CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

This is what it’s like to be lobbied by the fossil fuel industry — and why it needs to end

Marie Toussaint, European Parliament Member
Sat, 25 February 2023 


Next week, the European Parliament will, for the first time, begin to seriously discuss the issue of fossil fuel lobbying — and how it has prevented the EU from passing laws that measure up to the scale of the climate and cost of living crises.

The proof of the fossil fuel industry’s overwhelming power is in every headline about the climate crisis: every wildfire, every flood, every warning that we are set to blow through the 1.5C mark in terms of global heating.

As a Member of the European Parliament, I’ve experienced the fossil fuel industry’s lobbying tactics first-hand, and I’ve seen how they prevent serious action from being taken on climate.

Neutral-sounding organisations, fossil fuel industry's trojan horses

Take fossil gas — the fuel that has found itself at the heart of the cost-of-living crisis, the climate crisis, and the invasion of Ukraine.

Where do MEPs find out about how this sector works? For many, it’s from the fossil fuel lobby.

Being elected to office is no guarantee of being an expert in energy policy, so MEPs and our advisors need to quickly get up to speed. We are often invited to briefings organised by neutral-sounding organisations like the European Energy Forum.

At one closed-doors event of theirs attended by European Parliament staff shortly after the 2019 EU elections — “Briefing for MEPs Advisers and Assistants — All you always wanted to know about gas” — lobbyists for the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers, the French gas network operator, and the umbrella body for liquified gas briefed a new generation of climate policymakers on gas production and distribution.

A sticker reads "natural gas" on a pipe at the French company R-CUA plant in Strasbourg 

- AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias

It turns out the European Energy Forum counts BP, TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil among its members and is one of a number of blandly professional-looking organisations which lobby for the biggest polluters in Brussels.

Eurogas, FuelsEurope, Hydrogen Europe — all trojan horses for the likes of Shell.

We will not be able to tackle the climate crisis while they are still allowed to freely influence our politics.

Events — and organisations — like these are commonplace and help cement an impression of the fossil gas industry as a reliable, unbiased and helpful source of information about European energy policy amongst those who decide on climate policies.

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So when before every vote — big or small — that could affect the future of fossil gas in Europe, we receive voting recommendations from these lobby organisations, and many MEPs follow what they say.
The industry wants Europe to remain hooked on their products

In some cases, the influence is subtle. My colleagues may be trying to do the right thing, but hard as it is to admit they are being subconsciously duped by the fossil fuel lobby’s greenwashing.

In others, it is much more obvious. When I asked one group of MEPs where they stood on an issue, they pointed at the industry position paper and said: “our position will be very similar.”

The impacts are nothing short of catastrophic. From the controversial decision to label investments in fossil gas as "green" to the continuing greenlighting of EU subsidies for fossil fuel projects, the gas industry’s attempts to ensure we don’t seriously start talking about phasing-out gas are working.

Over 100,000 people from across Europe have called on us to kick polluters out of politics.

Operators work at Enagas regasification plant, the largest LNG plant in Europe, in Barcelona, March 2022 - AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti

Their fingerprints are all over the latest European Parliament vote on the future of gas in Europe — a proposed reform of the EU’s gas market should have been a chance to plan for a managed phase-out, but instead leaves the door open to gas for years to come — including continuing to give a gas industry lobby organisation direct influence over European energy planning.

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Fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber almost every national delegation at COP27, data shows

These are just some of the ways that the fossil fuel industry ensures that Europe remains hooked on fossil fuels — that you have to keep piping climate-wrecking fossil gas into your home and paying them huge bills for the privilege that targets to roll-out renewables are kept too low, that buildings are kept poorly-insulated.

Its lobbyists have one job: to get laws passed that keep the profits from fossil fuels rolling in.

They cannot be trusted to act in good faith, and we will not be able to tackle the climate crisis while they are still allowed to freely influence our politics.
We can do better to kick polluters out of politics

There are good precedents on what to do with lobbyists for industries and countries who will not act in the public interest.

Last year, the European Parliament banned Russian lobbyists after the invasion of Ukraine. There is a global agreement to restrict Big Tobacco lobbyists from influencing public health policy, which we implement in Europe and has freed up space to deliver policies that save lives.

View: Why is the EU going to the companies who caused the climate crisis for advice on fixing it?

Climate change is triggering more earthquakes. Big Oil's interests are a factor

Climate activists sit on the ground after entering the Garzweiler brown coal mine in western Germany, on 22 June 2019 - INA FASSBENDER/AFP

On Monday, 27 February, I will join other MEPs in the European Parliament to host the People Over Polluters forum, where for the first time, parties from across the political spectrum will begin to discuss the problem of fossil fuel lobbying.

And it won’t end there — over 100,000 people from across Europe have called on us to kick polluters out of politics so we can start delivering real, ambitious climate laws which protect the most vulnerable.

It is our responsibility to do so.

Marie Toussaint (Greens/EFA) is a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from France.

USA, CANADA, AUSTRLIA, NEW ZEALAND, NES PAS
Google adverts direct pregnant women to services run by UK anti-abortion groups

Shanti Das
Sat, 25 February 2023 


Women seeking online advice about abortions are being directed to pregnancy counselling services run by anti-abortion campaigners, an Observer investigation has found.

Google adverts that are styled to look like real search results and appear above genuine listings are routinely being shown to people searching key terms relating to pregnancy and abortion.

In an analysis this month, 117 out of 251 adverts shown by Google UK to a user searching 40 key phrases, including “NHS abortion advice”, “confidential abortion support” and “pregnant teenager help”, were from groups opposed to abortion.

The findings reveal the marketing efforts of anti-abortion groups in the UK and have led to concerns that women could be exposed to biased information when seeking out medical advice. One sexual health charity described the advertising as “clearly immoral”.

