Antonucci: US actions only making things worse in Ukraine

Amy Antonucci
Sun, June 12, 2022

Amy Antonucci

I have been watching the violence between Russia and Ukraine with the same sorrow and horror as many others. I share the wish to protect people and stand up for justice and freedom. I am concerned, however, that our current approach to doing so is counter-productive and dangerous.

I have been involved with NH peace groups since the 1990s, currently serving on the board of directors for NH Peace Action. I have mourned scenes like those we are shown from Ukraine many times. I am encouraged to have so many other Americans join me in outrage over the brutal reality of war. In the past, vigiling against aggression towards Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran I have more often been yelled at and threatened. I might risk that same reaction now when I ask that people take a broader view of war and peace in the world.

Watching another military conflict unfold is heartbreaking but it has only deepened my belief in nonviolence as the only reasonable way to resolve our problems, using diplomatic solutions instead of weapons shipments. As we watch the destruction of much of Ukraine and live under the growing possibility that escalation of this conflict will lead to a nuclear war the futility and tragedy of war seems increasingly apparent.

If you have not been following foreign relations closely for decades, Russia's attack on Ukraine may be shocking and confusing. For those of us who have been engaged on these issues, it is tragic but makes sense in the context of politics and power in the world. While an invasion cannot be justified the world must understand that Russia has legitimate security concerns that need to be heard during negotiations to end the conflict.

I believe we are, in fact, especially responsible for our own country's behavior, which includes 20 years of the War on Terror, withdrawing from treaties, updating our nuclear arsenal, refusing to support the International Criminal Court (ICC), and pushing for the expansion of NATO.

None of this excuses another country's aggression, and I support bringing all leaders who initiate violence against any country to the ICC. But understanding is imperative to finding solutions and to avoiding further tragedy. If what we have been doing has not been creating a culture of peace, can we consider changing our approach?

The US response of sending weapons, refusing to join in negotiations, and adding our bellicose rhetoric instead leads to terrible destruction for Ukraine and for the world. We have seen multiple conflicts in the world exacerbated by the influx of more firepower, including Afghanistan, a particularly relevant example. The ends do not justify the means, in fact, often the process is reflected in the results. Research now shows that stable democracies are most often birthed by nonviolent struggles.

Every conflict ends the same way. People who feel they are bitter enemies sit down and work it out. The question is just how much bloodshed and destruction will there be between now and then. Committing to the difficult work of negotiation and peace-making is daunting but worthwhile. Here in NH we have the example of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty of 1905 to remind us of what is possible. Considered one of history's great peace negotiations, officials and NH citizens helped to end the Russo-Japanese War, an achievement we continue to honor and can still learn from today.

In my years of working on these issues I have seen that people everywhere are more alike than different, that we can understand each other and bridge divides if we hold on to our own and each other's humanity. I wish I could convey the world I know is possible if we commit to moving ahead with humility, a willingness to learn, and to see all others as our equals.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence." In these times of nuclear weapons and environmental problems, we see how intertwined our fates are.

I hope that this experience will lead to many expanding the circle of their compassion to places and people who might look and live differently than we do. I hope that even when attention has shifted away from Ukraine, people will remember the horror of war - every war, not just this one - and support actions and policies to address the root causes of conflict and lead to a more peaceful world.

Amy Antonucci of Barrington has been involved in agriculture, the arts and activism in Seacoast NH for 30 years. She has especially worked on issues of environmental health, sustainable agriculture, human rights and peace.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: U.S. actions only making things worse for Ukraine, rest of the world

Fish leather is here, it’s sustainable – and it’s made from invasive species to boot



Richard Luscombe in Miami

THE GUARDIAN
Sun, June 12, 2022

Aarav Chavda has been diving off the coast of Florida for years. Each time he became increasingly depressed by the ever-growing void, as colourful species of fish and coral reefs continued to disappear.

A significant reason for that disappearance is the lionfish, an invasive species that has boomed in Atlantic waters from Florida to the Caribbean in recent decades, and in numerous other places from Brazil and Mexico to the Mediterranean.

Lionfish have no natural predators outside their native range – in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the Red Sea – and are all-consuming, devouring an estimated 79% of young marine life within five weeks of entering a coral reef system. “You can see the impacts on the reefs when you dive now – it’s less vibrant, it’s less cacophonous,” Chavda said.

