We now have the proof: greening the economy doesn't come at the price of prosperity
Fiona Harvey





Fri 22 May 2020 07.00 BSTLast modified on Fri 22 May 2020 07.12 BST




 

‘Electric vehicle charging points are needed around the world, and the slack in public transport can be used to upgrade rail networks.’ Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA
Everest is once again visible from Kathmandu, after decades shrouded in pollution. Greenhouse gas emissions have fallen to levels last seen in 2006. Nature has returned to our streets with a quack and a flurry, and people are waking to birdsong in inner cities as the roar of traffic recedes.

Clear skies bring little cheer at the food bank, however. Birdsong might lift the heart, but it won’t pay the rent.

The environmental renaissance that has come with lockdown shows both the necessity of cleaning up our filthy air and atmosphere, and the dangers of associating economic ruin with environmental gain. Daily greenhouse gas emissions fell by a quarter in many countries when the lockdown bit hardest, according to the first comprehensive study this week, and by early April were 17% down on last year. At the same time, the global economy plunged 6% and half the global workforce now face the loss of their livelihoods, says the International Labour Organisation.

Coronavirus fallout to slow global growth in renewable energy
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/20/coronavirus-fallout-to-slow-global-growth-in-renewable-energy

Getting people back to work will mean rapidly rising carbon emissions, as it did after the financial crisis of 2008, unless strong action is taken by governments. Already, emissions are climbing: they will be only 4% down on the year if lockdowns are lifted next month.

For environmentalists, it may seem tedious to have to explain yet again why it makes economic sense to save the planet – there wouldn’t be an economy without the environment, so if we trash it “growth” will cease to have much meaning. But we teeter on the threshold of what could be the greatest depression for centuries. People who are losing their jobs and homes, with only politicians’ promises to put in their bank account, have every right to ask whether now is the time to prioritise the climate – or couldn’t it wait a year or two while we sort out this catastrophe first?

That question has a clear answer: a green recovery can produce higher returns on public spending and create more jobs in both the short term and the long term, compared to the alternative of pouring stimulus cash into the fossil fuel economy.

Those findings come from a study of the potential for a green recovery, based on a survey of finance ministries and central bankers, and a comparison with the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, conducted by the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, former World Bank chief economist Lord Stern, and leading economists from Oxford University.

After the financial crisis in 2008, calls for a green recovery were partially successful. About 16% of the global stimulus spending was green, including subsidies for renewable energy, seed funding for research and development, and new technology such as electric vehicles.

That proportion may seem small, and the effects of the rest of the spending – much of which went on carbon-intensive projects such as concrete construction and coal – were soon apparent: carbon emissions, which had fallen 1.4%, rebounded by a record amount of nearly 6% in 2010.

Yet the green stimulus bore fruit. Renewable energy expanded, and the cost of wind and solar power fell far faster than predicted, to the point where both forms of power are now competitive with fossil fuel generation, without the need for subsidy.

If that was possible from just 16% of stimulus spending, what could be done if the proportions were reversed? We are much better prepared to create green jobs now, according to the Oxford study. Shovel-ready projects, from insulating homes to widening cycle lanes, abound. Electric vehicle charging points are needed around the world, and the slack in public transport can be used to upgrade rail networks.

Car companies, with government incentives, could hasten the move from petrol and diesel engines. The renewable energy industry has progressed in the last decade, making home solar installation cheap and offshore wind farms viable. All of these are labour intensive and would provide quick returns on taxpayer cash.

There are fledgling industries that could soar with a government boost. Fatih Birol, the widely respected executive director of the International Energy Agency, points to hydrogen and batteries as two major areas “now ready for the big time”. Hydrogen, in the form of ammonia, will be key to decarbonising shipping, but take-up has been slow due to lack of investment.

Decarbonisation is our future. It must be factored into the coronavirus recoveryPradeep Philip and Will Rayward-Smithhttps://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2020/may/18/decarbonisation-is-our-future-it-must-be-factored-into-the-coronavirus-recovery

If governments get it right, the structural changes needed to bring emissions to net zero in the next 30 years will come with a gain in jobs and security. But more needs to be done to ensure that people see the positive, rather than associate falling emissions with falling prosperity. Much of the public discussion so far has focused on attaching “green strings” to bailouts for established industries such as airlines, fossil fuels and car manufacturing. Those are certainly needed – as the failure to attach conditions after the 2008 crisis clearly shows – but can seem like punishing industries already on their knees. Workers on airlines and in shale fields are workers too, with mortgages to pay and families to care for. Shrugging off the loss of their jobs as the casualties of a cleaner future is not good enough: there must be a clear path to high-quality alternatives.

