“Booming” Economy Leaves Millions Behind: Part Eleven

by Shawgi Tell / July 10th, 2022

Below is part 11 of the series called “Booming” Economy Leaves Millions Behind. It contains 50 new and updated statistics from multiple sources. New dismal records continue to be set and the long depression that started many years ago continues to intensify. Part 12, the last part, will appear in a few weeks. Facts, discussion, and analysis on the economic and social decline unfolding worldwide will still be provided in future articles on the economy under different applicable titles. Links to all previous ten parts of this series can be found below.

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U.S. Conditions

“Biden drops to just 32 percent approval in new Civiqs Poll.”

“Inflation and the Fed plan to cut wages: A depression Is coming.”

“83% of Americans cut back on spending as economy careens towards crisis, poll finds.”

“Americans tap pandemic savings to cope with inflation.”

“U.S. labor market starts to cool as weekly jobless claims rise, layoffs surge. Announced job cuts jump 57% to 32,517 in June [2022].”

“Stocks slide to close worst first half in 52 years.”

“Investments in U.S. tech start-ups plunged 23 percent over the last three months, to $62.3 billion, the steepest fall since 2019, according to figures released on Thursday by PitchBook, which tracks young companies.”

“U.S. power companies face supply-chain crisis this summer.”

“New vehicle sales in June 2022 plunged 25% from June 2019, back to 1970s levels, on inventory shortages.”

“Average car payments now above $700/month, highest price tag on record.”

“Housing bubble getting ready to pop: pending sales plunge in June [2022], inventory jumps, price reductions spike amid holy-moly mortgage rates.”

“‘Peak inflation is not here yet’: Rents continue to rise, putting pressure on would-be homebuyers.”

“Manhattan apartment sales fall 30% in June [2022], but prices remain high.”

“WA [State of Washington] gasoline sales drop, lifestyles change amid soaring prices.”

“Report: WV [West Virginia] had highest food insecurity in nation through first half of June [2022].”

“Texans face skyrocketing home energy bills as the state exports more natural gas than ever.”

“Inflation is making homelessness worse. Rising prices and soaring rents are taking their toll across the country.”

“Sacramento State [California] researchers document startling jump in homelessness in county.”

“Red flag: Consumers are using Buy Now, Pay Later to cover everyday expenses.”

“State cuts continue to unravel basic support for unemployed workers.”

“Confidence in U.S. institutions Down; average at new low.”

“Highland Park Fourth of July [2022] parade shooting was nation’s 309th this year.”

 “Panic at July Fourth [2022] celebrations as crowds mistake fireworks for gunfire.”

 “Just 7% of U.S. adults have good cardiometabolic health.”

 International Conditions

“One child pushed into severe malnutrition every minute: Unicef.”

“Oxfam condemns G7 for ‘leaving millions to starve’.”

“Global hunger figures rose to as many as 828M in 2021: UN.”

“Historic cascade of defaults is coming for emerging markets.”

“Charting the global economy: Factories slow down from US to Asia.”

“Euro slides to 20-year low against the dollar as recession fears build.”

“Inflation in Eurozone hits record 8.6% as Ukraine war continues.”

“Sri Lanka energy minister warns petrol stocks about to run dry.”

“Sri Lankans turn to bicycles as economic crisis worsens.”

“The world’s third-largest economy [Japan] is facing a looming energy crisis.”

“Indonesia’s annual inflation rate quickened to 4.35% in June 2022 from 3.55% in May, above market consensus of 4.17% and breaching the central bank’s target range of 2 to 4%.”

“Millions of Yemenis to go hungry as UN forced to slash food aid.”

“Egypt’s external debt increased by 8.5 percent in three months.”

“Over 33,000 British Columbia [Canada] government workers vote for strike action, as contracts for 400,000 public sector workers expire.”

“Australia risks recession and housing downturn after third rate hike.”

“UK: Supermarkets put security tags on cheese blocks as stores tackle shoplifting amid soaring food costs.”

“UK: Debt held by over-55s up 40% in five years.”

“British Airways to cancel 10,300 more flights.”

“Norway strikes threaten to cut off gas supplies to UK within days.”

“The consumer confidence index in Denmark fell to a new record low of -24.8 in June 2022 from -22.4 in the previous month, with four out of the five indicators declining.”

“Germany posts first monthly trade deficit in 30 years.”

“France records highest inflation rate for decades.”

“Dutch farmers block entrances to supermarket warehouses.”

“State of emergency declared In Italy’s drought-stricken North.”

“Italy’s liabilities towards other euro zone central banks jumped to a new record high in June [2022], central bank data showed on Thursday.”

“Core inflation rate in Spain, which excludes volatile items such as unprocessed food and energy products, rose to 4.9 percent in May of 2022, the highest since October of 1995, from 4.4 percent in April.”

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Worldwide there is no letup in the intensification of the destruction and violence produced by the outdated political and economic system of the rich. Inhumane conditions are flourishing globally under a system which has long benefitted elitist rule. Capital-centered fiscal and monetary policies have solved nothing; they have not prevented recurring crises.

There is a growing sense among people that no matter what the rich and their representatives in different spheres do they just make things worse and have no real sustainable human-centered solutions. The inefficacy of existing liberal institutions of governance is becoming more glaring to more people. Various media outlets are even openly discussing how and why “representative democracy” is seen by many as a farce at this stage of history. People are blocked from establishing arrangements that favor them and they want mechanisms and institutions that effectively and rapidly affirm their rights. They do not want the life sucked out of them fighting for years just for a few crumbs while fundamental problems worsen. Constantly begging the cartel parties of the rich for some crumbs is exhausting, humiliating, and unsatisfactory.

The only way out of recurring crises and endless tragedies is by ending the rule of capital and establishing the rule of working people. Experience shows daily that an economic system dominated by competing owners of capital striving to maximize profit as fast as possible is a disaster for the social and natural environment. Rule by the financial oligarchy must be replaced by rule of the working class if human rights are to be guaranteed in practice. An integrated socialized economic system built and operated by working people but divided up amongst competing owners of capital to do with as they wish will only guarantee more crises and tragedies.

At this stage of history and social development what is needed is an economic system based on the broad aim of using socially-produced wealth to advance the general interests of society. Such a society will empower people to take charge of the affairs of society and prohibit private interests from accessing public funds and assets.

