It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, April 22, 2021
PRIVATIZATION BY ANY OTHER NAME Dorset NHS sites set to be sold in services shake-up
BBC 4/21/2021
IMAGE COPYRIGHTDORSET COUNTY HOSPITAL NHS TRUST
Emergency and intensive care services are being expanded at Dorset County Hospital
NHS sites could be sold for housing as part of a county-wide plan to reshape health infrastructure in Dorset.
Health chiefs are drawing up proposals that will bring services together at community hubs.
They include "reconfiguring" services in Weymouth, Dorchester and Sherborne.
Dorset Council's people and health scrutiny committee was told the ideas were in the early stages and would depend on winning government funding.
'Up to £500m'
Councillors at Tuesday's meeting were told the strategy for the Dorset Council area involved land in Weymouth and Sherborne being released for housing.
New or improved facilities are also planned at Forston, near Dorchester, and at Wimborne and Shaftesbury, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.
University Hospitals Dorset transformation director Stephen Killen said the changes were the latest phase in a 15-year plan.
He added: "This is an opportunity that will bring a minimum of £350m, and possibly up to £500m, of additional capital across our Dorset system, across 12 community sites."
Work is already under way to build a multi-storey car park at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester to free up land to expand emergency and intensive care services.
Dorset has already undergone a major review of clinical services which has involved Poole Hospital becoming a centre for planned care and Bournemouth becoming an emergency care hospital.
USA Federal inspectors say more vaccines at troubled plant may be contaminated
Last month, up to 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine had to be discarded at Emergent’s factory in Baltimore. A new report says problems were not fully investigated and other doses may be compromised.
Emergent BioSolutions headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md.
–Samuel Corum/The New York Times
By Sharon LaFraniere, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Chris Hamby, New York Times Service April 21, 2021
WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have found serious flaws at the Baltimore plant that had to throw out up to 15 million possibly contaminated doses of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine — casting doubt on further production in the United States of a vaccine that the government once viewed as essential in fighting the pandemic.
The regulators for the Food and Drug Administration said that the company manufacturing the vaccine, Emergent BioSolutions, may have contaminated additional doses at the plant. They said the company failed to fully investigate the contamination, while also finding fault with the plant’s disinfection practices, size and design, handling of raw materials and training of workers.
“There is no assurance that other batches have not been contaminated,” the FDA’s 12-page report states.
The report amounted to a harsh rebuke of Emergent, which had long played down setbacks at the factory and added to problems for Johnson & Johnson, whose vaccine had been seen as a game changer because it requires only one shot, can be produced in mass volume and is easily stored.
Production is on pause in the United States, and all vaccines manufactured at the plant have been quarantined. Johnson & Johnson has fallen well behind on its promises to deliver tens of millions of doses to the federal government, in part because concerns about an extremely rare but dangerous blood-clotting disorder led federal officials last week to temporarily halt distribution.
The FDA findings, based on an inspection that ended Tuesday, underscore questions raised in reports by The New York Times about why Emergent did not fix problems earlier and why federal officials who oversee its lucrative contracts did not demand better performance.
A series of confidential audits last year, obtained by The Times, warned about risks of viral and bacterial contamination and a lack of proper sanitation at the Baltimore plant. Separately, The Times reported, a top federal manufacturing expert cautioned in June that Emergent would have to be “monitored closely.”
Some health officials were taken aback by the FDA’s conclusions.
In statements Wednesday, the FDA, Emergent and Johnson & Johnson all said they were working to resolve the problems at the factory. There was no indication of how long that would take.
Emergent said that “while we are never satisfied to see shortcomings in our manufacturing facilities or process, they are correctable and we will take swift action to remedy them.”
The FDA has not yet certified the plant, located in Baltimore’s Bayview neighborhood, and no doses made there have gone to the public. All the Johnson & Johnson shots that have been administered in the United States have come from overseas.
In a statement, Dr. Janet Woodcock, the FDA’s acting commissioner, and Dr. Peter Marks, its top vaccine regulator, said: “We will not allow the release of any product until we feel confident that it meets our expectations for quality.”
Emergent is a longtime government contractor that has spent much of the last two decades cornering a market in federal biodefense spending.
