database and National Death Index from 2000 to 2013. Stroke and ischemic heart disease-related hospitalizations and deaths were based on hospital admission and death medical codes. Transient ischemic attacks were included in the stroke data, and myocardial infarction (heart attack) and angina were included in ischemic heart disease data. The researchers also examined symptoms that predicted strokes and ischemic heart disease. Of the 336 lupus patients included in the final study, 87% were female, 75% were Black, and the mean age at diagnosis was 40.

They found 38 stroke-related and 25 ischemic heart disease -related health events or deaths that occurred from two years before to 14 years after a lupus diagnosis. In the 11% of patients who had strokes, the mean age at first stroke was 48, and 78% of the strokes occurred in females. Ninety percent of the strokes occurred in Black patients. The peak number of strokes happened in the second year after lupus diagnosis. The study also showed that 8% of the patients had ischemic heart disease, and their mean age at diagnosis was 52. All the ischemic heart disease cases occurred in females, 96% occurred in Black patients and the peak number of cases occurred in the 14th year after diagnosis with lupus. All in all, the data showed that Black patients with lupus have a threefold higher stroke risk and a 24-fold higher ischemic heart disease risk than other groups.

What about potential predictors of stroke or ischemic heart disease? Discoid rash at the time of lupus diagnosis predicted a five-fold higher risk of stroke, while renal disorder at the time of lupus diagnosis predicted a two-fold higher stroke risk. Neither discoid rash nor renal disorder predicted ischemic heart disease, however. Strong predictors of ischemic heart disease were neurologic disorders (prior psychosis or seizure) and immunologic disorders (anti-DNA, anti-Sm, or antiphospholipid antibodies), but these did not predict strokes.

These findings highlight significant racial disparities in both stroke and ischemic heart disease among patients with lupus, says Dr. Garg.

"Our study increases awareness of higher risk, the timing of accelerated risk and disease presentations that contribute to higher risk of stroke and ischemic heart disease among Black patients with lupus. Such knowledge can help patients and providers look for and diagnose CVD events earlier and discuss starting preventive care to reduce their risk," says Dr. Garg. "Timely interventions could help reduce cardiovascular disparities in lupus and reduce CVD-related morbidity and mortality in young lupus patients, who are at relatively higher risk of premature CVD."

###

About ACR Convergence

ACR Convergence, the ACR's annual meeting, is where rheumatology meets to collaborate, celebrate, congregate, and learn. Join ACR for an all-encompassing experience designed for the entire rheumatology community. ACR Convergence is not just another meeting - it's where inspiration and opportunity unite to create an unmatched educational experience. For more information about the meeting, visit https://www.rheumatology.org/Annual-Meeting, or join the conversation on Twitter by following the official hashtag (#ACR20).

About the American College of Rheumatology

The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) is an international medical society representing over 7,700 rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals with a mission to empower rheumatology professionals to excel in their specialty. In doing so, the ACR offers education, research, advocacy and practice management support to help its members continue their innovative work and provide quality patient care. Rheumatologists are experts in the diagnosis, management and treatment of more than 100 different types of arthritis and rheumatic diseases.

ABSTRACT:

Racial Disparities and New SLE-Specific Predictors of Stroke and Ischemic Heart Disease in Patients with Lupus

Background/Purpose:

In the US, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of disparities in life expectancy between black and white populations. We recently reported a 19-fold higher occurrence of CVD in blacks with SLE compared to non-blacks and noted disproportionately high stroke-related events around the time of SLE diagnosis. This study measured the risk and predictors of stroke and ischemic heart disease (IHD) in a predominantly black, population-based, incident cohort.

Methods:

The Georgia Lupus Registry (GLR) is a population-based registry of SLE patients from Atlanta, Georgia. Incident patients in 2002-04 met ?4 ACR SLE criteria or 3 criteria with a final diagnosis of SLE by their board-certified rheumatologist. Patients were matched to the Georgia Hospital Discharge Database and National Death Index from 2000-13. Stroke- and IHD-related hospitalizations and deaths were classified by the first three admission or cause of death codes. Stroke also included transient ischemic attack, and IHD included myocardial infarction and angina. Predictors of strokes and IHD were examined using Cox proportional hazards models.