“We know there are solutions for some of the problems – such as coral-friendly sunscreens to help protect the reefs – but nobody’s been able to do anything about the lionfish.”

So Chavda and a team of ecologically aware fellow scuba enthusiasts decided to act by establishing Inversa, which turns lionfish into a new product: fish leather. On Wednesday, World Oceans Day, the team was recognised as one of nine finalists in the Global Ocean Resilience Innovation Challenge (Oric).

Chavda, 27, and his childhood friend from Texas, Roland Salatino, set up the Florida-based company to make the leather. They process the fish hides by tanning them with drying agents and dye them before selling the leather to partner companies to fashion into high-end products including wallets, belts and handbags. Fish skin is thin but because the fibre structure runs crossways, it is stronger than many other types of leather.

Each hide, Chavda says, can save up to 70,000 native reef fish.

The hides are also more sustainable than traditional animal leathers, which generally require grazing on huge amounts of pasture – degrading soils and producing high carbon emissions.

Inversa does not hunt the lionfish itself. Instead, it relies on educating and encouraging largely poor fishermen and women in often remote places to catch them.

“A lot of the geographies, especially the lower-income Caribbean area, have no market at all [for lionfish] – and so this fish is not only destroying the coral reefs, which sustain these fishing cooperatives’ livelihoods, but they also can’t do anything about it,” Chavda said.

“They could hunt lionfish, but that takes time, and it means they’re not hunting other things. They’d be spending their precious time not on lobster, not on grouper – so it’s very unfortunate.”

Related: Crab-22: how Norway’s fisheries got rich – but on an invasive species

The Inversa project that impressed the Oric judges seeks to address that problem. The company is proposing to set up well-equipped fishing cooperatives in Quintana Roo, Mexico, by underwriting the fishers’ risk with a “100% catch-to-cash guarantee” for lionfish. This would finance the purchase of equipment, then offer premium incentives and prompt payment for lionfish.

“We’re really sort of empowering the consumer and fashion by doing something for the planet – then we empower dive communities in the fishing cooperatives all throughout the Caribbean to do something for themselves,” Chavda said.

#ABOLISHSCOTUS

How the Supreme Court's major climate case could change the course of Biden's presidency

John Fritze, USA TODAY

Sat, June 11, 2022

WASHINGTON – Fifteen years ago, a divided Supreme Court ruled the federal government had the power to regulate carbon dioxide from car emissions – a decision hailed by environmentalists as a landmark win in the effort to curb climate change.

But as the high court prepares to decide another major climate case in the coming days and resolve a controversy over water pollution this fall, the mood among environmental groups is more gloomy – and the sense of foreboding, experts say, is likely justified.

That's not only because the Supreme Court is more conservative than it has been in decades – and perhaps more willing to reconsider precedent – but also because environmental rules are caught up in a broader fight over whether federal agencies may regulate businesses without explicit approval from Congress.

The answer to that question will have sweeping implications for President Joe Biden's administration beyond the Environmental Protection Agency if Republicans capture control of Congress this year. Presidents of both parties often turn to agency regulations when they’re unable to move their agenda through Congress – even though those policies frequently run into trouble in court.

"Environmentalists are holding their breath to see just how bad it will be," said Robert Percival, director of the environmental law program at the University of Maryland. "It seems likely that they're going to be making major cutbacks in the EPA's authority."

Power plant emissions

In one of the most significant climate cases to reach the high court in years, the justices will soon decide whether the EPA may regulate carbon emissions from power plants. Nineteen states, led by West Virginia, challenged climate regulations approved by the Obama administration and later abandoned by President Donald Trump.

The decision will land as scientists and international groups issue dire warnings about the Earth's changing climate. A United Nations report in April found that without significant and immediate emission reductions, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius – a threshold that risks more severe effects – would be "beyond reach."

As the Supreme Court prepares to decide a major climate case in the coming days and resolve a controversy over water pollution this fall, the mood among environmental groups is more gloomy.

The debate over how much leeway federal agencies have to regulate isn’t limited to the environment. Recent Supreme Court decisions striking down a nationwide eviction moratorium – a policy crafted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic – and blocking a mandate that employers create vaccine-or-testing programs raised the same issues.