Although the government gave Emergent a $163 million contract in 2012 to ready the Baltimore plant for mass production in a pandemic, the site remained largely untested, and the company did not meet a requirement for demonstrating its rapid-response capabilities, according to former health officials and contracting documents.
Nonetheless, the government went on to award Emergent a $628 million contract in June, most of it to reserve manufacturing space at the plant, and arranged for the company to produce the Johnson & Johnson shot and a separate vaccine developed by AstraZeneca.
Now, Emergent’s dealings with the government are under increasing scrutiny. On Tuesday, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform announced an investigation into the company’s COVID-19 vaccine contract, as well as its long-standing hold on an outsize portion of the budget for the nation’s emergency medical reserve, the Strategic National Stockpile.
A Times investigation found that purchases of the company’s anthrax vaccine had accounted for almost half the reserve’s entire annual budget for much of the last decade — leaving less money for critical supplies like masks that were scarce last year.
The Bayview plant was supposed to produce the bulk of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which received federal authorization for emergency use this year but only for doses made in the Netherlands. AstraZeneca’s vaccine is not yet allowed in the United States, regardless of where it is manufactured.
The FDA inspection began after routine checks showed that Emergent workers had contaminated at least part of a batch of 13 million to 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine with the harmless virus that is used to make the AstraZeneca shot. The regulators found that Emergent failed to thoroughly investigate that incident and performed only routine cleaning afterward. One previous audit of Bayview for a pharmaceutical customer found that Emergent glossed over deviations from manufacturing standards without conducting thorough reviews.
The inspectors, who examined security footage as part of their review, found that Emergent failed to consider whether one or more workers might have been the source of the contamination. Workers are supposed to change gowns and bootees and shower before crossing between the different manufacturing zones for Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca.
But the regulators said that rule appeared to be routinely violated. In one 10-day period in February, for instance, 13 employees moved from one zone to another on the same day, but only one documented having showered, they said. The inspectors also said Emergent failed to consider whether using common storage containers for raw materials might have caused the contamination. Emergent’s own internal audit in July said the flow of workers and materials through the plant was not adequately controlled “to prevent mix-ups or contamination.”
Federal officials have already insisted on a major change they say should significantly limit risks. This month, they ordered Emergent to stop making the AstraZeneca shot at the plant, and they are now trying to help AstraZeneca find a new manufacturing site.
In another finding, the FDA regulators wrote that the Bayview building “is not maintained in a clean and sanitary condition.” Nor is it “of suitable size, design and location to facilitate cleaning, maintenance and proper operations,” they said.
They cited peeling paint, damaged walls, improperly trained employees, overcrowded equipment and poor waste management, an issue they said could lead to contamination of the warehouse where raw materials are stored.
The findings were released two days before the expert advisory panel of the CDC was scheduled to vote on whether to extend, lift or modify the Johnson & Johnson suspension. Officials recommended the pause in order to investigate eight cases of a rare clotting disorder in vaccine recipients, one of them fatal.
Johnson & Johnson resumed its rollout in Europe this week after regulators investigated similar concerns. They recommended that a warning about the blood clots should be attached to the vaccine’s label but said the benefits outweighed the risks.
The inspection report comes as a group of shareholders are suing Emergent, alleging that executives misled investors about the company’s ability to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines in Baltimore.
After announcements last year of deals with the federal government, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca totaling $1.5 billion, Emergent’s share price climbed. Throughout 2020, its founder and chairman, Fuad El-Hibri, cashed in shares and options worth over $42 million, and the company’s chief executive, Robert Kramer, was recently awarded a $1.2 million cash bonus.
The lawsuit alleges that the stock price was artificially inflated because executives failed to disclose significant quality-control problems at the facility. Emergent’s stock has tumbled in recent weeks.
Shortly after the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed decided to award Emergent the $628 million contract, Carlo de Notaristefani, a manufacturing expert who has overseen vaccine production for the federal government since May, warned the company “will have to strengthen” its quality controls, requiring “significant resources and commitment. ”
Dr. Robert Kadlec, the former Trump administration official who oversaw the awarding of the contract, said in an interview Tuesday that officials “recognized that there were going to be inherent risks” but said the government intended to “try to mitigate those risks throughout.”