After the financial crisis, capital did not reel for long – the initiative was soon recaptured by austerity advocates and increasingly by populists who persuaded voters in many countries that the rollback of the state was the price of fiscal stability. The same forces are still in place: Donald Trump’s White House has already seized the excuse to repeal dozens of regulations on clean air and water, threatening to reverse environmental protections to a pre-Nixon state. If things are to be different this time, people need reassurance on jobs above all, and hymns to nature must be sung to the backing hum of industry.


Fiona Harvey is the Guardian’s environment correspon

Under cover of capital gains, the hyper-rich have been getting richer than we thought

A new report reveals the true wealth of the top 1%. Some hope coronavirus will even things out – but don’t bank on it

Polly Toynbee THE GUARDIAN Thu 21 May 2020

Inequality shot through the roof in Thatcher’s 1980s, aided by the big bang in the City when deregulation blew blowing the lid off top salaries.’ Workers on the London Stock Exchange, May 1988. Photograph: Tom Stoddart Archive/Getty Images

Ever since 2010, the government has claimed we have been “all in this together” during the lost decade of austerity. Rich and poor alike are taking a hit; that was what they told us.

When anyone complains of “rising inequality” – because that’s how it feels for so many people – the Tories and their commentariat brandish official statistics showing it’s not so. The dial on the Gini coefficient hasn’t shifted for years, they claim. The Gini coefficient is measured between 0 and 100 – with 0 indicating that income is shared equally among all people and rising to 100 in extreme income inequality. The story was that the rich also took a beating in this long period of austerity imposed by successive Tory governments – and they didn’t get richer.

Now we have proof that this tale isn’t true. Who gains?, a report by the Resolution Foundation released on Thursday, with researchers from the LSE and Warwick University, has found missing billions in earnings of the hyper-rich, all disguised as capital gains – profits from selling an asset for more than it was worth when it was acquired. The share of earnings of the top 1% were far greater and grew far faster than previously disclosed.

Capital gains are taxed at just 20%, unlike the 45% income tax rate for top earners. With a deft sleight of hand, wealthy individuals and business managers can take large amounts of their earnings in the form of shares or other assets to avoid it being taxed as income. Andy Summers of the London School of Economics says the line between the two taxes is “very blurred”.

The missing sum of money is enormous – the scale of the switch into capital gains vast. Taxable capital gains in the UK more than doubled between 2012-13 and 2017-18, jumping to £55bn. The top 1% are far richer than we thought, while the earnings of the top 0.1% have grown 50% more from 1996 to 2018 than previously measured. “A lot of capital gains are, in fact, just repackaged income going to the already-rich,” says Summers.

Who is gaining? Just 9,000 people, who made £1m or more in such a manner, accounting for the majority of the UK’s taxable capital gains. Adam Corlett, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation says these figures show “the top 1% account for £1 of every £6 of taxable income received.” The new figures show the top 1% take a massive 16.8% share of national income. He adds, “That scale of inequality should be addressed in post-pandemic Britain.”

But will it be? When polled, people express indignation at the soaraway earnings and wealth of the hyper-rich, but that doesn’t appear to swing elections in this perennially Conservative-voting nation.

Inequality, at its lowest in the late 1970s, shot through the roof in Thatcher’s 1980s, aided by the big bang in the City when deregulation blew the lid off top salaries, and the crushing of union power that strove to keep wages from falling behind in a high-inflation era.

Since the mid 1980s, inequality has plateaued, staying at a shocking high despite Labour raising lowest incomes, lifting a million children and a million pensioners out of poverty. But at least, people were told, inequality wasn’t actually getting any worse. Will it make a difference once people know that what they felt instinctively turns out to be true? Society is being stretched further and further apart across a growing social chasm.

The grotesque facts of Britain’s exceptionally high income inequality should have been enough without this new revelation. The High Pay Centre has clever ways to illuminate the way we live now: the average FTSE 100 CEO earns more in three working days than the average employee in a year. The 1,000 people featured in the 2019 Sunday Times Rich List together earned £771bn: that’s six times the cost of the NHS. There were 151 UK billionaires. To imagine owning a billion, here’s the centre’s best eye-popping fact: if you had earned £1,000 a day since Jesus died and kept it under the mattress, you still wouldn’t have accumulated £1bn.

One bogus justification for outlandish riches is that the wealthy give generously to good causes. Not true. The all-party parliamentary group on philanthropy reports the super-rich, those with over £10m, only give a median of £240 a year.