In the eviction case, the Trump and Biden administrations relied on a 1944 public health law that lets officials "make and enforce such regulations" as they deem "necessary to prevent the…spread of communicable diseases." But the law, the court said, doesn’t say anything specifically about halting evictions during a pandemic.

"It strains credulity to believe" Congress meant to give the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "the sweeping authority" it used to impose the moratorium, a majority of the court ruled in August. "We expect Congress to speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise powers of 'vast economic and political significance.'"

President Barack Obama's EPA required states to reduce emissions by shifting power plants away from coal. The Supreme Court blocked enforcement of those rules in 2016 and Trump repealed them a year later, prompting a new round of lawsuits. While the court’s three liberal justices signaled support for the EPA during oral arguments in February, the court’s six-member conservative bloc was harder to read.

One of the issues the justices debated then was the "major questions doctrine," the principle that Congress can delegate some decisions to agencies but not those that involve "vast" economic or political matters. One sticky issue with that doctrine is that there’s no clear definition of "vast significance." Those who oppose the doctrine say that if a law is vague then Congress intended to give agencies wide deference to interpret it.

Another case the high court will take up later this year deals with the 1972 Clean Water Act which requires Americans to obtain a permit before putting certain pollutants into the "waters of the United States." The law doesn’t define exactly what that term means.

In 2007, a couple began building a home near Idaho's Priest Lake, but the EPA asserted their lot contained wetlands subject to federal regulation.

In one of the most significant climate cases to reach the high court in years, the justices will soon decide whether the EPA may regulate carbon emissions from power plants.

The couple told the court last year that the agency's interpretation was "emblematic of all that has gone wrong with the implementation of the Clean Water Act." Their lot, they said, doesn't include a stream, river, or lake – the kind of navigable waterways usually covered by the federal requirements.

But the Biden administration countered in court filings that EPA's designation was made eight years before the family bought the property and that the couple dumped nearly 2,000 cubic yards of gravel and sand to fill the wetlands anyway. The wetlands are adjacent to water that eventually feeds into Priest Lake, the government concluded.

'Pushing the boundaries of their powers'

Legal experts point to several factors they say explain why complicated questions about agency power pop up so often in environmental cases. Some of it has to do with how the legal system works broadly as it weighs the impact of laws and regulations.

One of the challenges environmentalists face in federal court is demonstrating the cost of not protecting the environment. It's easier for industries to quantify the expense of updating a power plant to reduce emissions, for instance, than it is to tally up the costs that climate change may impose on an entire society.

"Because we all bear the costs of pollution, the benefits of regulation are often spread broadly, while the costs of reducing pollution are concentrated where they belong – on polluters," said Sambhav Sankar, senior vice president of programs at Earthjustice, an environmental law group.

And while there's often an economic incentive for industries to challenge environmental regulations, there's not always a similarly powerful force to support those rules.

"So that means that this is always a target for pro-industry conservatives," Sankar said. "And when these cases show up in court, the court sometimes struggles to appreciate the value of regulation to society as a whole."

Adam White, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said the agencies themselves also have a role to play. Administrations may decide that getting legislation through Congress is impossible and so turn to regulations instead. Lawmakers may not be compelled to take a difficult vote if they think the administration is going to act on its own. And agencies, sometimes, may just overstep their authority.

"The agencies with a lot of political wind in their sails have a kind of emergency mentality that they need to do as much as they can as fast as they can," said White, who is also the co-director of the Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University. "They end up pushing the boundaries of their powers."

Another problem with deferring to agencies, White argued, is that their leadership changes every time a new president is sworn into office.

The upside to that, he said, is that presidential elections "have consequences."

"But the downside is that every four or eight years you get a total overhaul in regulatory policy," White said. "At some point, everybody – the courts, the private sector, all of us – we can look at this and say, 'That's no way to run a country.'"

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court climate case may have big implications for Joe Biden

WTO holds big meeting to tackle vaccines, food shortages

JAMEY KEATEN
Sun, June 12, 2022, 

GENEVA (AP) — The head of the World Trade Organization predicted a “bumpy and rocky" road as it opened its highest-level meeting in 4-1/2 years on Sunday, with issues like pandemic preparedness, food insecurity and overfishing of the world’s seas on the agenda.