Romero, the CDC advisory panel leader who is also the Arkansas health secretary, was concerned that the plant’s problems could discourage people from getting vaccinated, even though doses from there have not reached the public. Andy Slavitt, a top health adviser to President Joe Biden, told reporters that the audit showed “a process that is working as it should.”
Johnson & Johnson said that it had already increased oversight of Emergent and that it would “ensure that all of FDA’s observations are addressed promptly and comprehensively.”
The pharmaceutical company is expected to nearly double its supervisors at the Bayview plant, to perhaps a dozen, although Emergent will continue providing a workforce of about 600 employees.
INDIA Bharat Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine shows 100% efficacy in study
22 Apr 2021 Bharat Biotech has reported that interim analysis results from the Phase III trial of its Covid-19 vaccine COVAXIN showed a 100% efficacy against severe SARS-CoV-2 infection and has an impact on the drop in hospitalisations.
The Phase III study had 25,800 subjects aged 18 to 98 years, including 10% aged above 60 years. Credit: Ali Raza / Pixabay.
Bharat Biotech has reported that interim analysis results from the Phase III trial of its Covid-19 vaccine COVAXIN showed a 100% efficacy against severe SARS-CoV-2 infection and has an impact on the drop in hospitalisations.
Developed by the company with seed strains received from the Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) National Institute of Virology, COVAXIN is a highly purified and inactivated vaccine.
The Phase III study had 25,800 subjects aged 18 to 98 years, including 10% aged above 60 years.
Bharat Biotech noted that the first occurrence of PCR-confirmed symptomatic (mild, moderate or severe) Covid-19 in 14 days on receiving the second vaccine in healthy adults at baseline, formed the trial’s primary endpoint.
The second interim analysis is based on accruing over 87 symptomatic Covid-19 cases. However, owing to the current surge in cases, 127 symptomatic cases were reported, providing a point estimate of vaccine efficacy of 78% against mild, moderate and severe disease.
Furthermore, a 70% efficacy against asymptomatic Covid-19 was observed indicating reduced transmission in individuals receiving COVAXIN.
Safety and efficacy results from the final analysis will be available in June and the final report will be submitted to a peer-reviewed publication.
Based on the achievement of the success criteria, placebo recipients have now become eligible to receive two doses of COVAXIN.
Bharat Biotech chairman and managing director Dr Krishna Ella said: “COVAXIN has demonstrated an excellent safety record in human clinical trials and in usage under emergency use.
“The efficacy data against severe Covid-19 and asymptomatic infections is highly significant, as this helps reduce hospitalisations and disease transmission, respectively.”
The company has delivered millions of vaccine doses and administered in India and many other countries with outstanding safety record marked by negligible or no appearance of adverse events after vaccination.
Bharat Biotech intends to expand the COVAXIN development with clinical trials planned in India and globally to assess its safety and immunogenicity in younger people, the impact of booster doses of the vaccine as well as its protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Coronavirus contracts awarded by the UK Government worth more than £3.7 billion raise at least one red flag for possible corruption, according to a report.
Transparency International UK says that how the Government handled bids for supplying personal protective equipment (PPE) and other pandemic contracts appeared to favour those with political access.
The independent anti-corruption organisation identified 73 contracts worth more than £3.7 billion – equivalent to 20 per cent of all contracts between February and November of last year – whose award “merits further investigation”. Case of concern
It found that of the cases of concern, 24 contracts for PPE worth £1.6 billion were awarded to those with known political connections to the Conservative Party.
A review of these “high-risk contracts” identified 15 areas of concern, such as uncompetitive tendering and politically connected contractors.
The organisation’s report, which reviewed nearly 1,000 contracts worth £18 billion, said the system designed to triage offers of PPE supplies appeared to be “partisan and riven with systemic bias”.
It said questions remained about the “VIP” lane, used to fast track offers of PPE from companies referred by MPs, peers and senior officials, such as who knew about the route and when.
Transparency International UK found that between February and November, some 98.9 per cent of Covid-related contracts by value (£17.8 billion) were awarded without any form of competition.