This year’s Rich List tells of Icarus-like plunges by some as their shares plummeted in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. But despite that, so far, the numbers shouldn’t send many shock waves through the Davos set: there are still 147 UK billionaires. The total wealth shared by this year’s rich listers has only fallen by 3.7% to £742.6bn, and the minimum wealth you need to join this year’s list stayed at the 2019 level of £120m. Before coronavirus struck, the authors of the list had expected a rise in billionaires – but this hardly looks like a wealth Armageddon. At least so far.

Those who waited in vain for bankers and their ilk to take their punishment for what they inflicted on everyone in the 2008 financial crash will be more wary this time. For all the hope that “things must change” in the aftermath of the pandemic, there’s no knowing yet if a political switch has been flicked to achieve a genuine “all in this together” recovery. But as the chancellor warns we are entering a “severe recession the likes of which we have not seen”, and after so many deaths including many public servants, there may soon be a lot less tolerance of out-of-control wealth.

Now we know riches sky-rocketed during austerity years of stagnant pay for everyone else, with top income and wealth under-taxed by devious devices. Voters with pitchforks may demand a “levelling up” in ways Boris Johnson certainly never intended.

• Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

'The issue now is surviving': countries react with shock to Oxfam withdrawal

Locals, NGOs and politicians express fears for world’s most vulnerable as charity announces withdrawal from 18 countries due to financial impact of Covid-19

Kaamil Ahmed, Karen McVeigh, Joe Parkin Daniels and William Costa
Thu 21 May 2020 THE GUARDIAN
 

An Oxfam sign is seen on a wall in Corail, a camp for displaced people of the earthquake of 2010, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Photograph: Andrés Martínez Casares/Reuters

Oxfam International’s announcement that it will close operations in countries including Afghanistan and Haiti has prompted fears that regions are being abandoned just as the coronavirus pandemic makes them more vulnerable.
Oxfam said the impact of Covid-19 on its finances had forced it to fast-track a global restructuring programme, which entails the closure of 18 country offices.

The NGO was already trying to deal with a drop in public donations after the Haiti sex abuse scandal in 2018. Oxfam’s finances have been further hit by having to close its shops as a result of coronavirus restrictions, losing it £5m every month.

Civil society groups and social workers are concerned the dramatic changes might signal a scaling-back of the role NGOs play in providing vital services.


Oxfam to close in 18 countries and cut 1,500 staff amid coronavirus pressures

Social worker Modaser Islami said the closure of Oxfam’s Afghanistan office, which opened in 1961, will leave big gaps in aid provision, especially in rural areas.
“The issue right now is not about improving our situation, it’s about surviving. There are more and more people coming on to the streets asking for help and without it, they say they wouldn’t be able to eat,” said Islami.

He fears the Afghan government is not in a strong enough position to support the country’s poorest if aid groups begin leaving and foreign governments do not help plug the gap.

“It’s most worrying because the type of work Oxfam has been doing improved livelihoods in rural areas where most others don’t reach, both aid groups and governments,” he said. “They have no other sources of incomes, just a little land, and face challenges getting healthcare, also education.”

Oxfam closures will affect offices in Asia, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, and result in the loss of 1,450 programme staff.

Pedro Vega, a member of a farmers’ association in Paraguay that received support from Oxfam, said the NGO’s withdrawal was a great loss.

“Oxfam helped our association to make a very important leap forward,” he said. “It showed that if NGOs’ projects are well implemented, they can create change, help construct a different way of living in the countryside and get our produce the real value that it deserves.”

Oxfam has been in Paraguay for 28 years and worked collaboratively with more than 60 local organisations on projects including those promoting women’s rights and sustainable development.

In a statement, Óscar López, head of Oxfam Paraguay, said: “We hope that our contribution to strengthening civil society will continue to bear fruit.”

Carlos Mejia, the executive director of Oxfam in Colombia, said: “The decision to leave countries was anything but easy, it was a painful decision.”

Insiders say Oxfam’s restructuring is expected to impact other parts of the charity in the coming weeks, including at its Oxford headquarters in the UK.

An Oxfam GB spokesperson said that aside from the announcements made by the international charity, its largest national affiliate will now have to reduce its expenditure and review plans made before the pandemic.

Sarah Champion, chairwoman of the House of Commons international development committee, said the announcement will “further concern struggling communities who rely on the assistance of aid organisations”.

Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham, whose committee is examining the impact of the pandemic on developing countries, said the loss of income for NGOs was already having a chilling effect on their work.