The adverts in the analysis – which were offered to a woman in her 20s in London in early February – contain a small tag marking them as advertising but look similar to real search results and appear above trusted information sources, including the NHS website. In some cases they promote advice services that claim to offer impartial support but do not clearly state the anti-abortion views of the people behind them.

One of the biggest advertisers was Pregnancy Crisis Helpline, whose adverts appeared after searches for 14 out of the 40 phrases tested in the analysis. They included one that said: “Considering an abortion? Talk to someone,” and appeared after searches for “buy abortion pill” and “pregnant teenager help”.

People clicking on the links were taken to the helpline’s website, which says it is a “safe and confidential place” offering “support for women struggling with an unplanned pregnancy”.

But while it says it does “not refer for abortions”, neither does it offer information about its organisers’ anti-abortion views and presents itself as an impartial service offering support “away from all the pressures”.

In reality, the helpline was co-launched with Christian Concern, a rightwing evangelical organisation that wants abortion to be banned. The helpline’s trustees include Regan King, a pastor at the Angel church in Islington, London, who has described abortion as “Disgusting. Disturbing. Grim. Gruesome. Horrifying. Shocking. Terrible. Vile” and likened it to “the new slave trade”. Another trustee is Christian Clive Copus, a former director of the anti-abortion campaign group the Prolife Alliance.

The helpline has recently reported a spike in the number of people contacting it, saying it had 2,000 clients in 2022 compared with 500 in 2021.

Other Google adverts directed women to a counselling service run by the charity Life, which opposes abortion. One said: “We provide a safe space for you to explore your feelings away from outside pressures. Talk through your options in confidence.”

Google said the adverts flagged by the Observer complied with its rules, highlighting that they contain an “ad” tag in bold lettering and a line stating that the services they promote do not provide abortions.

But Lisa Hallgarten, head of policy at young people’s sexual health charity Brook, described the marketing approach as “clearly immoral” and said adverts provided to those searching terms such as “NHS abortion advice” could delay women’s access to healthcare.

“We are really concerned that people looking for impartial support are being directed to organisations and websites where they could experience the complete opposite,” she said. Pam Lowe, an expert on anti-abortion activism, said: “Anyone who puts ‘NHS abortion’ into Google should be shown a link to the NHS website as the first result. There’s a risk that people could end up with biased information.”

Labour MP Stella Creasy, who has campaigned on access to reproductive healthcare, urged the government to compel tech companies to remove potentially harmful listings. She said there was a difference between allowing free speech and “seeking to mislead vulnerable readers who need to be confident that what they are reading is medically sound and impartial”.

The Pregnancy Crisis Helpline said it stated on its website that it did not offer medical advice or “refer for abortion”.

“If a client asks for medical advice, we signpost them to their GP, 111 or A&E as appropriate,” said Toby Cosh, chair of the trustees. He added that while the helpline had been set up with support from Christian Concern, it had operated independently since 2018 and was a registered UK charity.

Kerry Smart, chief executive at Life, said: “Our person-centred online pregnancy listening service was inspired by the Samaritans and is non-coercive and non-judgmental.”

She added that people using Life’s “listening services” were told it did not refer for abortion or give information on abortion providers, and that the charity complied with ethical guidelines from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. “If clients wish to explore medical topics, we inform – not advise – using NHS information in skilled listening sessions,” she said. “We agree that attempts to mislead or give false information are wrong.”

Other adverts that appear on UK Google searches relating to pregnancy and abortion came from regulated abortion providers, including MSI Reproductive Choices and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.

They appeared alongside adverts placed by anti-abortion charities in the UK and US that do not run counselling services and instead direct people to webpages about the ethics of abortion. The Observer understands that they do not always pay for their adverts because of a Google scheme that means organisations with charity status can be granted free advertising credits.

Google said: “We know that people come to Google looking for information they can trust, and we’ve invested heavily in providing a safe and transparent experience.

“When it comes to abortion-related ads, we require an added level of transparency so that people seeking abortion-related resources know what services an advertiser actually provides. Any organisation that wants to target queries related to getting an abortion must complete our certification process and clearly disclose whether they do or do not offer abortions.”

  

UK

NFU warns current fruit and vegetable shortages could be ‘tip of the iceberg’

Lucas Cumiskey
Sat, 25 February 2023 

Empty fruit and vegetable shelves at an Asda in east London (PA) (PA Wire)

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has warned that shortages of some fruit and vegetables in UK supermarkets could be “the tip of the iceberg”.

NFU deputy president Tom Bradshaw said a reliance on imports has left the UK vulnerable to “shock weather events”.

Soaring energy bills exacerbated by the war in Ukraine have also put off some UK vegetable growers, he added.


He said the UK has now “hit a tipping point” and needs to “take command of the food we produce” amid “volatility around the world” caused by the war in Europe and climate change.

It comes as the shortage of tomatoes in UK supermarkets has widened to other fruit and vegetables due to a combination of bad weather and transport problems in Africa and Europe.

Mr Bradshaw told Times Radio on Saturday: “We’ve been warning about this moment for the past year.

“The tragic events in Ukraine have driven inflation, particularly energy inflation to levels that we haven’t seen before.

“There’s a lack of confidence from the growers that they’re going to get the returns that justify planting their glasshouses, and at the moment we’ve got a lot of glasshouses that would be growing the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, aubergine that are sitting there empty because they simply couldn’t take the risk to plant them with the crops, not thinking they’d get the returns from the marketplace.

“And with them being completely reliant on imports – we’d always have some imports – but we’ve been completely reliant on imports (now). And when there’s been some shock weather events in Morocco and Spain, it’s meant that we’ve had these shortages.