Part one (April 10, 2022); Part two (April 25, 2022); Part three (May 10, 2022); Part four (May 16, 2022); Part five (May 22, 2022); Part six (May 30, 2022); Part seven (June 6, 2022); Part eight (June 13, 2022); Part nine (June 17, 2022); Part ten (June 27, 2022).

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Shawgi Tell is author of the book Charter School Report Card. He can be reached at stell5@naz.edu.. Read other articles by Shawgi.

 

Global Inflation and China’s Measures to Stabilize Her Economy

by Peter Koenig / July 11th, 2022

• This article was first published by the International Monetary Institute, China.

Under normal circumstances inflation occurs when too many monetary units (US-dollars, Euros, Chinese Yuan) chase too few goods. But we are not living in normal times. To the contrary. We are living in an increasingly divided world, not only in political terms – West vs. East / Global North vs. Global South – but also in monetary terms.

The gradual but ever faster faltering of the US-dollar hegemony, followed by related so-called hard currencies, like the Euro, the British Pound, the Japanese Yen, as well as the Australian and Canadian dollars – is giving eastern currencies, especially the Chinese Yuan and to some extent also the Russian Ruble a thrive towards stability.

Why is that? For a number of reasons. First, the Chinese Yuan and the Russian Ruble, as well as many other eastern currencies, are backed by their economies and in both cases also by gold. For that reason alone, they have an inherent stability that western fiat currencies – which are based on nothing – do not have.

A new and coming eastern currency stability mechanism may soon be a basket of some twenty commodities that are widely and universally used, in addition to the strength of the local economy.

This idea is not new, but has recently been reintroduced by Russia’s Sergei Glazyev.  As of 2021, he is the Commissioner for Integration and Macroeconomics within the Eurasian Economic Commission, the executive body of the Eurasian Economic Union. Sergei Glazyev is also President Putin’s economic advisor.

It is a clear distinction from western fiat currencies which are based on no solid substance, other than debt creation. In other words, western dollar-based currencies, beginning with the US-dollar itself, are unsustainable pyramid schemes which sooner or later are bound to implode, or at best, gradually collapse.

What we are witnessing today is a steady decay of western currencies which are currently been artificially propped up by manipulation of interest rates, as well as artificially caused inflation, based on artificially created shortages of food, energy and other commodities. The pretext used for such shortages – totally false indeed – is the Russian-Ukraine war.

Such shortages, especially food shortages and resulting mass famine, had been planned for over ten years and were already reflected in the 2010 Rockefeller Report. They are being carried out now.

In today’s (western) world, inflation and monetary (in)stability are manufactured or manipulated. They are being used like “cold war” weapons by the west internally, initiated by the US, to play western currencies against each other and to assure dollar hegemony will continue. To the extent possible and especially through the east-west trade-related interdependency, mostly through the powerhouse China, the west is hoping to also destabilize the economies of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members, especially China.

China’s western currency reserves amounted in May 2022 to some US$ 3.12 trillion equivalent, at least two thirds of which are in US-dollar denominated assets. Given the Chinese, US, as well as western economies’ trading interrelation, dedollarization remains a challenge for China.

The Federal Reserve – FED

Despite forecasters’ expectations of a half-a basic point increase, under the pretext of fighting inflation, the FED announced on June 15 the largest interest rate hike in 28 years, namely an increase of three-quarters of a percentage point — the biggest hike since 1994. That follows a quarter-point increase in March and a half-point jump in May. On July 5, 2022, the FED’s base rate was between 1.5% and 1.75%.

This, the FED said, was a move towards regaining control over soaring consumer prices.

However, consumer prices were up 8.6% from a year ago. In other words, the FED pretends to fight an 8.6% annual inflation with an interest rate hike of less than 2%. This is unrealistic.

The real reason for these sudden interest rate increases is to be sought elsewhere. Namely, the gradual but steady loss of the US-dollar’s value in the global monetary market. This has to do with a number of factors, among them the steadily faltering trust in the US economy, but predominantly with Washington’s dollar-based worldwide “sanctioning” of countries that do not conform to US policies, but instead want to preserve their political and economic sovereignty.

Increasing interest rates is expected to draw investors to dollar denominated assets, at least temporarily; thereby “postponing” the collapse of the US-dollar hegemony.

The global flow of US-dollars accounts today for between 50% and 60% of all trading currencies in the world. With this quantitative supremacy, plus interest rates increases, the US-dollar may be able to extend her currency domination provisionally – but the fall of the dollar and dollar-related and dependent currencies will undoubtedly follow.

The result of this FED interest hike can already be seen, in as much as the exchange rate US dollar and Euro is almost 1:1, and the dollar is moving in the same direction vis-à-vis the British Pound.

The inflation-driven price increases reflect not only rising costs for gasoline and groceries, but also for rent and airfares and a wide range of services.

Overall, however, the FEDs interest hike, even at a record-level over the past almost 30 years,  does not stop or even brake inflation – which is expected to soon enter the two-digit dimension. The gap between base-interest and inflation is too wide. But it may bring temporarily more stability to the US-dollar.

What is China doing for their currency’s – the Yuan’s – stability?

In addition to having already a real economy-based currency, and the prospect of moving towards commodity-based and backed currency, the State Council of China issued at the end of May 2022 a policy package, including 33 measures covering fiscal and financial policies, as well as policies on investment, consumption, food and energy security, industrial and supply chains, and people’s livelihoods. These are some highlights of the package:

— In finance, China will further enhance value-added tax credit refund policies and quicken its fiscal spending schedule. Local government special bonds issuance and utilization will be accelerated with a service extension. Government financing guarantee policies will be activated and social security premiums deferral and employment support policies will be enhanced;

— In terms of monetary and financial policies, China encourages delayed repayment of capital and interests on loans for small and medium-sized enterprises, self-employed individuals, truck drivers, and personal housing and consumption loans affected by COVID-19. Inclusive loans to micro and small businesses will be expanded. Real lending rates will be stable with a slight decline, and improvements will be made to the financing efficiency of capital markets;

— In stabilizing investment and promoting consumption, China will accelerate some approved water conservancy projects and speed up investment on transportation infrastructure, continue to build urban underground pipelines, stabilize and expand private investment, promote the healthy and standardized development of the platform economy, and stimulate purchases of cars and home appliances;

— Regarding food and energy security, policies on grains profit guarantee for farmers will be intensified. Quality coal will be produced while ensuring safety, environment-friendliness and efficient utilization. In addition, some major [alternative] energy projects will be launched;

— To stabilize industrial and supply chains, China will reduce utility costs for market entities, gradually reduce and exempt their rent, and help ease the burden on sectors and companies severely affected by the pandemic. Enterprises’ work resumption and smooth transportation and logistics policies will be optimized. More support will be provided to logistics hubs and enterprises. Major foreign-funded projects will be prioritized to attract foreign investments; and

— As for policies concerning people’s livelihoods, China will implement support policies for housing provident funds, bolster the employment and entrepreneurship of rural migrant population and rural labor, and enhance social security guarantee measures.