At a time when some question WTO's relevance, Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala hopes the meeting involving more than 120 ministers from the group's 164 member countries yields progress toward reducing inequality and ensuring fair and free trade.

Okonjo-Iweala acknowledged the Geneva-based trade body needs reform but said she was cautiously optimistic that a deal might be reached on at least one of the meeting’s main ambitions like fisheries or COVID vaccines.

“The road will be bumpy and rocky. There may be a few landmines on the way,” Okonjo-Iweala said. “We’ll have to navigate those landmines and see how we can successfully land one or two deliverables.”

In her opening address, she said a “trust deficit” had emerged over the years following the failure of negotiations known as the Doha Round more than a decade ago.

“The negativism is compounded by the negative advocacy of some think tanks and civil society groups here in Geneva and elsewhere who believe the WTO is not working for people," she said. "This is, of course, not true, although we’ve not been able to clearly demonstrate it.”

She cited an array of crises facing the world such as the COVID-19 pandemic; environmental crises like droughts, floods and heat waves; and inflationary pressures that have been compounded by food shortages and higher fuel costs linked to Russia's war in Ukraine. She noted higher prices are“hitting poor people the hardest.”

“With history looming over us, with that multilateral system seemingly fragile, this is the time to invest in it, not to retreat from it,” Okonjo-Iweala said. “This is the time to summon the much-needed political will to show that the WTO can be part of the solution to the multiple crises, the global commons that we face.”

The WTO chief insisted that trade has lifted 1 billion people out of poverty, but poorer countries – and poor people in richer ones – are often left behind.

Blockaded ports in Ukraine have impeded exports of up to 25 million tons of grain from the key European breadbasket.

Ministers at the meeting will consider whether to lift or ease export restrictions on food to help countries facing a shortage of wheat, fertilizer and other products because of the war in Ukraine. They also will decide whether to increase support for the U.N.’s World Food Program to help needy countries around the world.

“I strongly urge the WTO members with the capabilities to commit at MC12 to exempt their donations to the World Food Program from any export restrictions,” said Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, referring to the 12th ministerial conference at the WTO.

Okonjo-Iweala hopes the member nations, which make decisions by consensus, also can strike an agreement about whether to temporarily waive WTO’s protections of intellectual property on COVID-19 vaccines.

The topic has generated months of contentious negotiations. The pharmaceutical industry wants to protect its innovations while advocacy groups say the pandemic's devastation merits an exemption to the usual rules and developing countries say they need better access to vaccines.





WTO Ministers MeetingProtestors hold up banners during a demonstration against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland, Saturday, June 11, 2022. For the first time in 4 1/2 years, after a pandemic pause, government ministers from WTO countries will gather for four days starting Sunday. (Valentin Flauraud/Keystone via AP)

Some experts and diplomats say two decades of WTO efforts to limit overfishing in the world's seas appears to be as close as it ever has to reaching a deal.

The draft text on fisheries aims to limit government subsidies — such as for fuel — to fishing boats or workers who take part in “illegal, unreported and unreported” fishing, or national subsidies that contribute to “overcapacity or overfishing.” Some workers in developing countries could qualify for exemptions.

“This agreement is crucial to the 260 million people around the world whose livelihoods depend directly or indirectly on marine fisheries,” Okonjo-Iweala said. “It is also central to the sustainability of our oceans, where the latest studies show close to 50% of stocks for which we have data are overfished.”

An umbrella group of nongovernmental groups, “Our World Is Not For Sale,” said over 50 NGOs were stripped of access that they had been previously granted to attend the opening day events.

WTO spokesman Daniel Pruzin said that because of “space limitations” at WTO and events inside, “we were unfortunately unable to grant accredited NGOs access, both civil society groups as well as business groups.” He said they would be granted access for the rest of the ministerial starting Monday.

The World Trade Organization, created in 1995 as a successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, has seen a slow unraveling — often because U.S. objections have largely hamstrung its dispute-resolution system.

The WTO hasn’t produced a major trade deal in years. The last one, reached nearly a decade ago, was an agreement that cut red tape on goods clearing borders and was billed as a boost to lower-income countries.