“It’s really interesting that before Brexit we didn’t used to source anything, or very little, from Morocco but we’ve been forced to go further afield and now these climatic shocks becoming more prevalent have had a real impact on the food available on our shelves today.”


On Wednesday, Tesco followed Aldi, Asda and Morrisons in introducing customer limits on certain fresh produce as shortages left supermarket shelves bare.

Tesco and Aldi are limiting customers to three units of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers as a precautionary measure, while Asda is also limiting customers on lettuce, salad bags, broccoli, cauliflower and raspberries, and Morrisons has set a limit of two items per customer across tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and peppers.

Retailers believe the problems stem from poor yields on the continent and north Africa, and that supplies will improve in the coming days or weeks.

Environment Secretary Therese Coffey said on Thursday that British consumers should eat more turnips instead of imported food.

Growers have also warned that a leek shortage will see British-grown supplies exhausted by April, with high temperatures and a lack of rain, followed by a period of cold weather, blamed for creating the “most difficult season ever”.

Jack Ward, chief executive of the British Growers Association (BGA), has reportedly said supermarkets could also experience shortages of carrots, cabbage and cauliflower within weeks.

The BGA has also warned that the future of British apple and pear-growing is “on a knife edge”.

A BGA survey of British Apples & Pears Limited (BAPL) members, which represent an estimated 80% of the industry in the UK, found 150,000 orders for new apple and pear trees – a third of the planned 480,000 – have been cancelled this season.

BAPL executive chair Ali Capper said: “The key reason for the lack of investment is supermarket returns that are unsustainable.”

Fact check: Is Brexit to blame for Britain's fruit and vegetable shortages?

Sophia Khatsenkova

Euronews
Fri, 24 February 2023

Tomatoes are temporarily out of stock in some British supermarkets this week, with empty shelves where there should be a colourful vegetable section.

It's been this way for several days now, as some major UK supermarkets haven't been able to buy enough fresh vegetables, particularly tomatoes - forcing several big chains to introduce limits.

Asda, Britain’s third largest grocer, was quick to respond with a cap of three packs per customer on tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, and raspberries citing disrupted harvests in Spain and Morocco due to deteriorated weather conditions.

Food shortages: The perfect storm that led to UK supermarkets rationing fruit and vegetables

These foods could soon be in short supply due to the war in Ukraine

Morrisons, another leading British supermarket chain, set the limit to two items per person from 22 February.

On 23 February, the UK's Environment Secretary Therese Coffey told MPs that the shortages were caused by "very unusual weather" and urged a more seasonal approach to eating that embraces local harvests like turnips.

However, images posted by social media users from Spain and Morocco showed shelves stacked full of tomatoes and fresh vegetables, prompting people to link it to Britain’s post-Brexit trade woes.

At The Cube we decided to take a closer look and fact check the claims.
Is weather to blame for fruit and vegetable shortages?

Unusual weather is primarily to be blamed for the short supply, according to Andrew Opie, director of the British Retail Consortium which represents all the major supermarkets, including Tesco, whose fresh produce shelves were among those looking empty this week.

However, Jack Ward, CEO of the British Growers Association, told us that the shortage has its roots in increased energy costs.

“Last autumn, there were numerous conversations within the industry about the rising costs of production with higher energy prices and input costs. Growers took the view here in the UK and other parts of northern Europe that unless they could be guaranteed a reasonable return, they wouldn't plant the crops,” he added.

The “gamble” to compensate for the shortfall left by the lack of planting has not paid off, according to Ward.

“We've gone to places like Spain and Morocco where there's a more ready supply of sunshine at this time of year and production costs are cheaper. But there was never any way that was going to make up all of the production that we've lost,” Ward said.

According to the British Embassy in Morocco, about 25% of the UK's tomatoes come from the North African nation, while a further 20% come from Spain - making those two countries the UK's biggest sources of tomatoes.

The situation was aggravated by diminished tomato production in greenhouses of big producer countries like the Netherlands, primarily due to high energy costs, experts said.

A customer checks almost empty fruit and vegetable shelves at an Asda in east London, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. - Yui Mok/AP

Where does Brexit come into all this?

Contrary to some of the reaction on social media, Brexit has a minimal role to play in the immediate shortage, according to experts.

For example, the British Growers Association says one of the big issues arising from Brexit for the fresh produce sector - attracting workers from EU countries - has been mitigated by the Seasonal Workers Permit Scheme.

“It is more about being able to get back the investment the growers need to make in planting crops and that's where the system has fallen down rather than Brexit,” he added.

The location of the UK and its isolation from mainland Europe, however, has played a significant part and is the differentiator from the situation in EU countries without shortages of fruit and vegetables.

Brexit was meant to lead to a VAT cut on energy bills. So why are they about to rise by 54%?


British pig farmers 'fear ruin' over Brexit and the rise of veganism

“It is less costly for a supplier to supply to the Netherlands and other countries in the northern part, because they don't have these 25 miles of the English Channel to negotiate because that adds a cost,” said Chris White of Fruit Net.

Navigating extra Brexit-imposed cost and bureaucracy of getting the fresh fruit and vegetables across the Channel is clearly proving too costly for some producers, which is why tomatoes are reaching supermarkets in France, Belgium or the Netherlands but not Britain.

And according to media reports Irish supermarkets have also reported depleted stocks of tomatoes and fresh produce, just like in the UK - but while geography (and related costs) will be a factor there, Brexit won't be.

A ''Max 3 units'' sign is attached to empty fruit and vegetable shelves at an Asda in east London, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. - Yui Mok/AP

UK’s lessons from the empty shelves

In addition to the lack of action to help growers with high energy prices, experts believe the UK’s complex supply chains have equally contributed to the situation, showing room for improvement.