From a Uni-Polar to a Multi-Polar World

The future points clearly away from a western-dominated unipolar world or One World Order (OWO) to a multi-polar world, that may be based on some strong economic “hubs”, while preserving individual countries’ sovereignty.

The above policies are to strengthen and stabilize in the long-term the Chinese economy – which will be further enhanced by trade and political association with other related regional economies, like those of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the SCO, as well as further down the road the BRICS+ countries.

Among the particular socioeconomic achievements that will keep China’s and associated currencies and financial systems stable and apart from the western shortage and inflation-driven economies, is the ASEAN-plus Five world’s largest and most comprehensive free-trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

The RCEP is a free trade agreement among the Asia-Pacific ASEAN nations of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The trade deal also includes five non-ASEAN signatories, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and China.

The RCEP is the world’s largest free trade agreement. It was negotiated during eight years and entered into effect on 1 January 2022. According to a recent UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) study, it represents 30.5% of the world’s GDP. The only other blocs coming close to that are the US-Mexico-Canada agreement – NAFTA (28%) and the EU (17.9%).

The RCEP is expected to expand quickly, as the 15 countries will likely generate world-embracing dynamics, while at the same time remaining self-contained as a sovereign bloc, meaning trading within and protected from western influences.

The bloc’s trading currencies will be predominantly the Yuan (a digital yuan primarily for international trade is expected to be rolled out possibly as early as later this year or early 2023), but also local currencies – but not the US-dollar and other western currencies under the dollar hegemony.

Another element for enhancing eastern financial stability, is the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Earlier this year, Iran applied for BRICS membership. Iran is already a member of the SCO.

At present, the BRICS represent 40 percent of world population, 25 percent of the global economy, 18 percent of world trade. The BRICS are the fastest growing bloc of countries, contributing some 50% to world economic growth.

Finally – but not least – is the interrelated Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), initiated by President Xi Jinping in 2013. The BRI is also called the New Silk Road, inspired by the concept of the Silk Road established during the Han Dynasty over 2,000 years ago – an ancient network of trade routes that connected China to the Mediterranean via Eurasia for centuries.

In March 2022, the number of countries that have joined the BRI by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China is 146, plus 32 international organizations. The countries of the BRI are spread across all continents: 43 countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The BRI has several trading routes, including maritime routes, connecting countries with transport and other infrastructure links, as well as joint ventures for energy exploitation or industrial production processes, cultural and educational exchanges, and many more country and regional links. It is “Globalization” with Chinese characteristics, where individual autonomies are respected.

This initiative goes hand in hand with another one, the Global Development Initiative (GDI), announced by President Xi Jinping at the UN General Assembly in 2021.

GDI complements BRI as a support and cooperation mechanism for large international financial and development bodies, such as the South-South Cooperation Fund, the International Development Association (IDA is part of the World Bank Group), the Asian Development Fund (ADF), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

This eastern, China-based network of mutually enhancing financial institutions, trade agreements, economic policy think tanks – and much more – shield against western attempts to interfere with and destabilize these eastern bloc financial, economic and monetary mechanisms.

These networks also represent a stronghold for a sound future for an eastern-led socioeconomic development framework – a solid base for a common future in PEACE for mankindFacebook

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).  Peter is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing. Read other articles by Peter.

IN AMERICA ANYONE CAN BE A CHURCH
Right-wing think tank Family Research Council is now a church in the eyes of the IRS

Andrea Suozzo, Propublica
July 11, 2022

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (Fox News)

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

The Family Research Council’s multimillion-dollar headquarters sit on G Street in Washington, D.C., just steps from the U.S. Capitol and the White House, a spot ideally situated for its work as a right-wing policy think tank and political pressure group.

From its perch at the heart of the nation’s capital, the FRC has pushed for legislation banning gender-affirming surgery; filed amicus briefs supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade; and advocated for religious exemptions to civil rights laws. Its longtime head, a former state lawmaker and ordained minister named Tony Perkins, claims credit for pushing the Republican platform rightward over the past two decades.

What is the FRC? Its website sums up the answer to this question in 63 words: “A nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to articulating and advancing a family-centered philosophy of public life. In addition to providing policy research and analysis for the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the federal government, FRC seeks to inform the news media, the academic community, business leaders, and the general public about family issues that affect the nation from a biblical worldview.”

In the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service, though, it is also a church, with Perkins as its religious leader.

According to documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act and given to ProPublica, the FRC filed an application to change its status to an “association of churches,” a designation commonly used by groups with member churches like the Southern Baptist Convention, in March 2020. The agency approved the change a few months later.

The FRC is one of a growing list of activist groups to seek church status, a designation that comes with the ability for an organization to shield itself from financial scrutiny. Once the IRS blessed it as an association of churches, the FRC was no longer required to file a public tax return, known as a Form 990, revealing key staffer salaries, the names of board members and related organizations, large payments to independent contractors and grants the organization has made. Unlike with other charities, IRS investigators can’t initiate an audit on a church unless a high-level Treasury Department official has approved the investigation.


The FRC declined to make officials available for an interview or answer any questions for this story. Its former parent organization, Focus on the Family, changed its designation to become a church in 2016. In a statement, the organization said it made the switch largely out of concern for donor privacy, noting that many groups like it have made the same change. Many of them claim they operated in practice as churches or associations of churches all along.

Warren Cole Smith, president of the Christian transparency watchdog MinistryWatch, said he believes groups like these are seeking church status with the IRS for the protections it confers.

“I don’t believe that a lot of the organizations that have filed for the church exemption are in fact churches,” he said. “And I don’t think that they think that they are in fact churches.”

The IRS uses a list of 14 characteristics to determine if an organization is a church or an association of churches, though it notes that organizations need not meet all the specifications. The Family Research Council answered in the affirmative for 11 of those points, saying that it has an array of “partner churches” with a shared mission: “to hold all life as sacred, to see families flourish, and to promote religious freedom.” The group says there is no set process for a church to become one of the partners that make up its association, but it says partners (and the FRC’s employees) must affirm a statement of faith to do so. It claims there are nearly 40,000 churches in its association, made up of different creeds and beliefs — saying that this models the pattern of the “first Christian churches described in the New Testament of the Bible.”