“We have received evidence that NGO charities are suffering huge losses of income due to lockdown and as donor governments, businesses and individuals all feel their own economic and financial challenges. This is already starting to have a chilling effect on the humanitarian and development capacity of UK NGOs and their crucial work abroad.”

Stephanie Draper, the CEO of Bond, the international development network, said: “It’s really sad to see such a big name not being able to respond to the real need in countries around the world.”

The challenges of the coronavirus presented a “bleak picture for our members right now”, Draper added

 Syrian refugee students take part in an awareness campaign about coronavirus initiated by Oxfam and Unicef at Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. Photograph: Muhammad Hamed/Reuters

Kevin Watkins, the chief executive of Save the Children, said: “Oxfam is a brilliant organisation that does desperately needed work across all of these countries. I’m very sad that, because of the financial situation they are in, they have had to make these decisions. All of us are saddened by it.”

Save the Children does not have any plans to cut programmes, he said.

Among the closures will be Oxfam’s office in Haiti, a country that has had a complicated relationship with international charities. It has yet to respond publicly to the planned closure.

Locals have relied heavily on NGOs for care and support, which at times have supplanted government assistance.

When the 2010 earthquake turned much of the country’s capital Port-au-Prince to rubble, around 10,000 aid organisations assisted with the recovery.

“Usually when there’s a crisis everyone comes to help, but this time [during the coronavirus] the airport is closed and no one is coming,” said Laure Bottinelli, the founder of Anacaona Community, a soap recycling social business based in Port-au-Prince. “Instead, international organisations are leaving, and taking a bunch of jobs with them. This has never happened.”

In Jacmel, a city on the southern coast of Haiti, international NGOs have distorted the workforce, something that will be felt when they leave.

“People working for INGOs pay good money for their cars, homes, and other services, but now without employment, they won’t be able to keep it going,” said Huguens Saintil, who works with a small foundation in Jacmel. “Locals had the feeling that foreigners are the solution to their problems instead of fighting to resolve them.”

Australian researchers claim world first in global race to develop better solar panels

Experimental cell using the potentially game-changing material perovskite passes a series of heat and humidity tests


Graham Readfearn  THE GUARDIAN Thu 21 May 2020

 

Australian scientists say they have found a way to coat solar cells using a type of crystal material that stops them degrading too quickly. Photograph: chinasong/Getty Images/iStockphoto

A team of Australian researchers are claiming a world first in a global race to develop cheaper, more flexible and more efficient solar panels after their experimental cell passed a series of heat and humidity tests.

Using a type of crystal material known as perovskite, the group found that a simple glass and synthetic rubber coating around the cell was enough to stop it from degrading too quickly.

Mostly based at the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales, the 14 scientists have published their work in the leading journal Science.

Research teams around the world are working with different formulations of the perovskite crystals – seen as a potential game-changer for the solar industry.

Australia's electricity grid could run with 75% renewables, market operator says

Solar cells that use the crystals to convert sunlight to an electrical current are about 500 times thinner than those that use silicon – the material that’s been the basis for solar cells since the 1950s.

As well as being thinner, perovskite crystals are also flexible, meaning they could potentially have much wider applications than the brittle silicon-based cells.

Prof Anita Ho-Baillie, of the University of Sydney, and a lead researcher, told Guardian Australia: “We just used a high-performance material called polyisobutylene – it’s also used in double-glazed windows.”

Scientists have been working on perovskite solar cells for only about a decade, but have already raised their levels of efficiency at converting sunlight to about 25% – a level that has taken about 40 years to achieve with silicon-based cells.

But the perovskite crystals degrade much faster than silicon – holding them back from commercialisation. When heated, the perovskite outgasses – degrading the material.

“Perovskite cells will need to stack up against the current commercial standards. That’s what is so exciting about our research. We have shown that we can drastically improve their thermal stability.”

Solar cells that are used commercially need to be able to withstand years of exposure to weather.

Ho-Baillie said the early perovskite solar cells only lasted a few days before degrading. The perovskite crystals are cheaper, Ho-Baillie said, than the glass they used to help cover the cells.

The team devised the glass and synthetic rubber surround and then put the cells through three sets of international standard tests, which include repeatedly cycling the cells through temperatures of -40C to 85C, as well as exposing them to high humidity levels.

“It’s a world first to pass these three tests in a low-cost way,” said Ho-Baillie. “Not only did the cells pass the thermal cycling tests, they exceeded the demanding requirements of damp-heat and humidity-freeze tests as well.”