However, Pekka Pesonen, Secretary General of Copa-Cogeca, a European agricultural umbrella organisation, said “tipping the delicate balance of trade channel” should have been avoided.

“The main message to the UK would be that our food supplies are highly integrated, highly complex set of measures all across all operators, all regions, countries and even outside the Union,” Pesonen said. “Disturbing this delicate balance, even if it's a minor change to the supply routes and supply chains, it may have a significant impact through operators that opt for the easier way somewhere else.”

Ward, CEO of the British Growers Association, emphasised being more realistic about the security of supply chains and better measures to encourage domestic production.

“We've got to be more realistic about the costs involved in producing food and the prices for which food is sold. There's got to be a closer dialogue between growers and retailers to make sure that we don't find ourselves in these kinds of situations in the future,” Ward told us.

How breeding low-emissions sheep could bring down farming’s methane footprint

When will the shelves fill up again?

According to the growers and experts we spoke to, the situation might take a couple more weeks to resolve depending on various factors.

“It depends on how badly the crops have been affected. Bad weather at the wrong time can be pretty disastrous,” Ward added.

The end of winter will see an increase in the harvest of seasonal fresh produce, which shall ultimately see a return to normality, experts that spoke to Euronews agreed.

Digital artwork miscaptioned as satanic runway show

Nahiara S. Alonso, 

AFP USA
Fri, 24 February 2023

Images shared online of runway models are accompanied by claims they show a satanic collection presented at New York Fashion Week in February 2023. This is false; they are art pieces generated with artificial intelligence (AI) and digital software, the graphic designer who created them confirmed.

"NY fashion week… This is how sick these people are… '" says a February 19, 2023 tweet with more than 4,000 likes.

Screenshot of a tweet taken February 24, 2023

Other posts misattributing the images can be found elsewhere on Twitter and Facebook, and in Spanish.

Held twice a year, New York Fashion Week (NYFW) is one of four major global events for the industry. And while some designers push the boundaries of fashion, these are not images captured at the event in February.

AFP conducted a reverse image search and discovered the images were created by digital artist Rob Sheridan, whose social media handle can be seen in some of the posts.

The graphic designer's original post, which was shared on Instagram, also includes a caption that reads as parody -- as if Satan had designed a collection for the fashion event -- accompanied by the hashtags "synthography," "aihorror" and "aiart."

"I've seen my work spread by people who claim it's real. It's really getting out of control, even the Church of Satan just issued a clarification denying it," Sheridan told AFP.

The images are generated through AI, he said.

"These are totally digital creations" and are "not affiliated with the NYFW," Sheridan said. They are made through a combination of synthography, -- a software process that allows a creator to enter keywords to generate images -- and Photoshop, he explained.

Recently, AI artwork has seen explosive growth. Using algorithms that analyze countless images and art pieces online, these programs can generate highly intricate works. "Because there are so many photos taken of fashion show runways, the knowledge of AI was perfect for placing these fantastic concepts in realistic fashion show scenarios," Sheridan said, clarifying that his work was not based on a specific set of photographs.

"People need to apply more critical thinking to what they see online," Sheridan said.

AFP reviewed pictures published by its photographers and Getty Images, taken at fashion week events, but found no such images. They also do not appear on the official NYFW website, which features the collections presented by all designers who participated this February.

AFP contacted NYFW to inquire about the images, but a response was not forthcoming.

In recent years, several fashion houses have come under fire on social media after users accused them of having "satanic ties," some of which have been debunked by AFP here, here and here.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, council leaders and trade unionists call for immediate rent freeze to tackle ‘wild west rental market’


Meghann Murdock
Fri, 24 February 2023 


The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has today joined council leaders, trade unions and other organisations in calling on Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Michael Gove to implement a freeze on private rents and a ban on evictions.

The mayors of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, and Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram; the Green Party; council leaders from Newham, Hackney, Brent and Wandsworth; and RMT general secretary Mick Lynch are among those joining Mr Khan in signing an open letter which calls for Mr Gove to “follow the Scottish government and introduce an immediate freeze on rents, to help renters weather the worst of the cost of living crisis and help prevent huge numbers of renters facing homelessness in the coming months."

Co-ordinated by the London Renters Union (LRU), the letter also demands an immediate ban on evictions until the end of the cost of living crisis and asks the government to deliver on the commitment to end Section 21 evictions — commonly-known as ‘no-fault evictions’ — by fast-tracking the delayed Renters Reform Bill.

The LRU reported average rent rises of £3,400 — or 20.5 per cent — in December which is approaching double the national figure of 12 per cent.

Half of all private tenants are struggling with housing costs, with an “even more severe” situation facing four in five renters in London. The LRU has 6,400 members across London, with branches in six boroughs: Brent, Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Lewisham, Haringey and Newham.

Adjusting for inflation of 9.2 per cent in December, the 2022 average salary increase of 6.7 per cent represented a pay cut in real terms of 2.5 per cent last year - one of the sharpest declines for 20 years.

Mr Khan said today: "London’s private renters are facing a triple whammy with rising rents, bills, and the cost of household essentials putting a major strain on their finances. That’s why I’ve repeatedly called on the Government to implement an immediate rent freeze in the capital, as has been done in Scotland, and give me the power to introduce a system of rent controls that works for London.

“My message to ministers is simple and shared by others right across the country: implement your long-promised renters reform legislation and take action now to make rents more affordable.”

LRU spokesperson Liam Miller said: “Millions are being squeezed by falling wages and rising rents.”

“The government has the power to protect people from unaffordable rent rises, but it is choosing instead to preside over a wild west rental market that is punishing the people who kept the country going through the pandemic.”