Results:

Among 336 incident SLE patients, 87% were female, 75% were black patient with a mean age at SLE diagnosis of 40 ± 17 years. There were 38 stroke-related and 25 IHD-related events or deaths, from the period 2 years before through 14 years after SLE diagnosis.

In the 11% with strokes, the mean age at first stroke was 48 years, with 78% occurring in females and 90% in blacks. The peak number of strokes occurred during the 2nd year after SLE diagnosis. We noted 8% had IHD, the mean age at first IHD was 52 years, with all occurring in females and 96% in blacks. The peak number of IHD occurred in the 14th year after SLE diagnosis.

Blacks had a 3-fold higher risk for stroke (HR 3.4, 95% CI 1.2-10, p 0.03) and a 24-fold higher risk for IHD (HR 24, 95% CI 3-206, p 0.004) (Table 1 & 2). Discoid rash at SLE diagnosis predicted a 5-fold (HR 4.6, 95% CI 1.7-13, p 0.003) and renal disorder predicted a 2-fold higher risk for stroke (HR 2.4, 95% CI 1.1-2.5, p 0.04) (Table 1). Neither impacted IHD (Table 2). Neurologic (HR 4.0, 95% CI 1.3-13, p 0.02) and immunologic disorder (HR 4.7, 95% CI 1.3-18, p 0.02) (Table 2) were strong predictors of IHD but not stroke.

Race stratified Cox proportional hazard models showed significantly accelerated stroke and IHD events in black compared to non-black patients (p ? 0.001) (Figure 1A & B).

Conclusions:

We found a 3-fold higher risk of stroke and 24-fold higher risk of IHD in blacks with SLE. We found different SLE-specific predictors of stroke and IHD: discoid rash and renal disorder predicted stroke, and neurologic and immunologic disorder strongly predicted IHD. This study provides unique insights on significantly different SLE-disease related predictors, timing and racial disparities in stroke compared to IHD in SLE. Hence, we highlight the need to consider different preventive strategies for stroke and IHD in SLE

About ACR Convergence

ACR Convergence, the ACR's annual meeting, is where rheumatology meets to collaborate, celebrate, congregate, and learn. Join ACR for an all-encompassing experience designed for the entire rheumatology community. ACR Convergence is not just another meeting - it's where inspiration and opportunity unite to create an unmatched educational experience. For more information about the meeting, visit https://www.rheumatology.org/Annual-Meeting, or join the conversation on Twitter by following the official hashtag (#ACR20).

About the American College of Rheumatology

The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) is an international medical society representing over 7,700 rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals with a mission to empower rheumatology professionals to excel in their specialty. In doing so, the ACR offers education, research, advocacy and practice management support to help its members continue their innovative work and provide quality patient care. Rheumatologists are experts in the diagnosis, management and treatment of more than 100 different types of arthritis and rheumatic diseases.

 