Unlike the Southern Baptist Convention, whose website hosts a directory of more than 50,000 affiliated churches, the FRC’s site does not list these partners or mention the word “church” anywhere on its home page. The FRC’s application to become an association of churches didn’t include this list of partner churches, nor did it provide the names to ProPublica.

To the question of whether the organization performs baptisms, weddings and funerals, the FRC answered yes, but it said it left those duties to its partner churches. Did it have schools for religious instruction of the young? That, too, was the job of the partner churches.

The FRC says it does not have members but a congregation made up of its board of directors, employees, supporters and partner churches. Some of those partner churches, it says, do have members.

Does the organization hold regular chapel services? According to the FRC’s letter to the IRS, the answer is yes. It wrote that it holds services at its office building averaging more than 65 people. But when a ProPublica reporter called to inquire about service times, a staffer who answered the phone responded, “We don’t have church service.” Elsewhere in the form, it says that the employees make up those who attend its services.

The organization’s claim to be an association of churches is disingenuous, said Frederick Clarkson, who researches the Christian right at nonpartisan social justice think tank Political Research Associates.

“The FRC can say whatever bullshit things they want to,” he said. “The IRS should recognize it as a bad argument.”

Three experts told ProPublica that the IRS is failing to use its full powers to determine who gets the special privileges afforded to churches. And when a group like the FRC appears to push the limits of what charities are allowed to do — particularly relating to their partisan political activity — the IRS doesn’t often step in to crack down. The IRS did not answer a list of detailed questions for this story or make anyone available for an interview.

David Cary Hart, an activist and writer who received the FRC’s reclassification documents via a Freedom of Information Act request, wrote a letter to the IRS questioning the decision, saying the approval “defies regulatory logic.”

When ProPublica relayed details of the FRC’s new church designation to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., he decried the loss of transparency and lax IRS oversight. “It is far too easy for powerful special interests to hide their donors using webs of nonprofits,” he said in a statement. “Form 990 filings provide valuable, and often the only, insight into a tax-exempt organization’s income and spending. But lax enforcement at the IRS and DOJ encourage more game-playing, which leaves the door wide open for enterprising dark-money schemes to exploit the system further.”
A Wave of Conversions

The current wave of nonprofit-to-church conversions appears to have gained steam after 2013, when the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Associationaccused the IRS of targeting BGEA and another charity he heads with audits after the group took out newspaper ads supporting a North Carolina constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. The groups, BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse, retained their tax-exempt status, and in 2015, they applied for church status and got it.

In 2018, Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based legal nonprofit, was reclassified as an “association of churches” — though it had been categorized as a “church auxiliary” affiliated with Jerry Falwell’s megachurch since 2006, granting the organization many of the same exemptions that churches get. The organization represents Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue licenses for same-sex marriages. Just days after the Supreme Court cited a Liberty Counsel brief in its June decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a staffer for the organization was recorded saying she prays with conservative justices inside the court building — raising questions about conflicts of interest. (Liberty Counsel denies that the staffer prayed with justices.) In a written statement, founder and chairperson Mathew Staver said that the organization’s legal work is just one part of its activity, and that it made the change “to accurately reflect the operation of the ministry.”

The American Family Association, a Tupelo, Mississippi-based group that runs the influential American Family Radio network, as well as a film studio and magazine, changed its designation to a church in early 2022, according to IRS data. The association sends out frequent “action alerts” to subscribers asking them to sign petitions opposing government appointees or boycott media and brands that it has identified as supporting LGBTQ rights or abortion access. The organization declined to respond to a request for comment.

In its letter to the IRS, the FRC argued that the classification change would protect its religious liberty rights. As an example, it pointed to Treasury Department rules exempting church organizations from the mandatory coverage requirements for contraceptives.

Churches also have a “ministerial exemption” to hiring discrimination laws for religious leaders — meaning, for example, that a Catholic church may exclude women when hiring priests. Courts have interpreted this protection broadly, shielding churches from claims of discrimination for sexual orientation as well. Recent Supreme Court rulings have broadened the umbrella of staffers who may be included under the exemption.

According to IRS data, the FRC has submitted a 990 tax return for its 2021 fiscal year, but the agency has not yet released the filing. The organization is also a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, a voluntary membership organization that collects revenue, expenses, assets and a small number of other top-line financials from its members. The organization does not collect more detailed financial data reported on the 990.

Over the five years ending June 2020, the FRC saw average revenues of $15.9 million each year, and it spent an average of $15.6 million. In its fiscal year 2021, the FRC reported to ECFA, it brought in $23.1 million and spent $20 million. In the most recent 990, Perkins made about $300,000.

The IRS did not answer questions about how many groups apply to become a church and how many applications it denies. Samuel Brunson, a law professor specializing in religion and tax exemption at Loyola University Chicago, said the federal government, and especially the IRS, are typically very cautious when it comes to making judgments about defining religion.

“The First Amendment makes [defining a religion] really hard,” he said.

Brunson pointed to the Satanic Temple, which received IRS church recognition in 2019, as an example of an organization that people may not consider one. The group has made headlines over the years for mounting First Amendment challenges such as suing to have a statue of the goat-headed occult icon Baphomet placed next to statues of the Ten Commandments in public places. The temple is now suing Texas, claiming that the state’s abortion restrictions inhibit the liberty of the organization’s members to practice their religious rituals.

Lucien Greaves, a founder of the Satanic Temple, said groups like Liberty Counsel and the FRC have for years implied his organization is too political to be a church — one of the reasons the group finally sought official recognition. The fact that those same organizations are now themselves churches, he said, is hypocritical.

“People act like ... we’re trying to get away with something: ‘Look, these guys want to be a church, and yet they’re active in these public campaigns,’” he said. “And they never apply those same questions to the other side.”

Politics and the Pulpit

The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the FRC, Liberty Counsel and the American Family Association as hate groups for their anti-LGBTQ stances and advocacy. But Clarkson, the researcher, said focusing on that designation misses the larger sphere of the FRC’s political influence. In recent years, he said, the FRC’s rhetoric and actions have influenced politics away from democracy and in a direction that is “distinctly theocratic.”

“Abortion and LGBT issues are not the war,” he said. “They’re battles in the war.”