“A rent freeze now is the only way to address the scale and urgency of the crisis, and would represent a step towards a stronger housing system that meets everyone’s needs.”

The Renters Reform Bill is due to be formerly presented to Parliament before the end of spring this year. Along with plans to end no-fault evictions, proposed legislation includes doubling notice periods for rent increases and giving tenants stronger powers to challenge unjustified hikes.

LRU member Kirsty, a teacher, said: “My pay has not risen in line with inflation. After my last landlord tried to raise the rent, I had no choice but to move further away from work. I was soon signed off sick due to the stress of moving house and the increase to my commute.”

“Now, only one year into our new tenancy, our landlord has asked for another £1200 in rent. I feel like I’m back to square one.”

The Mayor of London has repeatedly called for rent controls to be introduced in England and Wales. In September 2022, Mr Khan called for a rent freeze on the back of City Hall analysis that showed renters in poorly insulated housing were paying a premium on their energy bills.

In March last year, he asked ministers for the power to freeze private rents in the capital for two years — a request he repeated in August after rents were reported to have increased by 15 per cent in a year.

During his re-election campaign in 2019, Mr Khan said that controls like those already in place in cities like New York and Berlin (although these were later defeated in court) were also needed in London.

Landlords and lettings experts, however, argue that rent controls may drive landlords from the market and reduce the number of properties available to rent at a time when supply is already squeezed.

New data from the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) shows that 90 per cent of private landlords in central London reported rising demand for rented housing in the final three months of last year, up from the 74 per cent of landlords who reported the same the year before.

Despite rising demand, the squeeze on supply seems to be worsening with almost a third of private landlords reporting to the NRLA that they plan to reduce the number of homes they let in 2023.

Earthquake felt in South Wales as midnight tremor makes houses and walls shake

Fri, 24 February 2023 at 6:03 pm GMT-






A 3.7 magnitude earthquake has been recorded in South Wales - with experts describing it as the largest quake to hit the area in five years.

The earthquake occurred around 11.59pm on Friday night, according to the British Geological Survey (BGS), the UK's main provider of quake data.

According to the BGS, the epicentre was around 10km (6.2 miles) north of the Ebbw Vale and Tredegar area, near to Llangynidr, in the Brecon Beacons.


It is a small village on the slopes of the Sugar Loaf mountain - a favourite with walkers.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) put the location of the earthquake, recorded at a depth of around depth of two kilometres, as 12km (7.45 miles) north of Rhondda.

Google's Android Earthquake Alerts System said the tremor was 4.2 magnitude.

The quake, which according to the BGS is the largest earthquake to hit South Wales since 2018, was reported by residents in Abergavenny, Crickhowell, Llangynidr, Llanover and Llanfoist, with many saying that furniture and windows shook.

The furthest report made to the BGS was from an area south of Cardiff, around 45km (23 miles) from the epicentre.

Matt O'Shea, from the Blaenau Gwent area, told Sky News his "whole house shook for about five seconds", and others said it felt like their property had been hit by a car.

Many on social media said they were initially unsure what had happened.

Twitter user @Loz_Coult94 said: "Thought someone was breaking into my house, no... just an earthquake IN WALES!?"

Others described objects such as bookshelves and desks moving.

Read more:
'What the hell was that': How residents responded after tremors were felt

"I'm in Rhymney and felt the house shake, looked online to see if anyone else did.. and it was an earthquake in South Wales. I think I need a change of trousers," tweeted @KrissOttley.

Helen Caswell added: "Our whole house shook in Rassau, Ebbw Vale and woke my husband up!! Really frightened us."

"I thought some idiot had driven into my front door the way my room shook," said Jack Hill, from Risca in Gwent, on Facebook.

Cath Willcox, from Cwm in Blaenau Gwent, told Sky News: "I felt the earthquake and was really concerned. It made our house shake, it was loud and the rumbling from it was clearly felt.

"We're four to five miles from the epicentre of the earthquake."

She said the whole village was affected, adding: "The village is in Cwm Ebbw Vale. An old mining village used to lots of action in the height of coal mining. This is not a wake-up call we wanted."

Shelly Organ was among many residents commenting on social media, writing on Facebook: "Being in Troedyrhiw we honestly thought someone had crashed into a wall so we checked the children were still sleeping and went out to check and there were a few in the street thinking the same.

"It made the house shake a little where it felt like something happened outside, glad it didn't though."

Danielle Morgan said: "It definitely felt a lot worse than a light shaking in Ebbw Vale. We thought someone had crashed into the cars on our drive. Frightening! Brought the whole estate out wondering what was going on! The whole house shook to the core."

And Tracey Mosley added: "I saw and felt it. The wall moved toward me and back again. It felt like the house would collapse."

Lloyd Rees tweeted: "Hear me out… was there just an earthquake in South Wales? The entire house just shook!"

One earthquake in Britain with 3.7 magnitude or greater 'every year'

It is the largest earthquake in South Wales since a magnitude 4.6 earthquake near Swansea in February 2018, which the group said was felt throughout Wales.

"On average, we only get about one earthquake in Britain with a magnitude of 3.7 or greater every year," Brian Baptie, BGS' head of seismology told Sky News.

South Wales has been struck by several significant earthquakes in the last few hundred years, including 5.2 and 5.1 earthquakes near Swansea in 1727 and 1775.

A magnitude 5.2 earthquake in 1906 was one of the most damaging British earthquakes of the 20th Century, with damage to chimneys and walls reported across South Wales.

There are several long-active fault systems in Wales, including the Welsh Borderland Fault, which runs northeast from Pembrokeshire, in southwest Wales, to Shropshire, in England.