U.S. Peace Activists Castigate Those Vilifying China

China Daily  Editor Li Jiayao  Nov 2 2020 - Anti-war organizations in the US are calling on politicians to end what they say is aggression toward China that "feeds anti-Asian attacks at home and a cold war abroad". "The US is waging a cold war against China that could lead us to a real war resulting in unbelievable harm to the people in both countries and the world," said Julie Tang, co-founder of Pivot to Peace, an organization dedicated to advocating US-China peace. Despite the "futility of the trade war which harmed Americans more than China", the US administration continues "information warfare as a tool to manufacture consent from the public for a full cold war against China", Tang told the audience at a webinar hosted by Code Pink, a grassroots organization working to end what it says is US militarism. The anti-China tactics of the US administration include employing tools of economics and the law, diplomatic maneuvers, a military buildup in the South China Sea, support for "color revolutions" in Hong Kong and Xinjiang and attacks on Chinese students and scholars in the United States, she said. "This kind of confrontation has an equally dangerous and harmful effect on America and Americans, and especially on Chinese Americans," said Tang, a retired judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. "We have seen a level of racism that has not been seen in the last 50 years." From about 2018 US mainstream media started running articles that painted China "in an extremely negative light", she said. "What they said about China is a very different China that I know and personally experience." When the pandemic started and US President Donald Trump used the term "China virus", the US public was "sufficiently prepped to blame China and impliedly consented to a cold war with China", she said. To help end the conflict with China, Code Pink is petitioning the Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris, a California senator, to stand with Asian communities throughout the US and push the Joe Biden team to recognize that "China is not our enemy". The document garnered more than 1,200 signatures, mostly non-Chinese names, in just two days. "It is clear people don't want racism in the United States," said Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, adding that Americans should "do better on knowing who the Chinese are before we start to hate them". The organization has also partnered with groups such as Pivot to Peace and Veterans For Peace to launch a webinar series called "China Is Not Our Enemy" with the aim of "dismantling the US White House led anti-China rhetoric". Not overextending China is a civilization that simply maintained itself within its natural limits and it did not overextend itself by world-conquering campaigns as other empires did, said Michael Wong, vice-president of Veterans For Peace's Chapter 69 in San Francisco. "World conquests would eventually lead to its downfall. And the dilemma that the United States finds itself in, trying to extend power all around the world, demonstrates the wisdom of the Chinese strategy." China "has really set a standard "in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Tang said. "Our COVID-19 cases are surging every day, while the economy is still in a standstill. Meanwhile, China's economy is surging ahead of other major economies … Furthermore, the United States is still reliant on government stimulus to save the economy; China's economy rebounds on a strong foundation of industrial production and retail sales." Especially in the area of developing COVID-19 vaccines, Americans should demand that the government start to work with China, Tang said. "China is very advanced in biomedicine and advanced in all kinds of technologies, so exchanges between the two countries in those areas can greatly benefit both countries."

 

Book Review: Jodi Dean's 'Comrade'