“There are now very serious questions for the government to answer”
Chief executive Daniel Bruce said: “There are now very serious questions for the Government to answer with more than a fifth of the money spent on purchases in response to the pandemic raising red flags.
“The Government’s approach to procurement during this critical period has already dented public confidence at a time when the trust of its citizens is most needed.
“We must now have full accountability for the eye-watering amounts of taxpayers’ money spent on the response – with the award for each of the 73 contracts we highlight in our report subject to a thorough audit.”
The organisation has made a series of recommendations to the Government in the report, including providing full transparency over the “VIP” lane and the return of open, competitive contracting as a default for public procurement.
A Government spokesman responded: “During the pandemic our priority has always been to protect the public and save lives, and we have used existing rules to buy life-saving equipment and supplies, such as PPE for the NHS front line.
“All PPE procurement went through the same assurance process and due diligence as carried out on every contract – ministers have no role in awarding them.
“The priority list was widely advertised across Government as a way of more quickly triaging offers of support.” Priority
Last November saw the National Audit Office (NAO), the public spending watchdog, publish a scathing report which criticised the way normal standards of transparency had been set aside during pandemic procurement.
The NAO said firms recommended by MPs, peers and ministers’ offices were given priority as the Government sought to find supplies of masks, gloves and aprons when the pandemic hit in the spring.
Meanwhile, the High Court ruled earlier this year that the Government had unlawfully failed to publish details of coronavirus-related contracts worth billions.
The Good Law Project took legal action against the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for its “wholesale failure” to disclose details of contracts agreed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Endemic cronyism”
In response to the Transparency International UK report, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Rachel Reeves accused the Government of “endemic cronyism” in its procurement.
She said: “The scale of corruption risk to vast amounts of taxpayer money revealed in this report is shocking, as is the evidence of endemic cronyism flowing through the Government’s contracting.
“Standards on public contracts have slipped so far under this Conservative government that this would be embarrassing if it wasn’t so serious.
“Labour have consistently asked for the Government to get the basics right – calling on them to publish the names of businesses that won lucrative Covid contracts through the ‘VIP fast lane’, ramp up transparency and come clean to taxpayers about the £2 billion worth of contracts that have gone to Tory friends and donors.”
The image of Muslim women
“We refuse to be hijab-wearing princesses”
Among Muslims, the image of women as "cossetted hijab-wearing princesses" is frequently invoked. But Muslim women have long wanted to be more. In her essay, Karoline Roscher-Lagzouli explores how they can find a new approach to their Muslim femininity, beyond patriarchal ideals and the hackneyed Western debate on headscarves
The first Muslim women in Islamic history weren’t well-protected hijab princesses; they were strong women who are still shining beacons today: warriors, clever businesswomen, scholars and teachers of men.
Khadija was the first to believe in the still-uncertain, fledging Prophet. She reassured him when he lay hidden under his blanket in her house, and encouraged him to follow his destiny.
Hafsa preserved the Koran as a written text and, so we are told, thereby ended the dispute among the Prophet’s companions after his death about the correct form in which the Koran should be recited.
They were all strong women, who not only stood up autonomously for their rights, but made substantial contributions to the transmission of Islam and Islamic theology. They were operating in a patriarchal society, in the context of which Muhammad’s teachings – especially with regard to the position of women – must have seemed downright revolutionary.
The women of early Islamic history prayed quite self-evidently alongside the men, in one room of the mosque. These houses of prayer had no dividing walls or separate entrances for the different sexes. In the opinion of a few classical Islamic scholars, such as Ibn Hanbal (780 - 855) or even Ibn Taymiya (1263 -1328), who paved the way for the withdrawn and spiritual Salafists, a woman could act as a female imam under certain circumstances and lead men in prayer. Today, the majority of Muslims react to this view with rejection and incomprehension, to put it mildly.
The revolutionary spirit seems to have been lost
Today, the actions and practices of the Prophet and his companions both male and female – the Sunnah – are held up as an example for us to follow by venerable Islamic scholars. But Muhammad’s revolutionary spirit seems to have been lost, buried beneath the dust of the centuries.