“Perovskite opens the market in ways that we hadn’t thought of. It’s lightweight, it’s flexible, and you could fold it up and roll it out. For us, the sky is the limit.”

She said her team was also testing a form of the solar cells for use in space, and were currently “torturing it” with space plasma.

R&D programs on perovskite solar cells are under way around the world, including at the US Department of Energy, several European research ventures, and Australia’s CSIRO.

As well as recording success in the tests, Ho-Baillie’s research team also report in Science the use of a technique that was able to isolate and measure the way the perovskite crystals degraded.

The research was supported by the Australian government’s Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which is also funding a suite of research and development projects to push perovskite cells to commercialisation.

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Dr Klaus Weber, an associate professor at the Australian National University and an expert in emerging solar cell technology including perovskite cells, who was not connected to the study, said it was “an important step along the way to commercialisation.”

He said: “This is an important achievement which demonstrates the potential of this new technology to further lower the already low costs of photovoltaics.

“The study shows that one of the key concerns with the technology, namely its limited stability, can be addressed with good engineering.

“I would caution, however, that the commercialisation of a new technology is a long and complicated process, and that it requires many years before such a new technology becomes widely available. So, don’t hold off installing solar panel in the belief that something better will be available tomorrow.”

Weber said perovskite technology was “of intense interest” because it combined “a rare combination of highly desirable properties”.

The technology offered multiple “and potentially very cheap” ways of making solar cells, could be modified across different applications and allowed more efficient cells to be produced.

He added: “Typical layers have a thickness about one-hundredth the diameter of a human hair. This means that material costs can be very low as well – which is important when you want to make many square kilometres of product.

“Given their promise, it is not surprising that many researchers are attracted to the challenge of improving the understanding of this technology and making better solar cells.”

Trudeau says China fails to understand judiciary system as Canadians detained

Prime minister condemns Beijing for linking its 2018 detention of two Canadians with arrest of Huawei executive

AFP in Ottawa Thu 21 May 2020
 

Meng Wanzhou, seen in January, was arrested in Vancouver in 2018. Photograph: Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters

Beijing’s linking of its detention of two Canadians in China to the arrest of a Chinese executive in Vancouver shows it does not understand the meaning of an independent judiciary, Justin Trudeau said on Thursday.

China detained the former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor in December 2018, nine days after the arrest on a US warrant of the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver.

“We’ve seen Chinese officials linking those two cases from the very beginning,” Canada’s prime minister said.

“Canada has an independent judicial system that functions without interference or override by politicians.

“China doesn’t work quite the same way and doesn’t seem to understand that,” he said, calling the linkage of the cases “distressing” while vowing to continue to press for the release of the two Canadians.

The arrests led to the worst-ever crisis in relations between the two nations, with accusations of “arbitrary detentions” and hostage diplomacy met with trade sanctions and suspended consular visits.

Kovrig and Spavor have been held on espionage suspicions and refused access to lawyers.

Meng, meanwhile, has been living in a Vancouver mansion after being granted bail while fighting extradition in court.

The US is seeking to put her on trial for Huawei’s alleged violations of US sanctions against Iran.

Earlier, the Chinese ambassador, Cong Peiwu, told Global News that “competent Chinese authorities are handling the cases [of Kovrig and Spavor] according to law.”

He then pivoted to Meng, saying her case was “the biggest issue in our bilateral relationship” and renewing demands that she be sent back to China “smoothly and safely”.

A decision in the first phase of the Meng case, which dealt with whether her alleged crimes are punishable in Canada – a key criterion for extradition to proceed – is expected on Wednesday.

If the judge rules against Meng, the case will proceed to a second phase of arguments in June.

1. CANADA IS DOING AMERICA'S (TRUMP'S) DIRTY WORK AGAINST HUAWEI

2. HUAWEI BROUGHT DOWN CANADIAN TELECOM MANUFACTURER NORTHERN TELECOM AKA NORTEL BY HACKING IT IN THE NINETIES AND BOUGHT IT OUT WHEN IT WENT BANKRUPT

3. STALINST CHINAJUDICIARY FUNCTIONS WHERE THE STATE DETERMINES THE CRIME AND THE OUTCOME IN ADVANCE AND ASUMES EVERYONE ELSE DOES TO

NASA space treaty to allow establishment of lunar 'safety zones'

US accused by Russia of trying to circumvent 1967 treaty banning ownership of areas of the moon

Stuart Clark@DrStuClark
Wed 20 May 2020 THE GUARDIAN
 

Artist’s impression of lunar exploration at south pole crater. Photograph: Nasa


Countries joining Nasa’s exploration of the moon will be asked to sign up to a series of guiding principles known as the Artemis accords. Announced on 15 May, the accords are a set of broad themes that the agency hopes will form the basis of agreements to be negotiated with each country involved in the effort to land the next humans on the moon by 2024.