Photo: The Young Communist League, 1929. (Afro American Newspapers / Gado / Getty Images) By Corey Robin The Nation ...In Ernst Lubitsch’s 1939 film Ninotchka, three Soviet officials are sent to Paris on a mission. But instead of doing the work, they’re bewitched and bourgeoised by the City of Lights. They drink, they dance, they stay out late. Moscow dispatches an envoy to set the rogues straight. They anxiously await the envoy’s arrival at the train station. When they discover the envoy is a striking woman nicknamed Ninotchka (played by Greta Garbo), they’re enchanted. A “lady comrade!” one exclaims. But Ninotchka is not amused. “Don’t make an issue of my womanhood,” she tells them. “We’re here for work, all of us.” That struggle—between an identity based on gender (or nation, race, or class) and the solidarity of doing the work—is at the heart of Jodi Dean’s Comrade. One of the most innovative and imaginative political theorists on the contemporary scene, Dean uses this scene in Ninotchka and a thoughtfully curated library of other texts, from the writings of the Soviet avant-garde to oral histories of the Black Belt, to argue for a communism that is stringent yet pleasurable, joyous yet disciplined. Like Ninotchka, Dean’s here for the work. Like Lubitsch, she makes it fun. Comrade is part of a trilogy of texts Dean has written over the past decade on the political theory of communism. In The Communist Horizon, she identified the transcendence of capitalism as the ambit of the left’s actions. In Crowds and Party, she located those actions in the party form. In Comrade, she examines the relation between members of the party. That relation creates two force fields. The first lies between members of the party, where a regulative ideal of being a “good comrade” not only governs the actions of each but also binds the actions of all. That binding creates a massive amount of power, which then projects a second force field—against the agents and institutions of capitalism that comrades seek to overthrow. The attraction of the first force field is necessary for the repulsion of the second. Seasoned union organizers know the truth of these force fields all too well; as Dean shows, so did anti-communists like George Orwell. Yet it is a truth many on the left ignore or evade. “If the left is as committed to radical change as we claim,” Dean insists, “we have to be comrades.” All politics require a space—a place where people can assemble, deliberate, and if necessary, move—and domains of action, which may include the economy, religion, sexuality, health, and more. What makes comrades unique is that it is the relationship among them that creates both types of space: where they assemble and what they assemble for. The word “comrade,” Dean explains, “derives from camera, the Latin word for room, chamber, and vault.” (Much like “cadre,” from the Latin quadrum, or square.) Rooms and vaults can be identical and easily reproducible. They provide cover or shelter. They differentiate those within from those without. Comrades create all of these effects by their affect, “a closeness, an intensity of feeling and expectation of solidarity,” and by their activity. Whereas work in a capitalist society is sustained by the coercion of the market, the work of comrades is powered by their commitment to one another, which derives from their close quarters (psychically speaking) and their commitment to the task at hand. The two commitments are mutually reinforcing. “One wants to do political work,” Dean writes, because of one’s attachment to one’s comrades, and one is attached to one’s comrades because one wants to do the work. Yet comradeship exceeds those affects and attachments. It must, for our sympathies are momentary, our purposes inchoate. Sometimes we fly to the assemblies, ready to do the work of the collective; other times, we laze about at home, succumbing to other desires or hesitation about our aims. Comradeship turns longing into intention and sustains that intention after the originating rush has dissipated. Comradeship extends the life of the crowd. It fulfills the function that labor historians have ascribed to the best union bureaucracies, which prolong solidarity after the strike, and that Arendt ascribed to constitutions, which institutionalize the aims and ambitions of the revolutionary moment after that moment has ceased. Comradeship does that work without the law or the state. It is instead an “ego ideal,” to use Dean’s Freudian language, maintained by the comrades themselves. That attempt to create a political space without relying on the law or the state is where we find the most intense unity of the ancients in all their outwardness and the moderns in all their inwardness. It is also where communism—and left politics in general—is most vulnerable to criticism and complaint. The effort of comrades to create and sustain a public space entirely through the psychic mechanisms of the ego ideal puts tremendous, almost inhuman pressure on them and their work. Without the customary supports of public life—whether the institutions of the state (after communism comes into power is a different story) or familiar sources of identity and attachment—comrades must ensure that each and every waking hour of their lives is dedicated to the common work of comrades. It is a demanding and unforgiving ideal, for much is at stake in any one person’s withdrawal from it. Yes, the work is performed in common with comrades, and the force field between them is mighty in its effects. Yet the force field is vulnerable to the competing energy of other forms of identification and attachment. Our other identities and attachments don’t simply disappear because the comrade declares them gone. They constantly clamor for our attention. Conversely, if those identities and attachments don’t sap the comrade of her energy and commitment, they may become all too tempting substitutes for the true work of comradeship. How many communists and leftists have taken this shortcut, forsaking political argument for simpleminded appeals to a worker’s identity or to national citizenship or gender or ethnic affiliation as the basis for action? How many activists have spoken those words of promise and threat—“You’re one of us”—that are so resonant in families yet so dangerous to politics? Tribalism comes in many varieties, and it would be foolish to think the comrade is not immune to its calls.  