WOKEMOBILE
Volkswagen to build own US plant for Scout brand - Automobilwoche

Fri, 24 February 2023 

The logo of a Volkswagen dealership is pictured in Pasadena

BERLIN (Reuters) - Volkswagen Group will build its own production plant in the United States for its new Scout brand rather than collaborating with a partner, industry publication Automobilwoche reported on Friday, citing company sources.

Volkswagen said last May it planned to reintroduce the Scout off-road brand, creating a separate, independent company to build Scout trucks and SUVs starting in 2026 that will be designed, engineered, and manufactured in the United States for U.S. customers.

Automobilwoche had reported in November that the carmaker was in talks with Foxconn, which has expanded into building electric vehicles (EVs) for auto brands, and Magna International subsidiary Magna Steyr about building a joint plant.

Building its own plant was the least likely option, the publication reported at the time, also citing company sources.

Volkswagen is expanding its existing U.S. plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to produce the ID. Buzz. However, the Scout brand will build off-road electric pick-up trucks and SUVs that require a new platform and the Chattanooga plant does not have enough space to do it all, a source told Reuters last May.

A spokesperson for Volkswagen said that a decision on whether to open a plant for Scout had not yet been made but that production was still due to begin 2026 as previously stated.

Volkswagen-owned Audi's CEO Markus Duesmann said in an interview on Friday that the premium brand could build a plant in the U.S. either alone or together with the Volkswagen Group for EVs, though no decision had been made on that either.

(Reporting by Jan Schwartz, Victoria Waldersee, Writing by Friederike Heine, Editing by Paul Carrel, Miranda Murray and Keith Weir)

US Exceptionalism in Mass Shootings

Why mass shootings are built in culturally

by Sufian Siddique
epaper epaper

A gunman killed three students and critically injured five others on at Michigan State University’s main campus, before he was found dead hours later, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot. Investigators had no information about the motive and the university was not aware of any threats made to the campus before the bloodshed. Then there were the two Iowa teens who shot dead their Spanish teacher in a grade dispute. Most reecently, a shooer outside a Philadelphia kindergarten shot a other and four pupils.

Amid an unrelenting surge of gun massacres, many have wondered why the USA, the world’s leading country in mass shootings over the last century, is more prone to mass shootings than any other. Gun violence, though, is prevalent in many parts of the world, for instance in most parts of Latin America. But in the USA, no form of violence is seen as more uniquely American than public mass shootings by “lone-wolf” gunmen. According to Gun Violence Archive, 39 mass shootings have already taken place across the country in just the first three weeks of 2023. Last year the country witnessed around 647 cases of mass shootings with the consequence of more than 44,000 death tolls due to gun violence overall.

Like its political establishment, American public discourse has long firmly been divided over what causes this epidemic. The critics of this national sickness focus their fire on the second amendment of the US constitution and the nefarious political influence of the National Rifles Association (NRA). But here it comes down to the question: will a mere constitutional amendment and the neutralization of special interest groups like the NRA lead to the solution to the endemic prevalence of lone-wolf mass shootings? The answer is: not likely, as the problem is deeply rooted in the USA’s culture itself: the culture of rugged individualism built on its deep-seated historical myth.

In the USA, ever-increasing personal and economic struggles combined with the inherent state structural tension and identity crisis continue to produce aggrieved social outcasts. On top of this, the ever-exacerbating political climate plagued by partisan divide, racial toxicity, and xenophobic bigotry has also been influencing socially and politically aggrieved outcasts, due to the absence of alternative social redressing mechanisms, to seek recourse by resorting to mass violence. Here, rugged individualism works in creating the very roots of virile fantasy to violence, a toxic political milieu in fueling grievances, and finally easy access to guns in triggering off those grievances in the form of mass shooting

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, rugged individualism is defined as “the combination of individualism and anti-statism … a prominent feature of American culture with deep roots in the country’s history of frontier settlement.” While individualism, as noted, may be conducive to innovation and resource mobilization, it can also undermine collective action, with potentially adverse social consequences. During the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, it was seen how the USA’s ruggedly individualistic mindset, fomented by its frontier culture, hampered the state responses to the pandemic, with many Americans having defied mandatory mask-wearing and vaccination programmes.

Likewise, the gun is a great emblem and lethal offspring of American individualism. The nation has long valorized masculine heroes– violent frontiersmen or Hollywoodized American Archetype “White Loners”– who impose their will on the community’s enemies with violence. Added to that deep-seated historical ideal and cultural sickness are the deteriorating trend in kinship traditions and ever-declining “rational mobility”– a condition that helps establish bonds of support beyond immediate families on the basis of socially engaging emotions such as empathy warmth, trust, affection, and so on.

Self-serving politicians and gun advocates often ridiculously propose giving more arms into the hands of “the good guys” to thwart “the bad guys with guns.” The Americans’ dire wishes for gun possession, however, stem less from their sense of personal or communal security rather more from an egocentric individualistic cultural reasoning that lacks the prioritization of collective communal safety. The unshakeable emotional and individualistic values Americans attach to guns frequently override concerns about the nation’s collective health and safety.

The exercise of unfettered individualism is also seen in many parts of the Western world, like in Europe; but nowhere in the world is this so infested by historical myth and pathological strains as in the USA– what the prominent criminologist Adam Lankford called “the uniquely American quality.” And where the USA is stunningly divergent from the rest of the world is the confluence of individualistic culture and the easiest access to guns. In no other part of the world gun access and rugged individualistic culture interact in the same way.

Although many European countries share the same cultural forces that produce aggrieved social outcasts, those countries erect formidable hurdles in the way of purchasing guns legally that are quite unheard of in the USA: longer waiting periods, higher insurance costs, full-blown psychiatric evaluations, gun safety courses, among others. As a result, the country has more weapons than people: one in three adults possesses at least one firearm, and almost one in two adults resides in a home with a firearm.