Based in part on the UN’s outer space treaty of 1967, the Artemis accords reassert that all activities should be undertaken only for peaceful purposes, and add that all plans should be communicated transparently with no secrecy. They commit the partners to using open international standards to allow machinery and equipment to function easily together, to provide emergency assistance to other astronauts and to mitigate the creation of space debris.

Where the accords are likely to become controversial is that they appear to allow the use of lunar resources for commercial gain, and they seek to establish “safety zones” around landing sites, which could be interpreted as de facto ownership of areas of the moon, which is forbidden by the outer space treaty. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, has accused the US of trying to circumvent the UN with the accords.

BUREAU OF LAND MISMANAGEMENT
He opposed public lands and wildlife protections. Trump gave him a top environment job

Under the leadership of William Perry Pendley, the Bureau of Land Management is failing to fulfill its most basic duties of safeguarding America’s public lands, his critics say


Jimmy Tobias THE GUARDIAN Wed 20 May 2020

William Perry Pendley is Trump’s pick to lead the US Bureau of Land Management Photograph: Matthew Brown/AP

In July 2017, William Perry Pendley, a crusading conservative attorney, delivered a speech to a group of rightwing activists in North Carolina in which he was completely candid about his ideological commitments.

He accused “the media” of selling “their soul to the greens”. And after criticizing the Endangered Species Act, he made light of killing endangered species.

“This is why out west we say ‘shoot, shovel and shut up’ when it comes to the discovery of endangered species on your property,” he said, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by the Guardian. “And I have to say, as a lawyer, that’s not legal advice,” he added, as some in his audience quietly snickered at the reference to the illegal extermination, and the burial, of endangered animals.

It has been almost three years since he gave those remarks, and Pendley is now the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, a powerful agency that oversees more than 240m acres of federal land belonging to the American people, manages mineral resources and is required to comply with environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act.

Pendley has helped turn BLM into what one high-level employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, called “a ghost ship” in which “suspicion”, “fear” and “low morale” abound, despite the best efforts of career civil servants to support each other.

As Pendley and his superiors at the interior department press ahead with an effort to move BLM’s headquarters from Washington DC to Grand Junction, Colorado, the agency has hemorrhaged staff members and lost critical institutional memory, which many critics believe was the true purpose of the relocation effort all along.


“A skeleton crew is left” at BLM headquarters, said the employee. “So few people were able to move west that a lot of people retired early and a lot of people took other jobs, so my ballpark estimate is there is only about 20% of permanent employees left” at headquarters. As a result, the agency is failing to fulfill its most basic duties, like responding to public records requests and conducting oversight of state and regional operations, the staffer added.

Environmental and government watchdog groups are now responding with a lawsuit that calls into question the legitimacy of Pendley’s position. Last week a pair of environmental nonprofits sued the interior department, alleging that by repeatedly tapping Pendley as the BLM’s acting director, rather than officially nominating him for the position, the interior secretary has skirted the Senate confirmation process usually required for high-level executive branch appointments, and has violated federal law.

“The illegitimate Pendley appointment is particularly troublesome because he has forcibly moved the BLM Headquarters from Washington DC, to remote western Colorado,” said Peter Jenkins, a senior counsel at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, one of the groups that sued. “In doing so he uprooted the lives of scores of seasoned BLM staff and disrupted this already strained agency.”

An interior department spokesperson defended Pendley’s record.
The Trump administration rolled back key provisions of the Endangered Species Act, a law credited with saving the gray wolf, bald eagle and grizzly bear. Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images

“Mr Pendley brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the department and is committed to carrying out the administration’s priorities and achieving the BLM’s … mission for the betterment of the American people,” said Conner Swanson, the spokesperson. “Mr Pendley has provided a steady hand in facilitating important matters, from the BLM headquarters move west to its response to Covid-19.” Swanson has said that the lawsuit against Pendley is “baseless”.

Pendley, a tall man with a handlebar mustache and a penchant for cowboy boots, has remarked in the past that his “personal opinions are irrelevant” to his job at BLM.