That moment of Ninotchka’s arrival in the Paris train station offers Dean another instructive mise-en-scène. As the three Soviets scan the platform, wondering who the comrade from Moscow might be, they spy a passenger who fits their expectations. They’re just about to extend a welcome when the passenger greets someone else, with a salute of “Heil Hitler.” The Soviets freeze. “That’s not him,” one of them says. Their mistake is productive for Dean. They’re assuming the comrade is a specifiable type—a gender, a face, a look—but comrades are “generic”; they don’t look like anyone or anything. They don’t have a specific identity. Comrades can be anybody, though not, Dean adds wryly, with a nod to that fascist, everybody. Anybody can do the work, and anyone who does the work will enjoy the solidarity of comrades. “We don’t even need to know each other’s names,” an activist tells her. “We’re comrades.” The solidarity of political work is not a subject well examined in the canonical literature of politics—Weber, one of the few theorists to think about politics as work, focused almost exclusively on charismatic leaders, not collectives—but it is a concern of vital interest to the left. Socialists of varying stripes have often looked to the workplace (or warfare) as laboratories of solidarity. So taken by the coordinated nature of modern work were the Saint-Simonians, for example, that they designed vests with buttons in the back so that no one could dress without the cooperation of others. In the physicality of concerted labor, many a socialist has caught a glimpse of a more solidaristic future. Dean’s model derives from neither the workplace nor warfare but from the political work and testimony of communists themselves, which yields an eclectic blend of voices—part republican, part romantic. On the basis of that testimony, she concludes that comradeship enables us to take on the perspective of others, to see our actions “through their eyes,” which “remakes the place from which one sees.” That enlarged perspective has been the calling card of thinkers ranging from Rousseau and Kant to Arendt and Habermas. Whereas these thinkers often find that perspective in the legislative institutions of the state or the organs of public opinion or the heroic moments of civic action, Dean locates it, as does Gornick, in the slow boring of hard boards, in the work of politics that escapes the limelight but where comrades dedicate themselves to a task and hold themselves accountable to its completion. Through that work, comrades can come to experience the joy of collective action and the enjoyment of one another. The joy is so intense that it spills onto other entities. Drawing on the work of artists and writers from the early Soviet avant-garde, which she compares to the poetry of Whitman, Dean describes an extension of ecstasy to “comrade objects” and “comrade things.” When the “love and respect” among comrades is “so great that it can’t be contained in human relations,” it “spans to include insects and galaxies (bees and stars).” Up to the 1990s, Dean’s commitment to the generic nature of the comrade would have raised the hackles of those in the liberal center and on the right, who would have seen it as a threat to the individual. Today, it will press buttons for some on the left, who will see it as a challenge to the claims of certain forms of identity. The comrade, Dean insists, seeks to equalize relationships across race, class, nation, religion, ethnicity, and gender. It creates a sameness, the sameness of those who are doing the work. The only difference that remains salient is between those who are on one side of the struggle and those who are on the opposite side. The mobility of that metaphor—of being on one side or the other—allows Dean to insist on forms of affiliation and attachment that are neither identitarian nor exclusive. Anyone can be a comrade; all one has to do is move to the other side. Though this quote from a Washington Post report on the Bernie Sanders campaign arrived too late for Dean to use, it offers a helpful instantiation of her claim: “Sanders is a candidate who presents himself less as a personality than a conduit for a movement. And in the Bernie bubble, [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez is seen as the future of the movement embodied. What makes her so effective as a surrogate, beyond her star power, is that if you campaign on electing a movement rather [than] a person, there’s no difference between hearing the message from the 78-year-old white male candidate or his 30-year-old Latina supporter.” The comrade, Dean makes clear, is not a description but an ideal. Comrades do not eliminate gender or race or conflicts. But what they can do is name a common horizon; they can state a destination to which they are collectively heading, an aim toward which they are working. Comradeship is the announcement of another way of being: not one in which difference is eliminated but in which it becomes the stuff of political art, of mediating conflicts in order to do the work for which all have come. Though it is anarchists who are best known for emphasizing the prefigurative elements of radical politics—arguing that how we do the work now will shape the society to come—Dean’s analysis also has a prefigurative element, with Lenin as its seer. The discipline of comrades, he said, “is a victory over our own conservatism, indiscipline, petty-bourgeois egoism, a victory over the habits left as a heritage to the worker and peasant by accursed capitalism.” The comrade contains within herself the defeat of the old regime. The left has good reason to be wary of the stern antinomies of the comrade. The freedom that goes by the name of discipline, the suppression of difference in the name of solidarity, the words of emancipation as window dressing for authoritarian constraint—we’ve been down this road before. Read More