IRS rules prohibit public, tax-exempt charities including churches from “directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” That rule, known as the Johnson Amendment, dates back to 1954. Short of explicit political endorsements, these groups may participate in what’s known as “issue advocacy” including voter education. They can also lobby for political causes connected to their core missions, as long as the lobbying activity is not a “substantial part” of their activities.

To run its more direct political activities, the FRC has another tax-exempt organization, called a social welfare organization, that actively endorses candidates and lobbies for legislation — Family Research Council Action. The arms separate out messaging on two websites, with the FRC hosting issues-based content supporting its Christian worldview and linking to the Family Research Council Action website for content that explicitly endorses candidates.

Family Research Council Action is registered at the same address as the FRC and shares all five of the part-time employees it lists on its tax form, including Perkins. This is legal so long as the organizations are careful to separate activities and accounting, such that tax-deductible charity dollars aren’t supporting political work by the social welfare organization, said Philip Hackney, a tax law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Experts say ideally a group like Family Research Council Action would have at least one independent staffer to indicate that it’s actually operating as an independent entity.

But FRC Action lists zero full-time employees on its most recent tax filing. When Perkins — who is president of both organizations — is speaking, he rarely makes a delineation about whether he is speaking as the head of the FRC or the head of Family Research Council Action.

But even for charitable operations, the lines around political activities are open to interpretation. While the FRC and other evangelical groups have pushed for the removal of all restrictions on political speech by churches for years, the FRC also releases guidelines encouraging pastors to discuss political matters while staying within the bounds of the law, noting that “there are legal limits to what churches may do, but your hands are not completely tied. In fact, you may be surprised at how much influence you can have.”

On Perkins’ radio show, “Washington Watch,” he hosts a bevy of pro-Donald Trump lawmakers and political figures every day. Its annual Pray Vote Stand Summit, formerly known as the Values Voter Summit, is one of the largest and most influential gatherings for those on the Christian right, where politicians, including Trump during his presidency, talk strategy with religious organizers. In 2021, the event’s schedule included “The Battle for America’s Classrooms: Fighting Indoctrination on a National Scale,” “The End of Roe and Beyond: The Outlook for the Unborn in America” and “A Mandate for Disaster: How States Are Fighting Biden’s Vaccine Tyranny” — the last event featuring the Ohio and Arkansas attorneys general and Perkins. The event was hosted by both the FRC and FRC Action.

In December 2020, Perkins — reportedly a close confidant of Trump’s during his presidency — signed a letter containing the false claims that state officials violated election laws and that “there is no doubt President Donald J. Trump is the lawful winner of the presidential election.” The letter called on state lawmakers to appoint a new slate of electors to override the election President Joe Biden won. Perkins signed as “President, Family Research Council.”

Experts say it’s not clear whether seeking to influence an election after it’s already happened would run afoul of the nonprofit campaign prohibitions.

But it’s rare for a nonprofit to face a challenge for political campaign speech. A 2020 Government Accountability Office report found that, between 2010 and 2017, the IRS examined just 226 of more than 1.5 million tax-exempt organizations for political activity. It sent a written warning to 56% of the organizations it examined and took additional action in just 10% of cases.

Scrutinizing the fuzzy line between FRC and FRC Action, or getting involved in how far out of the gray area a charity may have strayed, is not something that authorities are keeping a close eye on, said Frances Hill, a law professor specializing in tax and election law at the University of Miami. “It would take some sort of an earthquake to make the IRS use its time looking into these matters,” she said.

Bark beetles are killing the Earth's oldest trees. Can they be saved?

DPA
July 11, 2022

A 4,853-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine tree known as Methuselah is growing high at Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains of Inyo County in eastern California, United States on November 28, 2021. It is also recognized as the non-clonal tree with the greatest confirmed age in the world.

 Tayfun Coskun/AA/dpa

Forest pathologist Martin MacKenzie strode forward on a narrow path through California's mythic bristlecone pine forest in the White Mountains near the Nevada border, methodically scanning gnarled limbs for the invaders that threaten the lives of some of the world's oldest trees.

These intruders are bark beetles, a menace smaller than a pencil eraser, but they bore by the thousands into the bark and feast on the moist inner core, where trees transport nutrients from roots to crown. Then they carve out egg galleries, where hungry larvae hatch.

A blue stain fungus carried in by the pests delivers the coup de grace - a clogged circulatory system.

For thousands of years, bark beetles were held in check or eliminated by the harsh conditions of the stony, storm-battered mountain crests where the grotesque, twisted trees have evolved an arsenal of survival strategies.

Now, scientists say, these living symbols of longevity, strength and perseverance may be at an evolutionary crossroads. Hotter droughts and bark beetles are for the first time in recorded history killing bristlecones, according to a recent study published in the scientific journal Forest Ecology and Management.

Since 2013, thousands of the trees that ranged in age from 144 to 1,612 years have been killed on Telescope Peak - the site of Death Valley National Park's lone population of bristlecones - the study says. Many more have been killed in high-altitude bristlecone forests scattered across southern Utah.

On a recent morning, MacKenzie, 74, wanted to confirm that the culturally significant Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, home to Methuselah, a 4,853-year-old specimen some say is the oldest living tree on Earth, remained free of the insects.

"We're lucky - there's no sign of the beetles in these trees," MacKenzie told a companion with a smile.

But minutes later, as he made his way along the path, he noticed a tell-tale colour of arboreal stress: red. It had just begun to emerge on the bright green needles of a bristlecone crouched on a steep slope in the distance.

His face fell. "I have to go check it out."

Great Basin bristlecone pine trees are magical for foresters like MacKenzie.

In tough times, they die off almost entirely, leaving a few strips of bark that can continue growing for thousands of years - sideways along the ground, or diagonally skyward. They hold needles for up to 40 years and drown hungry insects in resin.

They are survivors of bristlecone pine forests pushed upslope more than 11,000 years ago, by rising temperatures that triggered major shifts in plant and animal distribution and created California's deserts.

"Unlike people, bristlecone pines don't die of old age," he likes to say.

But they can be killed. The study led by U.S. Forest Service biologists Barbara Bentz and Candace Millar found that bark-beetle-caused mortality was most likely in areas where bristlecone pines are intermixed with other tree species that are known to host the beetles.

Solitary bristlecones deal with the beetles by drowning them in sap, the study says. But in hot, drought-stricken mixed forests, bark beetles first land on nearby limber and pinion pines, generating new broods that can attack bristlecones, overwhelming their defense systems.