 

Food vs fuel: Ukraine war increases scrutiny on use of crops for energy

Madeleine Bruder

 

Soaring food prices caused by the war in Ukraine have increased the risk of famine, raising pressure on producers of low-carbon fuels derived from crops and sparking a “food versus biofuel” debate.

Before Russia’s invasion, global biofuel production was at a record high. In the US, the leading biofuels producer, 36 per cent of total corn production went into biofuels last year, while biodiesel accounted for 40 per cent of soyabean oil supplies.

But some food companies and policymakers are calling for an easing of mandates for blending biofuels into petrol and diesel to increase global grain and vegetable oil supplies.

“Now is not the time [for governments] to be encouraging the conversion of food crops to energy through artificial policy incentives or mandatory blending targets,” said the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute.

Between them, Russia and Ukraine produce nearly a fifth of the world’s corn and more than half its sunflower oil, but crop exports from the countries are at a fraction of prewar levels. Hundreds of millions of people are at risk of “hunger and destitution” because of food shortages caused by the war, the UN’s secretary-general warned last week.

The total amount of crops used annually for biofuels is equal to the calorie consumption of 1.9bn people, according to data firm Gro Intelligence, highlighting the volume of agricultural commodities that could be diverted from energy use if the food security crisis worsened.

Do biofuels cause problems in food markets?

Biofuels — ethanol made from corn and sugarcane and biodiesel made from vegetable oils including soyabean oil and palm oil — have been blended into motor fuel since the early 2000s to boost energy supplies and reduce the environmental impact of fossil fuels.

Biofuels were blamed in part for the last food crisis in 2007-08. Studies, including from the World Bank and IMF, suggested that the growth of biofuels contributed 20-50 per cent to the price increase of corn during the crisis. Their rising use was described as “a crime against humanity” by the UN’s then-food rights rapporteur.

But biofuel producers argue they have played a minimal role this time around. “Biofuels didn’t cause this crisis — either the price or the contraction in supply,” said James Cogan of Ethanol Europe, an industry lobby group.

High prices are not about demand but reflect “erratic trading conditions and high energy prices”, he added. Reducing biofuel production “wouldn’t materially ease the price crisis”.

Would limits on biofuels reduce world hunger?

A 50 per cent reduction in the grain used for biofuels in Europe and the US would compensate for all the lost exports of Ukrainian wheat, corn, barley and rye, according to the World Resources Institute, a Washington think-tank.

Although crop production has risen along with biofuel output, meaning the amount available for food supplies has not decreased, biofuel usage cannot rise exponentially without damage to the environment, campaigners said.

“In a world that is food insecure, we need to be thinking really critically about these limited resources as we try to feed the world and solve the climate crisis,” said Oliver James, a researcher at Princeton University who helped compile the WRI data.

Maik Marahrens, of Brussels-based environmental campaign group Transport & Environment, said that in the EU, about 10,000 tonnes of wheat, equal to 15mn loaves of bread, are burnt daily as ethanol in cars.

The ethanol industry says such comparisons are unfair. Most of the grain used to produce fuel is feed wheat, which goes into animal food, rather than milling wheat, which is made into bread, the industry has argued.

Biofuel sector executives said the amount of wheat used for biofuels was negligible — about 2 per cent of the total crop, according to industry association UFOP.

“In that context, it’s a bit surreal to be elevating wheat ethanol even to a topic of conversation in the current crisis about bread,” said Eric Sievers, director of investments at ClonBio, which owns Europe’s largest grain biorefinery, located in Hungary, as well as at Ethanol Europe.

A Russian missile in a winter wheat field in Soledar, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region © Gleb Garanich/Reuters

Would it be more harmful to limit biofuels?

Industry executives argue that biofuels create efficiencies that nourish animals and, indirectly, humans.

The industry is a significant producer of animal feed since the process of turning grains into ethanol creates protein and fat by-products that are fed to chickens, cows and pigs.

Citing the impact on the EU alone, Cogan said limits on biofuel production “would result in lost renewable energy, lost energy independence, lost jobs, lost farm income security, increased fossil fuel imports, increased carbon emissions and increased soy meal imports [for animal feed] from the Americas”. 

Are biofuel policies changing?