“I have a new job now. I’m a zealous advocate for my client. My client is the American people and my bosses are the president of the United States and [interior] secretary [David] Bernhardt,” Pendley said during an appearance at the conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Fort Collins, Colorado, last year. “What I thought, what I wrote, what I did in the past is irrelevant. I have orders, I have laws to obey, and I intend to do that.”

Pendley has long opposed public lands and wildlife protections. After serving in the Reagan administration in the 1980s, he became the president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), a conservative litigation organization funded by conservative and industry groups including the Charles Koch Foundation and Exxon Mobil, according to research from the watchdog groups Documented and Accountable.US.

Under Pendley’s leadership, the firm was a persistent foe of federal land agencies, getting involved in dozens of cases on behalf of industry groups and private landowners to challenge environmental protections implemented by the interior department.

Pendley became something of a fixture among the anti-government set, writing numerous books extolling rebellion against public lands and the federal government. He has expressed sympathy in the past for the Bundy family, whose militant agitation against federal land ownership included the armed takeover of the Malheur national wildlife refuge in 2016.

He has compared climate change to unicorns because “neither exist”. And in a 2016 National Review article, he laid out a case that argued for the near-total abolition of federal public lands across the nation.

Given his long history of legal advocacy on behalf of extractive industries, Pendley brought with him a 17-page recusal list of past clients, employers and investments when he took control of the BLM in 2019. The list included groups such as the American Exploration & Mining Association and the Petroleum Association of Wyoming. It has been nearly impossible for the public to know whether Pendley has abided by his recusal list, however, because the BLM has failed to release his detailed official calendar to the public.

Though Pendley has long been a committed conservative, he has not always had kind words for Donald Trump. In a 2016 op-ed in the Daily Caller, for instance, he said then-candidate Trump “is not fit to pull off Reagan’s boots”.

Apart from Pendley’s role in moving BLM’s headquarters to Colorado, the agency under his leadership has also repeatedly proposed land management plans that heavily promote the energy industry. In March, for instance, conservationists in Montana came out aggressively against a BLM resource management plan that they believe is far too friendly to corporate oil and gas interests, according to the Billings Gazette.

In a statement issued earlier this year, Representative Raúl Grijalva, the chairman of the House natural resources committee, expressed his concerns over Pendley.

“Anyone who wants our land management agencies to be functional in the future needs to recognize the seriousness of what Secretary Bernhardt, acting director Pendley, and their subordinates are doing.”

Leticia, Colombia

Huitoto indigenous people pose wearing face masks, amid concerns about the impact of coronavirus in the Amazonas region

Photograph: Tatiana de Nevo/AFP/Getty Images

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Huitoto indigenous people pose wearing face masks in Leticia, Colombia

Huitoto indigenous people pose wearing face masks, amid concerns about the impact of coronavirus in the Amazonas region

Photograph: Tatiana de Nevo/AFP/Getty Images

This pandemic threatens to undo what generations of feminists have fought for

With schools and daycares closed, and employers embracing permanent work-from-home arrangements, women will be forced to pick up the slack
Moira Donegan @MoiraDonegan
THE GUARDIAN Thu 21 May 2020
 

Farrah Eaton helps her two daughters, Elin, left, and Nola with home schooling. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images


During this pandemic, a contracting economy, public health fears, and steadily reduced public services have shifted massive amounts of work and caregiving responsibilities to the home – and it is women who are picking up the slack. Even as lockdowns lift and the virus recedes, many of these needs that were previously met outside the home will still be left to families to try to meet within it, and women will be disproportionately affected. The result is a potentially long-term constricting of women’s lives to the domestic sphere. This threatens to undo a century’s worth of progress that women have made in claiming access to public life.

Some women are home because they’ve lost work. The economic recession that has been prompted by the pandemic has disproportionately hurt woman-dominated service industries, meaning that this time, unlike the 2008 recession, women make up the majority of the newly unemployed. In April, the unemployment rate climbed to 15.5% for women, with black women and Latinas facing even higher average unemployment rates.


The economic recession that has been prompted by the pandemic has disproportionately hurt woman-dominated service industries

With schools and daycares closed, responsibilities like childcare and eldercare that were once diffused out into public services or commercial enterprises are now reined in to the home. But waged work, for those women who still have it, continues apace, with few concessions towards the new reality. In the pandemic, women’s lives have become more burdened, smaller and less free. Everyone has a public health obligation to stay home, but only women have a socially enforced responsibility to take on disproportionate domestic work while they are there.