Obsessed with a piece of fabric: "What would become of the critics of Islam and enlightened thinkers, the oh-so-noble liberators of women, without the headscarf?" asks Karoline Roscher-Lagzouli in her essay. "What would they find to write about if the last unregenerate woman were to finally take off her scarf?" For the self-appointed liberators of Muslim women, free Muslim women are only those who have discarded their headscarves. It is inconceivable that some might want to make their own, self-determined decisions
What can be read in the Koran as the start of a process leading to fairness and equal rights is too often not followed to its conclusion, but submerged under an avalanche of men’s fears. These nudges towards equality are lost in the anxiety about somehow being associated with feminism. The term feminism is sometimes used to silence awkward Muslim women who advocate for a self-determined image of Muslim women. Yet even Muhammad may well have been considered a feminist in the social context of his day.
The image of the "ideal Muslim woman"
Today, Muslim men writing supposedly Islamic advice books, and in particular on social media, invoke an image of the "ideal Muslim womani" that is reminiscent of the virtuous American housewife of the 1950s. But in doing so, they don’t see the image of toxic masculinity in which they themselves are becoming entangled.
They lock women away, turning them into cossetted hijab princesses kept in golden cages. And here, the hijab becomes evidence of a Muslim woman’s virtue – the longer the cloth, the more devout the woman, you might think, if you were to believe the motivational sayings and pretty pictures of cute hijab princesses. They turn women into objects, jewels that are merely decorative and have no needs of their own.
The Muslim woman, destined to save the "lost sons in the West"
You can’t force belief, yet a woman must not allow herself any doubt, any wavering. There can be no cracks in the facade of the happy Muslim woman, who always smiles, who should always be devout and humble before her husband, her God. That is the fate laid out for you, sister; are you going to go against what God has ordained?
Muslim women also want to skateboard with a hijab or practice sports like the boxer Zeina Nassar, who was the first German to enter the boxing ring wearing a headscarf. They no longer want to be "cossetted hijab princesses" kept in golden cages, writes Karoline Roscher-Lagzouli, "jewels" to be sure, but without needs of their own
For the lost Muslim sons, the headscarf must seem like a last foothold in a postcolonial world, in which the old masculinities are no longer valid. They cling to it, having little more with which to counter Western achievements than the ideal of the Muslim woman. By way of contrast to the cold career-woman of the West, she is supposed to replace a lost homeland, unfulfilled dreams and longings. She is a tender angel, a healer of secret wounds, a mother and a balm for injured masculinity.
She is not permitted to make mistakes. If she took the headscarf off, whole worlds would fall. They want to feel a final remnant of power by defining her identity as a woman, a Muslim woman, even though they have lost their own identities.
The headscarf as an obsession
Your scarf and the hair beneath it don’t belong to you. They belong to the brothers, and also to the debates that are going on above your head. Women’s clothing is only mentioned twice in the Koran. These are two verses which, together with a few traditions handed down from the time of the Prophet and his companions, can be seen as an exhortation to Muslim women to cover their heads, and are thus interpreted by the classical Islamic schools in this way.
In a perhaps infinitely wise piece of foresight, however, the Omniscient left open exactly what this covering or clothing should look like. Neither do the traditions handed down from the time of the Prophet – which we view only through men’s spectacles clouded by the dust of centuries – provide many more hints. And yet the wise men know exactly how much or how little fabric a woman is permitted.
Two brief mentions in the Koran, and yet there seems to be no issue more important than women’s bodies. From furious Internet preachers to self-proclaimed female imams, all the way to Alice-Schwarzer feminism: the veil dominates every idea of what it is to be a woman in Islam
The dream of falling veils
How the situation of Muslims of both sexes is assessed in Germany seems to depend first and foremost on women’s hair. The self-appointed advocates for Muslim women see only free women without headscarves, and unfree women with them. There is no provision for individual, autonomous decisions on the matter of headscarves. Here, too, Muslim women are degraded into oppressed objects who need saving.
What would become of the critics of Islam and enlightened thinkers, the oh-so-noble liberators of women, without the headscarf? What would they find to write about if the last unregenerate woman were to finally take off her scarf? They dream of falling veils like the colonial rulers, who were perhaps the first to light upon the “liberation from the headscarf“ as means of subjugating whole societies.