In the EU, Belgium and Germany are considering easing biofuel blending mandates to address food security.

The International Energy Agency cut its biofuels growth forecast for this year by 20 per cent, forecasting global demand to increase 5 per cent from 2021 to 8.5bn litres.

In the US, where cheaper corn-based ethanol is the main biofuel, Washington has tried to tamp down rising gasoline prices by allowing the higher blending level, normally cut during the summer months because of polluting concerns, to temporarily continue.

But government incentives for biodiesel and the decline in global exports from Ukraine have added to competition for soyabean oil, squeezing supplies for US food groups.

“[Soyabean oil suppliers] can’t give me a [price] quote because they can’t take my business. There’s not enough oil to go around,” said Ed Cinco, purchasing director at Schwebel’s, a bakery in Ohio.

While China has warned ethanol producers that it will “strictly control processing of fuel ethanol from corn”, India is pushing ahead with targets to raise blending quotas. Prices for sugar, the country’s main bioethanol feedstock, have increased less than other crops.

Although co-ordinated action on food security has moved swiftly up the agenda, there has been little debate on limits to biofuels at an international level.

Instead, countries using biofuels must balance food security and sustainability with energy costs and independence, said Nicolas Denis, a partner at McKinsey. Governments need to decide “what sustainable use of land looks like, given the different priorities”, he added.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BIOFUEL

P3

Canada to invest millions to cut emissions at BHP potash mine -source


 Visitors to the BHP booth speak with representatives

 during the PDAC convention in Toronto

Sun, June 12, 2022
By Steve Scherer

OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada will announce a multi-million dollar investment on Monday to make the Jansen potash mine run by the globe's largest listed miner, BHP Group, "the cleanest and most sustainable in the world," a government source said on Sunday..

Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau are scheduled to make an announcement on "moving toward the net-zero emission economy" in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on Monday at 10:00 a.m. central time (1500 GMT).

The source declined to say the exact amount of the federal investment in BHP's Jansen mine, which is located about 150 km (93 miles) east of Saskatoon.

The investment will allow BHP to use electric vehicles and equipment to operate the mine, said the source, who is familiar with the investment but was not authorized to speak on the record about it.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has been investing heavily in clean energy projects, including plants for producing electric vehicle batteries and battery materials, after it set a goal to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Anglo-Australian miner BHP said last month it may accelerate its Jansen potash project in Canada by a year as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has tightened global supplies.

Prices of potash, a key input used in nitrogen fertilizers, have soared since Western sanctions were imposed against Russia.

Russia and Belarus, which also faces sanctions, are the world's second- and third-largest producers of the crop nutrient, while Canada is the No. 1 producer.

"We're looking to do anything we can do to support a commodity in short supply because of the war," the government source said.

When contacted, BHP declined to comment.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer, additional reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, editing by Chris Reese)

A 100-year-old quote from a legendary economist explains why Americans are so angry about inflation. Lenin agreed

Colin Lodewick

Sat, June 11, 2022,

As prices for groceries and haircuts climb, and as gasoline prices soar during the start of the vacation season, Americans are pessimistic about the economy’s future.

And with the latest monthly Consumer Price Index released on Friday showing an 8.6% gain—the highest in 40 years—most product prices are unlikely to decline any time soon.

So what does that mean for consumers? Maybe the total unraveling of American capitalism, according to the much-studied English economist John Maynard Keynes.

The only catch: Keynes was observing the same phenomenon—high inflation—over 100 years ago.

Writing in 1919, amid rampant inflation in Europe, during the era of World War I and the Russian Revolution, Keynes became well known after publishing The Economic Consequences of the Peace. It included one famous passage in which he mused about some of the Bolsheviks’ criticisms of capitalism, particularly about high inflation.

“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency,” Keynes wrote. “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”

This “arbitrary rearrangement of riches,” he continued, strikes at both the security and confidence that people have in the economic system. He went on to explain that inflation turns consumers against capitalists—“profiteers,” in his words—when they see how those individuals accrue wealth while they suffer from inflation.

He then discussed inflation in the 1910s against the backdrop of war and revolution, and the social unrest that followed. “Lenin was certainly right,” he concluded. “There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.”