In an interview, Millar recalled what she described as "a sense of shock when I first came upon hundreds of bristlecones killed by bark beetles on the highest slopes of Telescope Peak in Death Valley."

The study found that bristlecone mortality at Telescope Peak and in the Wah Wah Forest in southern Utah was likely due to a combination of warming temperatures, declining precipitation, reduced tree defenses, and bark beetle attacks that originated in nearby limber and pinyon pines during a period of severe drought that began in 2013.

"Do I think this is a death knell for bristlecone pines elsewhere? Well, maybe not," Millar said. "But it's time to consider taking action to protect these trees."

Proposals to control the bugs have included the sublime and the controversial. The study calls for annual surveys to provide advance notice of beetle attacks, as well as public education programs and the posting of interpretive signs.

Another idea involves devising a chemical attractant to lure the insects into baited traps, although such an effort would also risk summoning uncontrollable swarms of bugs into currently unaffected groves.

Bristlecone pines, identifiable by their bottlebrush-like branches with short needles, are found in semiarid portions of the Great Basin, which extends from California's Sierra Nevada range east to the Rocky Mountains.

But the ones found in the White Mountains are the oldest. The slow growers are only about 25 feet (7.6 metres) tall and expand 1 inch (2.5 centimetres) in diameter every 100 years.

Of particular concern for researchers is the oldest of the bunch, Methuselah. Its precise location is carefully guarded to prevent vandalism, although its surrounding grove is a tourist attraction that draws 30,000 people a year.

In certain urgent situations, such as to protect Methuselah from potentially fatal infestations, the study suggests that "a highly aggressive defensive strategy would be to manually remove nearby pines that are known hosts to mountain bark beetles."

Whether Methuselah warrants the title "oldest living thing," however, is debatable. Researchers in Chile a month ago announced that an ancient cypress there known as Gran Abuelo may be 5,400 years old. If confirmed, it would beat Methuselah by about six centuries.

In the meantime, the daunting task of keeping an eye out for bark beetle attacks in public lands belongs to forest pathologists like MacKenzie.

After a hike, MacKenzie entered the shade of the bristlecone pine tree with troublesome shades of red and looked at its bark and needles, his eyes alive with anticipation.

There were plenty of red needles indicating stress, but no evidence of beetles.

"Drought killed the tree - not beetles," he said. "But I noticed some other trees in the area that I have to check out."

NYC's nuclear attack ad panned by nuclear strategy expert

Bob Brigham
July 11, 2022

Composite image of Eric Adams and a mushroom cloud. (Shutterstock images).

New York City's nuclear preparedness public service announcement (PSA) left a lot to be desired, at least for one expert on nuclear war.

NYC Emergency Management released the video which instructs New Yorkers to get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned.

The ad ends with the narrator saying, "you've got this."

NYC's nuclear attack ad panned by nuclear strategy expertNYC's nuclear attack ad panned by nuclear strategy expert

The ad was dissected on Twitter by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

The school notes he was previously "the director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation. Prior to that, he was executive director of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, executive director of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a desk officer in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy."

In a thread posted to Twitter, Lewis said, "the advice isn't wrong, it's just ... unhelpful."

"The big problem with the video is that it omits some pretty important context: If Russia, China or North Korea hit NYC with a 300 kt warhead, this advice won't help many people in the city itself," Lewis explained. "It's more useful to people in communities downwind. Even then 'stay inside' doesn't go very far: Are you even at home? If not, will others let you inside? What about children at school? Do they try to get home? What if your building collapsed? What if you were injured in the blast and need medical care? What about food? Water?"

"While 'stay inside' will help some people at the margin, it's not much more than 'thoughts and prayers," Lewis said. "A lot of civil defense advice is like that -- it's designed to make people feel better without really leveling with them. My sense is that civil defense campaigns undermine public trust, because the advice -- and by implication the authorities dispensing it -- is so obviously inadequate to the problem."

Lewis concluded, "All of which is to say that while 'stay inside' is decent advice, the scale of what we need to do is way bigger than what one person can do. In other words, you definitely do not got this."

Read the full thread below or at this link.

Court dumps Trump-era changes to the Endangered Species Act

Kyle Davidson, Michigan Advance
July 11, 2022

A wolf howls at a Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York(AFP)

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is applauding a federal court’s decision abandoning Trump-era changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“We must continue to prioritize protection of Michigan’s natural resources, including vulnerable wildlife populations,” Nessel said.

In 2019, the Democrat joined 17 other attorney generals and the City of New York in filing a lawsuit after the Trump administration introduced rules that this coalition argued would “dramatically weaken protections and reduce federal ESA enforcement.”

The U.S. District Court, Northern District of California announced the new rules would be vacated in a decision filed on Tuesday.

The Endangered Species Act, written by the late U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-Dearborn), was enacted in 1973 “to prevent the extinction of various fish, wildlife, and plant species.”

In August 2019, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, alongside the National Marine Fisheries Service, modified three rules affecting how the ESA is implemented. According to the court’s opinion, these changes modified how the services add, remove and reclassify endangered and threatened species and the criteria for designating their critical habitats.

It also removed a Fish and Wildlife Service policy which automatically extended some endangered species protections to threatened species, and changed how the services work with federal agencies to prevent harm to listed species and their habitats.

The coalition challenging these changes was particularly concerned with actions adding economic considerations to the ESA’s species-focused analyses, expanding exemptions for designating critical habitats, reducing the consultation and analyses required before federal agency action and pushing responsibilities for protecting endangered species and habitats onto the states, among other changes.

In January 2021, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 13990 directing the services to evaluate and revise or rescind environmental and public health-related regulations issued by the previous administration that conflicted with national objectives listed in the executive order, including the ESA rules introduced in 2019.

The administration later signaled it would revise and rescind many of these 2019 regulations.

“As a state with more than two dozen animal and plant species that are considered endangered or threatened, I applaud this ruling and its positive impact on conservation efforts not just in Michigan but around the country,” said Nessel in a prepared statement.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Environmental Conservation Online System lists 25 species in Michigan as threatened or endangered. The list includes Piping plover, whooping crane, gray wolf, Karner blue butterfly, as well as other plant and animal species.


Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and Twitter.