“We want to do more than carry shopping bags”
Self-reflection and critical questioning can lead Muslim women to new approaches to their religion that are free from male dictates. Muslim women called upon to look at the reality of their lives and their activities, and to measure them against the yardsticks of freedom, against the revelations and practices of Muhammad, which were aimed at equal rights and rational thought. Within his historical context, his practices really can be described as feminist and progressive.
Muslim women want a self-determined life, with or without hijab. "The scarf covers our hair, not our brains. Muslim women are on the move all over the world," writes Carolina Roscher-Lagzouli in her essay. "They are abandoning traditional patriarchal images in the desire to be free." Today's Muslim women will no longer be quietly satisfied with men's explanations. They are reading the Koran and the scriptures anew, "and doing it themselves," as Roscher-Lagzouli points out. "We are loud and angry, we are leading revolutions and we will flip you off if you insult us in the street. We are here – and we’re not going anywhere"
You cannot force freedom. And nor does freedom come from women showing their hair. Patriarchal structures don’t depend on a piece of cloth or a religion, as the self-appointed liberators would see if they could get beyond their focus on visible hair and take a look at the world, or even just look outside their own front doors.
We women have long been visible and audible. We want to be more than cleaners. We want to do more than carry Aldi bags and walk five paces behind our bearded husbands. We want to be more than many people will allow us to be. And we can be more than we sometimes think we can.
Riding skateboards and dancing with brightly-coloured scarves
The world is changing. The scarf covers our hair, not our brains. With or without a hijab, Muslim women are on the move all over the world. They are abandoning traditional, patriarchal images in the desire to be free. They are writing, researching and reinventing themselves.
Hijabi is becoming a lifestyle, the headscarf a fashion item, and a feminist statement as well as a spiritual one. We want to ride skateboards and dance with brightly-coloured scarves. We will no longer be silently content with men’s explanations; we are reading the Koran and the scriptures anew, for ourselves this time.
We are loud and angry, we are leading revolutions and we'll flip you off if you insult us in the street. We are here, and we’re not going away.
Karoline Roscher-Lagzouli studied Islamic Studies and works as an author.
EARTH DAY 2021
Four steps this Earth Day to avert environmental catastrophe With political pressure and these smart policy goals, a new sense of the common good could be within reach
Extinction Rebellion protesters at the Bank of England, London, July 2020. Photograph: Barcroft Media/Getty Images
Today is Earth Day, which should provide us with an opportunity to pause and confront the awful predicament humanity faces. We eat microplastics, breathe pollution and watch other life-forms decline to extinction. We face intersecting poverty, health, climate and biodiversity crises. Our global predicament is that consumption by the wealthy is driving us towards planetary disaster, yet billions live in poverty and need to consume more to live well. In this cycle, any version of “success” only hastens catastrophe.
Solving this conundrum requires much more than merely reducing the impact of high-consumption lifestyles. Similarly, if we focus on increasing efficiency this tends to increase resource use: make cars cheaper to run and people drive more. The core of any response that truly rises to this challenge will be interlocking policies that drive society on to an equitable and sustainable path.
Here are four policies that work together to maximise people’s welfare and freedoms, drive essential technological innovation, and allow society to operate within Earth’s limits. At their heart is human dignity coupled with breaking the dynamic of ever-greater production and consumption. Together they could quickly reorient the doomsday machine that is today’s global economy.
The first policy is universal basic income (UBI) whereby a financial payment is made to every citizen, unconditionally, at a level above their subsistence needs. UBI is needed to break the link between work and consumption. Critically, there is a constant awareness that we all need to be ever more productive at work, otherwise someone else will take our job. In response we have all said: I work hard, so I deserve that fancy meal, new gadget or long-haul holiday. Increased consumption is the reward for being ever more productive at work. Indeed, it makes little sense to curb our consumption when we know we will have to be ever more productive at work, regardless of our choices.
Fears that UBI may lead to laziness are unfounded: small-scale trials of UBI show people work hard and are typically more entrepreneurial. Crucially, those UBI recipients had lower anxiety, stress and health problems. UBI allows people to say no to undesirable work, unless it is well-paid enough. People can also say yes to opportunities that often lie out of reach, as they can study or retrain. And clearly there is an immense amount of work to do, from caring for others, to producing what we all need to live well. With UBI we would increasingly choose work that we thought mattered, rather than working ever harder to consume ever more.