Keynes’ economic writing ultimately gave birth to a “Keynesian” school of economics, and he personally helped negotiate the international postwar monetary order at the Bretton Woods conference following World War II.

But it was Keynes’ discussion of inflation that first put him on the map.

Debauched currency, 2020s style

As inflation gets worse, Keynes wrote, and the value of currency fluctuates unpredictably, the relationships between those who hold that currency and those who don't falls apart. “And the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery," he said.

Americans in the 2020s know a thing or two about a debauched currency.

Gasoline is at the heart of U.S. economic identity, with a hundred-year-old car culture forming the basis of American culture. With it now just shy of $5 per gallon nationwide, cue the unraveling?

Though multiple factors are to blame for the rising gas prices—lingering supply and demand disruptions from COVID, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy companies having problems increasing production, and the possibility of price gouging—consumers have started to complain. Just look at President Joe Biden’s plummeting approval rating and steady declines in the University of Michigan consumer confidence survey, which reflects increasing public concern.

“The idea that we're going to be able to click a switch, bring down the cost of gasoline, it’s not likely in the near term,” President Joe Biden said at a press conference last week. Only a quarter of voters, however, believe that he’s handling rising gas prices well, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.

Conservative lawmakers are sinking their teeth into the issue. “In my state, the price of gas is so high that it would be cheaper to buy cocaine and just run everywhere,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) in a brief appearance on Fox News on Tuesday.

In 1919, Keynes wrote that though capitalists may bear the brunt of consumer anger, they’re merely a symptom of the economic system's wider failing. “The profiteers are a consequence and not a cause of rising prices,” wrote Keynes.

So how to solve it? Keynes says it’s ultimately up to the government to sort things out.

“If, however,” he wrote, “a government refrains from regulation and allows matters to take their course, essential commodities soon attain a level of price out of the reach of all but the rich, the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent, and the fraud upon the public can be concealed no longer.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Building Radical Consensus

By Diana Pound, 

originally published by Great Transition Initiative

June 9, 2022

There is so much with which I agree in Bram Büscher and Robert Fletcher’s essay, but with limited time, I will provide a few thoughts and then explain my approach to what might be described as a form of “convivial conservation.”

Both their critique of capitalism and description of various conservation paradigms rooted in colonialism are about Western approaches. It is important to recognize other places and peoples working to care for nature see, value, and do things differently.

Capitalism is not the only political/economic system that damages nature. Accrual of wealth by exploitation of people and nature is at the heart of an array of state-based political/economic systems, including capitalism, communism, and imperialism. Who holds the wealth may differ (rich and famous, corporates, the state, a dictator, or royalty), but the impact on nature and people ends up the same. Working to change these systems to something better is an exceedingly long-term proposition. If convivial conservation asserts that “success in the conservation arena requires transforming the overarching global political economy,” we are out of time, and there won’t be success. When “the house is on fire,” the focus is on how best to put the fire out as quickly as possible—not the governance of the fire service. Those with the skill and clout to work at influencing the global political economy and global conservation paradigms must do so, but the focus has to be on how we can get on better trajectories and to better outcomes for nature and people now—last week, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

In the UK, there seems little awareness amongst environmental professionals that the roots of conservation practice here are in fortress conservation and colonialism. I mentioned it in a recent blog for the UK Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM) and was asked to explain what I meant.1 Whether self-aware or not, these attitudes are still quite evident, particularly in the rewilding endeavor (a more male-dominated strand of UK conservation, which I suspect is no coincidence). But the problems extend beyond this paradigm. Back in 2003 at a gathering of the European part of the IUCN Commission for Education and Communication (CEC), a challenging conclusion was that one of the greatest threats to biodiversity conservation is the attitudes and behavior of conservationists. This includes linear and silo thinking; an “experts know best, so experts decide” mentality; scientism with the natural sciences seen as the only way of knowing; top-down approaches telling others what to do; black box methods; and a belief that the answer is to educate “them” and then make them rationally analyze (our) options. All these need to change—and fast.

I too share grave concerns about the “nature at our service” paradigm of ecosystem services, but in certain limited settings and contexts, it has its uses.2 For example, in England, if farmers are to stop operating on the production model that causes terrible damage to life support for humans and nature, they need income from creating and nurturing healthy landscape-scale habitats, regenerated soils, clean rivers, flood mitigation, clean air, and recreation access. With subsidies coming from the taxpayer, there has to be some fair way of calculating this. Likewise for making the cost/benefit case for natural coastal fringes or river management as part of better flood protection compared to large concrete structures.