But the prevalence of guns alone does not account for US exceptionalism in mass shootings. For example, like the USA, much of Latin America is saturated with firearms but, despite high rates of gun violence, mass shootings there by a “lone wolf” gunman are exceedingly rare. And experts pointed to the cultural difference as a powerful factor playing out in creating a huge disparity in the number of mass shooting cases between the two regions.

In the USA, ever-increasing personal and economic struggles combined with the inherent state structural tension and identity crisis continue to produce aggrieved social outcasts. On top of this, the ever-exacerbating political climate plagued by partisan divide, racial toxicity, and xenophobic bigotry has also been influencing socially and politically aggrieved outcasts, due to the absence of alternative social redressing mechanisms, to seek recourse by resorting to mass violence. Here, rugged individualism works in creating the very roots of virile fantasy to violence, a toxic political milieu in fueling grievances, and finally easy access to guns in triggering off those grievances in the form of mass shooting.

Officials close part of Prescott National Forest to protect nesting bald eagles

By Ignacio Ventura

Published: Saturday, February 25, 2023 - 

Mark Newman/Getty Images
Bald eagles nesting in Canada’s Yukon territory

Anyone looking to explore the Prescott National Forest needs to know about the current guidelines enforced to protect bald eagles. Visitors cannot access John’s Tank Trail located to the east of Lynx Lake.

Francisco Anaya is the forest biologist.

“It’s just to protect the eagle from disturbance and trying to give them some space, putting a buffer around the nest so that they’re not being harassed by human activity,” he said.

Forest officials said the closure is critical to the protection of eggs and hatchlings. The guidelines are followed in accordance with the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

Those who do not follow the rules are subject to fines and other legal action.

Eagle keeps eggs warm through winter storm

The Difference Between the Fascists… And the Rest of Us

Why the Impulse to Control Other People’s Lives and Choices Is Sweeping Our Societies

Image Credit: Tim Williams

You don’t have to look very hard to see it: the old poison of fascism, spreading through the world again. This time, in many variants. There are the religious ones — what Americans call “Christofascism,” sometimes. The political ones, like Trumpism. The ideological ones, with their paranoia about the genocide of the master race. On and on they go. And the question should be asked: what’s all this about? How do we deal with it — not just at the political level, but at the human one, as people?

Let me ask that in a different way. What’s common to all these strains of fascism, racing around the globe?

There’s a certain way to sum up modernity, modern life. It’s often thought of as a cliche. But while some cliches are “thought terminating,” as the internet likes to say, some are…true. Because they’re thought provoking. Timeless. Something like north stars. This one goes like this. Hey, you live however you like. As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone — it doesn’t bother me.

You’ve heard that before. We all have. Now. Take a moment to see just how much threat that basic belief of modernity is really under. It’s what’s really disappearing from our societies. Because the far right, which is the only right remaining, really, has become adept at triggering people into believing they’re under profound, constant, existential threat. Over and over again, it triggers the primal fears — of annihilation, abandonment, of being engulfed. And so our societies, increasingly, are giving up on this simple belief — hey, you live how you want. As long it doesn’t hurt anyone — doesn’t bother me.

All this needs to be — by us thoughtful people — interrogated, examined, reflected on. Because something is very, very wrong here.

Let’s go back to the fundamental principle of modernity. You live how you like — doesn’t bother me. If it doesn’t hurt anyone — go for it. Why is this such a profound, beautiful, wise…not just belief…but attitude, perspective, stance, way to live? Because it encapsulates the values of democracy, and is how we enact them. If and when I say this to you, act this way towards you, what am I really doing? Well, I am bringing many values to life. I am granting you freedom. I am respecting you as an equal. I am offering you dignity. I am saying that truth matters, because you can live yours.

When I take this stance on life, I am enacting the basic values of democracy. It is so, so crucially important for us to really understand and remember all that in times like these. Because more and more people don’t believe any of the above.

Instead, they believe something that, seen through the eyes of modernity, is truly and utterly bizarre. Hey — you. You random stranger, you person that doesn’t have anything do with me, you that I’ve never met before. I don’t think you should be able to live the way you want.

Me? I want to interfere with your life. Think about how genuinely weird it is to really believe that. Here you are, thinking about people that you’ve never met, never going to meet, have nothing to do with you in any way whatsoever — that your role in society is to limit their choices. That’s your job, task, primary responsibility. You’re never going to meet these people — not once, not for an instant — but for some reason, you’ve got to stop them living the way they want. From making their own choices.

In other words, you have decided to stand in the way of the most profound modern value of all. Self-determination. That’s not just a “democratic” value, by the way. It is a modern one. It took millennia for the belief in self-determination to even emerge. For most of human history, self-determination has been forbidden. You’re born into a caste, and you do that kind of work, marry within it, live in its assigned place, and so forth. Then came Enlightenment. Ages of Revolution. Ages of Democracy. This took centuries of pain, war, strife. And only then did self-determination come to be at all.

It takes work to think to yourself “I’ve got to interfere in that person’s life!” You see, the thing about self-determination is that it’s a gift worth giving. Because it frees up your time, energy, resources, attention, too, for genuinely worthy things. Hey — what are you going to do, contribute, create, build, with your one brief life? The more you’re obsessed with interfering in someone else’s life, the less you have to give to that quest.

So this belief in interfering with other people’s lives — people you’re never going to meet, never have met, who don’t concern you in any way whatsoever — it’s utterly perverse. It is backwards in this profound sense — it makes us all worse, because it limits everyone’s potential. Even those who believe in it, because there they are, wasting their time and energy on…trying to control, dominate, and limit others.