Automation and the Future of Work

by Aaron Benanav

A consensus-shattering account of automation technologies and their effect on workplaces and the labor market

Silicon Valley titans, politicians, techno-futurists and social critics have united in arguing that we are living on the cusp of an era of rapid technological automation, heralding the end of work as we know it. But does the much-discussed “rise of the robots” really explain the jobs crisis that awaits us on the other side of the coronavirus?

In Automation and the Future of Work, Aaron Benanav uncovers the structural economic trends that will shape our working lives far into the future. What social movements, he asks, are required to propel us into post-scarcity, if technological innovation alone can’t deliver it? In response to calls for a universal basic income that would maintain a growing army of redundant workers, he offers a counter-proposal.

Reviews

“A powerful and persuasive explanation of why capitalism can’t create jobs or generate incomes for a majority of humanity.”

– Mike Davis, author of Set the Night on Fire

“An excellent, insightful account of the contours of our present labor crisis. Benanav articulately makes the case for a post-scarcity future.”

– Robert Skidelsky, biographer of John Maynard Keynes

“A highly quantitative analysis of the nature of contemporary unemployment flowers into something quite different and unexpected: a qualitative argument for the invention of new collective capacities in a world where work is no longer central to social life.”

– Kristin Ross, author of Communal Luxury

“A rare book that manages to soberly assess the contemporary landscape while keeping a clear eye on our utopian horizons. This is an important intervention into current discussions around technology and work—and a must-read for anyone who believes capitalist decay is not the only future.”

– Nick Srnicek, author of Platform Capitalism

“Benanav dissects and disproves the idea that automation is eradicating work … We don’t need to wait for robots to do all the work; we can collectively decide what we need, then plan the economy to achieve it.”

– Paris Marx, Passage

Tom Hazeldine

05 November 2020

Automation and the Future of Work: a letter from the Editor

"Among the books that will help us ascend from what Marx termed the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom, this is a pivotal contribution." – Tom Hazeldine, Verso Editor, on the publication of Automation and the Future of Work.

Justin Sullivan / Getty

It’s actually a rare thing for a writer to be fully at home in both speculative social theory and number-crunching economics, but Aaron Benanav of Humboldt University fits that bill. To adapt a phrase, he combines practicality of the intelligence with optimism of the will. As he argues, ‘our present reality is better described by near-future science fiction dystopias than by standard economic analysis’, and it’s become a matter of urgency for us ‘to slip out of this timeline and into another’. We won’t achieve that, however, Benanav demonstrates, without a proper grasp of the dynamics of actual material production.

Automation and the Future of Work began life as a two-part essay in New Left Review toward the end of 2019. The first instalment questioned whether the much-anticipated rise of the robots really explained the worsening crisis of under-employment in all corners of the globe. ‘There are many reasons to doubt the hype’, he insisted. The second essay, equally heterodox, re-examined the assumptions that led automation theorists to pin their colours on proposals for a Universal Basic Income. UBI was, he insisted, no ‘silver bullet’ for deep-lying socio-economic problems. Taken together, these interventions were highlights of NLR’s publishing year.

Work on expanding the essays into a Verso book continued through the pandemic crisis of the spring. Aaron wrote to me from Chicago, his previous academic posting, in mid-March: ‘How are things over there? Does Verso still exist? Is my March 22 deadline still meaningful?’. To answer each point in turn: pretty bad, yes, and definitely yes. Holed up at home as Chicago prepared to go into lockdown, his emails mixed updates on the manuscript with concern for my Covid symptoms. ‘Sorry to be an American about this, but don't take anti-inflammatories/ibuprofen/aspirin’, he counselled. ‘Take some daily zinc, if you have it, and vitamin D3. Please be careful and keep me updated.’ I hope he felt in safe hands with me; I certainly did with him.

Benanav’s iconoclastic reappraisal of world labour-market dynamics, his systematic critique of the received wisdom around the supposedly decisive effect of technological unemployment, is likely to define the terms of debate; so, too, his plotting of a different, more solidaristic route to post-scarcity economics. ‘Instead of presupposing a fully automated economy and imagining the possibilities for a better and freer world created out of it,’ he writes, ‘we could begin from a world of generalised human dignity, and then consider the technical changes needed to realise that world.’