When it comes to convivial conservation, some of us have been doing work that could be described this way for a while. Our team at Dialogue Matters design and facilitate multi-stakeholder consensus-building and negotiation related to the natural environment. By “consensus-building,” I don’t mean weak compromise; I mean stakeholders working hard to seek out win/wins for nature and all the different stakeholders and interests: looking for “both and” solutions and innovations. We have completed over 130 multistakeholder projects at local, national, and international levels. Some are collaborative research; others, better management of land, sea, rivers, species conservation, landscapes, fisheries, farming, water management, and climate change.

We help people come together across sectors, parts of society, and interests to combine their understanding of their part of the system and work out the optimum way forward for nature and people. Solutions can be a mix of technical, spatial, behavioral, market, operational, managerial, and governance. Outcomes are across the range for nature: areas left alone to nature, areas where local people and traditional practices are a fundamental part of how the ecosystem works, areas for active restoration or self-willed wilding, to greening highly altered urban areas. All are needed, but should not be imposed.

When I said above that I want to focus on what can be done now—last week, yesterday, today and tomorrow —I meant it for real, not in an aspirational way:

Last week, we ran the first workshop to help the UK fishing sector consider the most feasible and impactful solutions to transition to net zero and deliver other benefits.

Yesterday, it was all about bat conservation commissioned by Natural England ( England’s government agency for nature and landscape). In the second workshop in the dialogue, participants discussed if and how the implementation of regulation should be changed. The shift would be to refocus from conservation of local bats and roosts toward measures for bat populations, their habits and prey, and a developer’s levy used to deliver landscape-scale conservation measures, strategies, research, and support for volunteer roles. Participants included scientists, regulators, conservation charities, local authority ecologists, custodians of historic buildings from the church and National Trust, local bat conservation volunteers, developers, and ecological consultants. Together, they shared knowledge and ideas and then explored the pros and cons and action steps for their shared priorities. Previously resisted by some, there was a consensus that significant change was necessary—of course with caution about what exactly those changes end up looking like and an ask that the changes are developed collaboratively.

Today, we are completing a Tree Strategy for Jersey (UK Crown Dependency). In that dialogue, we had farmers, nature conservationists, arboriculturists, people responsible for roads and infrastructure, developers, tree nurseries, heritage, local community voices, young people, and many others. They co-created the contents of the strategy which we have written, using their words as much as possible. The resulting strategy is by the people of Jersey for Jersey’s people, trees, woodland, hedgerows, and wildlife. This is no top-down imposition by a few experts telling everyone else what to do and overlooking intricate system connections and effects. Tomorrow, we are continuing a project called “Quantocks Futures” a protected landscape that will lose iconic beech trees and other features to climate change. Multiple stakeholders, supported by wider community input, are exploring how best to adapt to these and other changes and make the most of their treasured landscape for well-being, livelihoods, and nature.

Delivering these deliberative consensus-building processes involves a great deal of design: who is in the core deliberations; any wider engagement to feed into that; mapping out questions, techniques, flows of knowledge, decision points, and then facilitating to enable points to be taken on merit not the status, power, or behavior of who said what. This encourages greater systems thinking, builds trust and understanding across differences, and—crucially—momentum for change.

Great outcomes can come even when people have very different values and politics if they work together in a principled and collaborative way—not one side trying to educate or change the other but co-designing what change looks like and how they will each play their part to deliver it. Our best commissions are when we can help people co-design the change and co-produce it too.

For me, that is what a great transition approach to biodiversity conservation looks like… today!

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1. Diana Pound, “What does Transformative Change Mean?,” Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM), December 22, 2021, https://cieem.net/what-does-transformative-change-mean-diana-pound-cenv-fcieem/.
2. Diana Pound, “The Eco….What Approach??,” International Association of Landscape Ecologists Conference Proceedings, 2011, https://ecosystemsknowledge.net/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Pound-RGS-2013.pdf.

 

Teaser photo credit: European beech trees. By Malene Thyssen – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=752225