Of those women who still have jobs and are working remotely, many are likely to keep working from home even after the virus recedes and lockdowns are lifted, since the pandemic has caused many companies to re-evaluate their overhead costs and the necessity of physical office space. Twitter has announced plans to move to more permanent work-from-home arrangements after the pandemic, and other companies are likely to follow suit. Many women who used to work outside the home will lose their income, but even those who keep it may have to stay in. And with unemployment surging and labor at a surplus, female workers whose children, housework or other domestic distractions don’t allow them to maintain their productivity know that their employers will find them easy to dispose of and easy to replace.


Female workers whose children, housework, or other domestic distractions don’t allow them to maintain their productivity know that their employers will find them easy to replace

Meanwhile, mothers working from home are likely to have their children with them for the foreseeable future. It remains unclear when schools will reopen in many parts of the country, but the Cal State university system has suspended in-person classes for the fall semester, a move that is likely to push many other university systems and K-12 institutions to do the same. When schools do reopen, many may use partly remote schedules, with students learning from home for part of the week.

Men are home too, but many of them aren’t helping. Studies have shown that men consistently underestimate the time that women spend on housework, childcare, and eldercare, and drastically overestimate their own contributions. This pattern has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. A Morning Consult and New York Times Poll found that in heterosexual households with school-age children, 45% of husbands thought that they spent more time homeschooling than their wives did. Among women, the perspective was wildly different: just 3% of wives said that their husbands did more of the homeschooling.

Homeschooling, meanwhile, is likely to remain the norm for the foreseeable future. Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York recently announced plans to overhaul the state’s public K-12 education programming in conjunction with the juggernaut Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a group that has historically advocated for the privatization of public education and lobbied against employment protections for the majority-woman teaching workforce. The plan is to implement technology to enable more distanced learning. “The old model of our education system where everyone sits in a classroom is not going to work in the new normal,” Cuomo argued. What he did not mention is that remote schooling still requires children to be supervised. The result is that parents – overwhelmingly, mothers – will effectively be deputized as teachers, without training or pay, and required to stay home with their kids.

The result of remote schooling is that mothers will effectively be deputized as teachers, without training or pay, and required to stay home with their kids

Cuomo’s decision is premised on the sexist assumption that women are perpetually available for more and more unpaid domestic work. In fact, it elevates that attitude from a cultural and marital injustice to a pillar of public policy. The state is retreating from its obligation to provide an education for children, and the childcare that that education represents. Women are inevitably tasked with compensating for the state’s failures.

With the state rolling back services, private companies making few concessions to women workers’ domestic needs, and men not picking up the slack, the post-pandemic world could mean smaller, more claustrophobic and more constrained lives for women. It could mean women out of work and unable to earn the money that would allow them to provide for their families or gain independence in marriages that are exploitative, abusive or just unhappy. It could mean a public, social and commercial realm that is less vibrant for being predominantly male. It could mean women doing more and more work with less and less freedom, tasked as they are with being the resource of last resort when employers, institutions and the state throw up their hands. And it could mean the loss of what feminists have been fighting for: women’s freedom from the domestic sphere, freedom from financial dependence on men and freedom to access public life.

It is still not clear what life will look like after the pandemic, but it seems increasingly likely that much more of it will be confined to that place that women have been striving for decades to get out of: the house.


Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Mexico has 1,900 species of bees and they’re all at risk: biologist

May 21, 2020

All of Mexico’s 1,900 different species of native bees are at risk of extinction, says Ricardo Ayala Barajas, a National Autonomous University researcher based at the Chamela Biology Station in Jalisco.

Most of Mexico’s bees do not sting and only 47 species produce honey, but all native species are endangered, explained the researcher on the United Nations World Bee Day, May 20.

In an interview with the newspaper Milenio, Ayala said that around the world there are approximately 20,000 different named species of bees, and like in Mexico, every one is threatened by the use of insecticides and deforestation.


“A great effort is required to try to reduce the use of insecticides and make more careful use of natural resources, for the future of humanity and to care for the bees that help plants reproduce and generate fruits and seeds,” Ayala said. “We must appreciate and understand them more in order to prevent them from disappearing,”

Bee conservation is on the rise in Mexico, just as it is globally.

In Guanajuato, people who kill bees or harm their habitat can be fined up to 8,000 pesos (US $350). In Yucatán, the government and communities are collaborating on a bee conservation project after significant bee populations have died, thought to be a result of crop dusting. A similar campaign is underway in Campeche.

Beekeeping in Mexico has been around for some 3,000 years, according to earth.com, and the nation’s beekeepers watch over some 2 million hives with annual honey export profits totaling some US $56 million per year.

Source: Earth.com (en), Milenio (sp)