Robert Reich delivers brutal reality-check for Dems — and urges 'an agenda of radical democratic reform'

Alex Henderson, AlterNet
July 11, 2022

If Republicans enjoy a major red wave in the 2022 midterms, it won’t be traditional Goldwater, Reagan or McCain conservatives who take over Congress and/or state governments. It will be radicalized far-right MAGA extremists and Donald Trump loyalists, many of whom promote the Big Lie and continue to falsely claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

Economist Robert Reich, who served as secretary of labor in the Clinton Administration, is among the liberals who is sounding the alarm about the radicalism that characterizes so many of 2022’s Republican candidates. But in an op-ed published by The Guardian on July 10, Reich also sounds the alarm about Democrats — who he believes are ill-prepared to defeat Republicans in the midterms.

“Much of today’s Republican Party is treacherous and treasonous,” the 76-year-old Reich warns. “So why are Democrats facing midterm elections that, according to most political observers, they’re likely to lose? Having been a loyal Democrat for some 70 years, including a stint as a cabinet secretary, it pains me to say this: the Democratic Party has lost its way. Some commentators think Democrats have moved too far to the left — too far from the so-called ‘center.’ This is utter rubbish. Where’s the center between democracy and authoritarianism, and why would Democrats want to be there?”

Reich adds, “Others think (President Joe) Biden hasn’t been sufficiently angry or outraged. But what good would that do? After four years of Trump, why would anyone want more anger and outrage?”

According to Reich, the “real failure of the Democratic Party” is its “loss of the American working class.”

“The working class used to be the bedrock of the Democratic Party,” Reich observes. “What happened? During the first two years of the Clinton, Obama, and Biden Administrations, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, they scored some important victories for working families: the Affordable Care Act, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example. But they also allowed the middle class to hollow out and the working class to sink.”

Although President Bill Clinton allied himself with some liberals — he nominated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the U.S. Supreme Court and chose Reich as his secretary of labor in 1993 — his policies were generally quite centrist. And Reich still has some disagreements with his former boss.

“Clinton passed free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who consequently lost their jobs a means of getting new ones that paid at least as well,” Reich notes. “His North American Free Trade Agreement and plan for China to join the World Trade Organization undermined the wages and economic security of manufacturing workers across America, hollowing out vast swaths of the Rust Belt. Clinton also deregulated Wall Street. This led to the financial crisis of 2008.”

Reich adds that that the Democratic Party “continues to prioritize the votes of ‘suburban swing voters’ who supposedly determine electoral outcomes.”

“The most powerful force in American politics today is anti-establishment fury at a rigged system,” Reich emphasizes. “There is no longer a left or right. There is no longer a moderate ‘center.’ The real choice is either Republican authoritarian populism or Democratic progressive populism.”

Reich continues, “Democrats cannot defeat authoritarian populism without an agenda of radical democratic reform — a pro-democracy, anti-establishment movement. Democrats must stand squarely on the side of working people against oligarchy. They must form a unified coalition of people of all races, genders, and classes to unrig the system. Trumpism is not the cause of our divided nation. It is the symptom of a rigged system that was already dividing us.”

'Not good': Elon Musk's SpaceX Starship booster test ends in explosion and flames

Bob Brigham
July 11, 2022

SpaceX Starship boosters explosion/NASA screengrab.

There was an "unexpected anomaly" during a test of a SpaceX Starship booster.

"A roaring explosion ripped through SpaceX's rocket testing facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, on Monday," Insider reported. "The company was running a test of the Super Heavy booster, which it's designing to someday push its enormous Starship rocket into orbit around Earth. The system is the keystone of CEO and founder Elon Musk's plan to build an independent settlement on Mars."

Musk is the world's richest man and may or may not be buying Twitter.

"NASASpaceflight captured the incident in a livestream of the test. The NASASpaceflight commentators, who meticulously track SpaceX's plans and activities, said that the explosion was unexpected. SpaceX had not sent out the notices that it normally publishes ahead of an engine test-fire," Insider noted.

Musk acknowledged the explosion was "not good."

"Team is assessing damage," he added.

Musk's response was posted on his Twitter account.

Watch the SpaceX Starship booster explosion below or at this link.

Bhutan's trailblazing beauty queen speaks up for LGBTQ community
Agence France-Presse
July 12, 2022

Tashi Choden, who was crowned Miss Bhutan 2022 last month, came out last year on International Pride Day Namgay Wangchuk AFP

Tashi Choden will not only be the first contestant to represent Bhutan at the Miss Universe competition -- she is also the Himalayan country's only openly gay public figure.

The remote country is famed for its philosophy of "Gross National Happiness", in which it prioritizes citizens' well-being on par with economic growth.

But up until February 2021, gay sex was defined in the penal code as "sexual conduct against the laws of nature", and branded illegal in the Buddhist country.

That makes Choden's crowning last month as Miss Bhutan 2022 a "huge deal" for the country of almost 800,000 people and its LGBTQ community, she said.

"I'm not only speaking for the Bhutanese community but I'm speaking for the minority community on a platform like the Miss Universe pageant," she told AFP.

"I can be their voice."

The 23-year-old -- who lost both her parents by the time she was 14 -- said she came out last June, on International Pride Day, after "a lot of research and introspection".

It initially prompted a "very strong reaction" from her conservative and religious family members, but Choden said it was important for them to be part of her coming-out process.

"First and foremost, their acceptance matters to me," she said. "After a while, they were very accepting of it. And I'm very grateful for that because a lot of people are not that fortunate to have that acceptance.

"As long as they know I'll do well in life, that I can stand on my own feet, that I can be an independent woman -- I think my sexuality doesn't really matter to them."

While she received "some negative reactions" online after she was crowned and chosen to represent Bhutan in Miss Universe, her win appeared to garner support from inside the country and abroad.

Bhutanese Prime Minister Lotay Tshering -- who famously still practices as a doctor on weekends as a "de-stresser" -- personally congratulated her and wished her success.

Paving its own way

Bhutan has always plowed its own furrow, benchmarking itself not just on economic growth but also on maintaining the ecological health of its picturesque valleys and snow-capped mountains.

The country is carbon negative and its constitution mandates that 60 percent of Bhutan remains forested.

It also eschews the global tourism model, instead levying a hefty $200 a day "sustainable development fee" for foreign tourists to enter -- a fund used to offset their carbon footprint.

Television was only allowed in 1999, archery is a national craze and phalluses painted on houses to ward off evil are common.

Members of the LGBTQ community have reported instances of discrimination and social stigma, which keeps many in the closet.

But the kingdom's decriminalization of gay sex in 2021 signaled growing openness and acceptance, said Rinzin Galley, a gender-fluid beautician.

"With the decriminalization... I feel more comfortable in public than before," Galley told AFP.