Among the books that will help us ascend from what Marx termed the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom, this is a pivotal contribution.

Tom Hazeldine, Verso Editor.

London, 2020.

Automation and the Future of Work by Aaron Benanav is one of our November Book Club reads: a carefully curated selection of books that we think are essential and necessary reading. Find out more about our Book Club here.

Solidarity rallies for health-care workers bring out support in Calgary, Edmonton

© Mike Symington/CBC 

Supporters gathered in front of the Foothills Medical Centre at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday.

Several rallies were held across Alberta on Thursday morning to show solidarity for health-care workers who walked off the job last week to protest the provincial government's announcement it would outsource thousands of jobs.

On Oct. 26, hundreds of health-care workers engaged in a wildcat strike after Alberta's Minister of Health Tyler Shandro announced that Alberta Health Services would lay off between 9,700 and 11,000 employees.

They were swiftly ordered back to work by the Alberta Labour Relations Board.

On Oct. 27, Finance Minister Travis Toews told reporters that nursing and support workers who participated in the strike could be fined, suspended or even fired from their jobs.

On Thursday, supporters gathered in front of the Foothills Medical Centre and the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre in Calgary, and Edmonton's University of Alberta Hospital, to show their support for the front-line workers.

"We [are here] to thank all of the brave members that walked out on Oct. 26," said Bobby-Joe Borodey, one of the vice-presidents of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) — the union that represents the health-care workers — at the rally in front of the Foothills hospital.

"We did that to send a message to [Premier] Jason Kenney and the UCP government that this direction that they're heading in with privatization is awful, and it's something that Albertans don't want."
'Make no mistake, they're all front-line workers'

Unions representing Alberta's health-care workers told CBC Edmonton in mid-October that there would be major labour strife if the government follows through on the proposed restructuring plan underpinned by thousands of layoffs.

Most of those who will lose their jobs work in laboratory, linen, cleaning and in-patient food services with AHS, and their positions will be outsourced to private companies.

According to Borodey, there is no overstating the value of their work during COVID-19.

"Make no mistake, they're all front-line workers," Borodey said. "When this pandemic started, they were the heroes that were on the front-line — the first line of defence at keeping Albertans safe at hospitals and health centres across the province.

"And then, when we're in month eight, all of a sudden, they're zeroes. And they're overpaid and replaceable. So, they're feeling pretty deflated and frustrated."

© Mike Symington/CBC Calgary

 'We're in the same risk as these guys. It's high-stress. It takes a lot of dedication, it takes a lot of courage to go to work every day. And then to have the employer treat you with such disregard, it's, you know, it's demoralizing,' Mike Mahar said.

Mike Mahar, the Canadian director of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), said that as fellow essential workers, the ATU wanted to attend the rally at the Foothills show its support.

Mahar, who had strong words for the provincial government, said transit workers understand the intense pressure of working the front-lines during the pandemic.

"We're in the same risk as these guys. It's high-stress. It takes a lot of dedication, it takes a lot of courage to go to work every day. And then to have the employer treat you with such disregard, it's, you know, it's demoralizing," Mahar said.

"To have the carpet pulled out from under you like that, during a pandemic — it's actually reckless. I think it's criminal. Not just putting those people out of work, but doing it right now … it's going to cost people's lives, I bet."

NDP MLA David Shepherd, who also attended the rally at the Foothills, said he is receiving hundreds of emails from people who are tired of the attacks on health-care staff.

"[The UCP government] announced this as our province is entering into the second wave of COVID-19. It's absolutely unacceptable," Shepherd said.

CBC News asked the Alberta government for comment on the rallies but it has not yet responded.

However, in October, Shandro said the cuts are eventually expected to save up to $600 million annually, and there will be a "long-term and gradual" implementation of the plan.