The second policy framework is what I call universal shared services – others have argued for universal basic services, but what’s needed must be far beyond basic. Many countries have some of these, from healthcare to education. These are the services everyone needs and their delivery has society-wide effects. Core are health, education, energy, housing and leisure services. Providing these universally lowers financial costs due to economies of scale, and can substantially lower environmental costs. Such universal services make societies more equal and drive them towards more sustainability if two further policies are enacted.
The third policy tackles the climate emergency via legally binding ever-declining carbon budgets. This framework exists in the UK, following the 2008 Climate Change Act. The government must reduce UK carbon emissions to within a carbon budget. These five-year budgets decline to a zero allocation by 2050. This act also created an independent statutory body that analyses data and advises the government on how to achieve each successive carbon budget. The advice results in new legislation for specific sectors and drives technological innovation as the zero emissions long-term destination is clear. As a result the UK is world-leading in reducing carbon emissions.
The fourth policy uses the same declining budget principle, but tackles material use rather than energy generation. Similarly, declining “plastic use budgets” can set society on a pathway to eliminating plastic pollution. The same principle can tackle metal use to limit the damage from mining. A budget for the total amount of land used to produce the food a country consumes can limit the footprint of agriculture, central to halting biodiversity loss. As with carbon emissions, scientists can now track the production and use of plastic, metal and food. Scientific monitoring and new “declining budget” policies could keep material use within Earth’s limits.
These four policy goals together would drive people’s welfare up and our environmental impacts down. They are not new, nor are they very radical. We already, for example, assure incomes for pensioners in many countries, healthcare is universal in a number of countries, and declining carbon budgets are being used to help drive today’s energy transition.
But how to pay for it? The first response of the powerful to change is to argue that the costs are too great. They rarely are. After two decades of arguments about the high costs of tackling climate change, consultants to big business McKinsey now report that the cost of Europe reaching net zero emissions by 2050 is itself net zero. The investments literally pay for themselves. Revenue-raising options should also help to implement the four policies more cheaply; these could include taxes on rentiers financial transactions, and high energy or material use. Of course, without pressure from popular protest movements and political parties, nothing will change.
Yet systemic thinking on how to respond to global problems is increasing. The Covid-19 pandemic has produced a new seriousness by graphically revealing that there actually is no “outside” of society or the environment. When there’s no such thing as “outside”, the neoliberal mantra of avoiding taxes and regulations to keep wealth to yourself makes less and less sense. With political pressure and smart policies a new universality that breaks with centuries of exploiting people and the environment could be within reach. This is undoubtedly a very tough task, but we can’t afford to fail.
Simon Lewis is professor of global change science at University College London and University of Leeds
EARTH DAY 2021
Activists smash London bank HQ windows in Earth Day protest at coal investment
An activist from Extinction Rebellion smashes a window at HSBC headquarters during a protest in Canary Wharf, London. Reuters
Guy Faulconbridge
April 22 2021
Climate activists shattered at least 19 windows at HSBC's headquarters in London's Canary Wharf as part of a protest against the financing of what the group says is devastating climate change that threatens the planet.
The female activists from the Extinction Rebellion group used hammers to break the windows and pasted stickers on the windows before sitting down to wait for the police to arrive, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.
"Despite HSBC's pledge to shrink its carbon footprint to net zero by 2050, their current climate plan still allows the bank to finance coal power, and provides no basis to turn away clients or cancel contracts based on links to the fossil fuel industry," Extinction Rebellion said.
A spokesman for HSBC declined immediate comment.
Extinction Rebellion wants to trigger a wider revolt against the political, economic and social structures of the modern world to avert the worst scenarios of devastation outlined by scientists studying climate change.
"It's time to stand up and be counted," said Gully Bujak, 28, from Extinction Rebellion. "Doing this today may land us in prison but we're on the right side of history."
The activists referenced the struggle of the Suffragettes who used direct action to fight for votes for women in the early 20th Century.
The group broke windows at the London headquarters of Barclays two weeks ago.