"I like putting on make-up and going out, and it's not a normal thing for a guy to come out with make-up."

Several transgender women have had their names and gender changed on their citizenship identity cards and the LGBTQ community is slowly becoming more visible.

Community-based organizations -- like Queer Voices of Bhutan and Pride Bhutan -- and an NGO called Lhak-sam have also provided support through advocacy.

And now, with Choden representing Bhutan on the Miss Universe stage -- watched by millions worldwide -- many are hopeful about the future of the country's queer youth.

"Having a queer woman become Miss Bhutan enables the rest of the queer community, especially queer youth, to aim for bigger goals in their lives," Regita Gurung, a young bisexual woman, told AFP.

"This representation has paved the path for the rest of us to be confident about who we are on public platforms."

© 2022 AFP

Shipping’s dirty secret: how ‘scrubbers’ clean the air – while contaminating the sea

Richa Syal 

In 2019, Alan Ladd, a marine engineer, was on a cruise ship that was slowing down to give passengers a better view of the Hubbard Glacier – the largest tidewater glacier in North America. Briefly looking away from the harbour seals and orcas, Ladd noticed a stream of black grease, with a rainbow sheen, bubbling to the surface of the water.

“The only reason I saw it was because the vessel had stopped. All of a sudden I could see this pollutant and this soot,” says Ladd, who works with Alaska’s Ocean Ranger programme as one of several independent observers of effluent from shipping. “The thing that really disturbed me more than anything is they didn’t do anything about it.”

What Ladd saw was the result of a decision by the shipping industry to reduce air pollution at the expense of the ocean.

After the International Maritime Organization (IMO) set out to lower sulphur emissions in the atmosphere – which regulators say is harmful to human health – the shipping industry was faced with the choice of switching to cleaner but pricier fuel or installing a system to clean exhaust gases – known as “scrubbers” – that dump the chemicals removed from the exhaust directly into the sea instead.

Scrubbers are dirty and dirt cheap, but as of 2020 more than 4,300 ships globally had installed them – up from 732 ships in 2018.

It is a trade-off: clear the skies but contaminate the waters.

“The writing has been on the wall for many years with scrubbers and their environmental implications,” says Andrew Dumbrille, adviser for the Clean Arctic Alliance, a coalition of environmental organisations working to protect the polar region from the impact of shipping.

“The issue is that more ships are going to be installing scrubbers, and so the problems are predicted to get worse.”

The race to install scrubbers only began recently. In January 2020, the IMO – the United Nations body overseeing shipping – announced a new global sulphur cap of 0.5%, reduced from 3.5%. To meet the target, it urged the global shipping fleet to switch to low-sulphur fuel.

But it also allowed for “equivalent” compliance measures, as long as ships reduced their emissions.

Scrubbers have proved to be the cheapest way to do so. The cost of buying and fitting a scrubber is £1.5m to £5m, whereas cleaner fuel is £250-£400 a tonne. The scrubber pays for itself within a year.

“It’s been a loophole for industry to continue burning the cheapest, dirtiest fuels,” says Lucy Gilliam, of Seas at Risk, an association of European environmental organisations.

Scrubbers, which sit in the funnels, or exhaust stacks, of ships, use seawater to spray or “scrub” the sulphur dioxide pollutants from the engine’s exhaust.

Most vessels use an open-loop system, meaning that instead of holding waste in a tank to be disposed of at dedicated port facilities, the ships directly dump the acidic wash – up to 100,000 times more acidic than seawater – overboard, says Eelco Leemans, an Arctic marine researcher.

Roughly 10 gigatonnes – 10,000,000,000 tonnes – of scrubber washwater are discharged into oceans annually, according to an International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) report on global discharge waste – just less than the total weight of all the cargo transported by ships in a year.

The toxins do not just disappear. Aside from being acidic, scrubbers contain heavy metals that accumulate in marine food chains. The Swedish Environmental Research Institute found that washwater from North Sea ships has “severe toxic effects” on zooplankton, which cod, herring and other species feed on. Meanwhile, a Belgian study found that scrubber discharges contain high concentrations of metals such as nickel, copper and chromium, which all devastate marine ecosystems.

What most concern experts, though, are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These have been linked to several types of cancers and reproductive dysfunction in marine mammals, including southern resident orca in the north Pacific and beluga whales.

“A lot of the discharge is toxic and contains all these nasty substances,” says Leemans, adding: “It’s the whole cocktail together that makes it even worse.”

An IMO spokesperson, Natasha Brown, says scrubbers were developed as an “equivalent” to comply with air pollution limits and the IMO is now looking at the wider issue in response to concerns.


We could solve the problem of sulphur pollution by switching to cleaner fuels. But instead we’re just transferring the problem from one place to the otherLucy Gilliam, Seas at Risk

Approximately 80% of scrubber discharges occur within 200 nautical miles of shore, with global hotspots along major shipping routes, including the Baltic Sea, North Sea, the strait of Malacca and the Caribbean Sea, according to the ICCT.

The US has the highest amounts of scrubber washwater discharge, with the UK second, mainly due to its 14 overseas territories, particularly the Cayman Islands.

Cruise ships, such as the one Ladd was on, were early adopters of scrubbers. They account for 15% of scrubber discharge in ports, despite making up only 4% of scrubber-installed ships.

The cruise line routes up the Canadian Pacific coast to Alaska are particularly prone to dumped water pollution. An estimated 200m litres of toxin-laden scrubber washwater are generated on a one-week trip from the north-west US to Alaska and back along the Canadian coast, according to a report by the environmental organisations Stand.earth and West Coast Environmental Law.

For Ladd, the solution is simple: stop using scrubbers. A few nations have done so, restricting or banning the use of open-loop scrubbers in their waters; one of the most recent restrictions came in March in Vancouver, the world’s fourth most polluted port from scrubber washwater.

Related: ‘Black carbon’ threat to Arctic as sea routes open up with global heating

In 2021, the IMO updated its guidelines for scrubbers, setting stricter limits for open-loop scrubbers on acidity and discharge of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and nitrates. In June of this year, the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee approved additional guidelines on scrubbers. Ultimately, however, UN member states must enforce any action.

And whatever the stricter measures, experts agree it was a misstep by regulators to allow scrubbers at all.

“It’s a huge mistake,” says Gilliam. “We could solve the problem of sulphur pollution by switching to cleaner fuels. But instead we’re just transferring the problem from one place to the other. And that’s really frustrating.”

THE GUARDIAN