EARTH DAY 2021
'2020 was Europe's hottest year on record'
2021-04-2021
Europe experienced its hottest year on record last year, while the Arctic suffered a summer of extreme wildfires partly due to low snow cover as climate change impacts intensified, the European Union's observation service said on Thursday.
As world leaders prepared to brandish their plans to fight climate change at a US-led summit on Thursday, EU scientists issued a stark reminder that the impacts of a warmer world are already here.
Europe's average annual temperature in 2020 was the highest on record and at least 0.4 degrees Celsius above the next five warmest years – all of which took place in the last decade, the Copernicus Earth observation service said.
"Temperatures are increasing in all seasons in Europe," said Freja Vamborg, senior scientist at Copernicus.
It was the hottest winter on record, at 3.4 degrees Celsius above the average European winter temperature seen during 1981-2020. Weather is more variable in winter, so extreme temperatures tend to play out most starkly in that season.
It was also Europe's warmest autumn, while summer heatwaves were not as intense or prolonged as in recent years, despite pockets of record-breaking heat in places including Scandinavia and France.
Meanwhile, the Arctic saw a "spectacular year", Vamborg said, pointing to a summer of record-breaking wildfires in Arctic Siberia, which were exacerbated by high temperatures and lower-than-average snow cover.
The average temperature in Arctic Siberia last year broke records by a large margin at 4.3 degrees Celsius above the 1981-2020 average.
Globally, Copernicus Earth said 2020 was one of the world's three hottest years on record, confirming findings released this week by the World Meteorological Organization.
The EU on Wednesday set a target to slash emissions faster this decade, and the United States is expected to do the same on Thursday, hiking the pressure on countries including China and India.
Currently, countries' combined pledges fall far short of the rapid emissions cuts scientists say are needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels and stave off the most severe impacts of climate change. (Reuters)
EARTH DAY 2021
PODCAST
Divided States podcast: Toxic air and dirty water - Erin Brockovich on solving America's climate crisis
Thursday 22 April 2021 UK
In a corner of southwest Detroit, there's a community that's spent years grappling with the air it's breathing in.
The 48217 district has become known as Michigan's "most polluted zip code". There are more than two dozen pollutant-producing facilities owned by multiple companies scattered in and around the area, and residents say it's severely harming their health. The story of the 48217 district bears the hallmarks of many poor communities of colour in the US. Joe Biden has touted an extremely ambitious plan to help tackle climate change and environmental pollution. His challenge, though, will be balancing his big green ideas with big job generation.
US Correspondent speaks to renowned environmental activist Erin Brockovich about the situation in Detroit, and how the climate crisis at large should be tackled.::
In this new series, the hosts of Australia's longest-running news and current affairs program, 60 Minutes, take us behind the scenes of the guests, stories and interviews that have forever changed them, some decades later.
There are always two sides to every story, including the "extraordinary" reason why a teenage girl in Sweden wagged school every Friday to protest against climate change.
The call to arms by then 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, from Stockholm, sparked a global movement in 2018, triggering mass school strikes to domino around the world - for one simple reason: climate change.
Critics were quick to slam the teenager for ditching school, but ultimately the controversial act of defiance divided the community.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg arrives for the meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. (Getty)
Despite some believing the teen's stance was too extreme, Abo said her strong action stemmed from intense passion and commitment to solving climate change.
"She is a pretty polarising and controversial figure, right - there are people who love her and there are people who think that she is too young to be espousing these kinds of beliefs," she said.
"To actually meet her, and get to know her, and understand where she is coming from was an experience not many people get.
"Hearing her talk about why she does what she does and the passion behind it, was something pretty special.
Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg arrives for a meeting at the Europa building in Brussels. (AFP via Getty Images)
"Her commitment to calling out global warming, to calling out our leaders for not doing enough, was quite extraordinary and very brave - not many 16-year-olds would do something like this.
"She is a remarkable young girl."
Thunberg could not stand by and do nothing; and desperate times really did call for drastic actions, Abo said.
"It weighed on her so heavily, she felt as a human being on earth she had to do something," she said.
"You can't argue against what she has created and you can't argue against the motivation she has given to so many young people to get out on the streets to act for something they believe in, to try and bring about the change they think they deserve."