Now. That’s a lot of theory, so let’s do a couple of examples to make it concrete. This stance — I’ve got to interfere in those people’s lives — it’s racing across our societies like some kind of weird mind virus. The mind virus isn’t wokeness, folks, it’s this desperate, beleaguered belief that I’ve got to take those people’s freedom, equality, dignity, away. And all that is becoming a very real political quest to remove people’s rights, en masse.

The examples by now are everywhere. There are books being banned in schools. There’s the erasure of the LGBT. There are trans people whose self-determination is being punitively legislated away. There are women who the Supreme Court just made second-class citizens. All these people and groups are having their rights taken away. And that is something we should never, ever see in a modern society. We shrug and accept it — but we shouldn’t. The loss of rights for one is a loss for all, because everyone is worse off, like I said, when society becomes a negative sum game of me stifling your freedom.

And yet this is where we are. The question is: why? Why would anyone — anyone — believe that some person they’re never going to meet, ever, is posing a threat to them, even though they’re a thousand miles away…just because they’re gay? Or that some poor kid living in the same neighborhood is a massive threat to them just because they’re trans? Or that women being able to go to the doctor and get a procedure she wants is a major, major offense? You see how bizarre it is to believe this stuff? And yet people do. More and more people.

It’s hard to really get this point across, so I’m going to give you an example from my own daily life. When I take little Snowy up the street to the cafe, there’s a dog there that he plays with. A funny little Maltese. The dog’s human is a trans woman. I know that because after a time getting to know each other, she told me. Only after I told her how the gay community protected me growing up as a bullied little kid. She’s funny, kind, and warm. Who is she a threat to? In what way, exactly?

It’s absurd on its face to say that people making choices — peaceful ones — are somehow threatening you. And yet society has turned against trans people in a particularly vicious way. And I see how that affects my new friend. She’s guarded, sometimes. Haunted, at others. We’ll just be talking, and a faraway look comes into her eyes. I feel for her. Because it is emphatically and absolutely true that she is just another peaceful person living her own life, who isn’t hurting anyone.

And you know what? I adjust my own behavior, too. Sometimes, I see the gang at the cafe, and there’s my new friend. My old greeting used to be: “hey guys!” And now I can see that makes her uncomfortable. So I say “hey people!!” Or “hey everyone!!” What does this cost me? You see, society is now full of people who will loudly proclaim, angrily, that they’ll never call someone by their chosen name or pronoun. And to them, I say, that is wrong. It wasn’t so long ago that someone in a powerful. majority — and this is in many countries — could call someone in less powerful minority…something that today we’d all find unconscionable. It wasn’t so long ago that anyone in a certain group could call anyone in another one “boy” or “girl.” In a demeaning way. That norm changed, and we’re all better off for it. And it’s vivid, living proof that it’s totally OK to call people what they want to be called, because, well, that’s a form of dignity, equality, truth, and freedom, too.

But people are against even this smallest of acts. Again, why? What difference does it possibly make to you to call someone what they want to be called? And this is where we come, funnily enough, to the crux of the matter. Bad faith.

You see, when I ask people this, they’ll literally…make stuff up. Hey, it’s too much work! Oh, it offends my notion of biological truths, as if there aren’t plenty of girls named boys’ names these days, like, oh, I don’t know, Taylor Swift, who’s only the world’s most famous singer. I don’t see you out there telling her to have a a “girl’s name.” Because it’s ridiculous. Or people will say “that person isn’t really who they claim to be!!” And I ask them how they’d feel if someone said they weren’t really…a man, woman, straight, credible about their most basic and elemental traits. If someone said, hey, you’re really just a subhuman to them, over and over again. It’s absurd that it’s come to this.

I raise that story for a reason. I’m not a trans activist. I’m not any kind of activist. But the way our societies are turning on groups of people is becoming ugly and grotesque. It always has been, but we are in a very specific context. We have stopped making progress as a world, which means the bad guys are winning. And in that context, watching societies turn on groups, basically calling them subhumans, unworthy of existence, to be cancelled, erased, attacked, denied rights and belonging, is deeply, deeply wrong.

None of us should want to interfere in anyone else’s life. None of us. Remember the objections I just highlighted, that people raised about something as simple as…calling people what they want to be called? What’s that really called? Bad faith.

You see, when I say “nobody should interfere in anyone’s life, as long they’re not hurting anyone,” of course, the far right will turn right around and say, “but they are hurting me!” To say that someone is hurting you is a serious claim. Nobody should take it lightly. So let’s examine this one. How is kids…reading books…hurting you? You? Don’t be ridiculous. How is grown adults choosing to love on their own terms hurting you? How could it? How is someone choosing to be a certain gender actually harming you? How is someone being different in any way — a peaceful one — religion, creed, attitude hurting you?

To this, the far right will reply with basically four claims. One, the religious one. They’re hurting my God. LOL — if they’re…uhhh…a God…then I’m pretty sure that nothing can hurt them. A condition of being a God is omnipotence, hello. Absurd on its face. Two, some overblown claim never met with real evidence. Gays are groomers! All trans people are rapists! Kids reading books turns them gay! LOL. None of that is remotely true. Again, prima facie absurd, and offensive to boot. Third, the chain of harm. Well, if those kids read those books, they might get the wrong ideas, and end up hurting me. OK, let’s deal with that if and when it happens, because in a democracy, we don’t prejudge people for thought crimes.

But the Big One that’s surfaced recently is “they’re hurting my feelings.” LOL. Really? People living peacefully are hurting your feelings? How…can that…be? How can people you have no relationship with whatsoever hurt your feelings? Are they out there insulting you, belittling you, demeaning you? Are they threatening or intimidating you? No and no. Hurt feelings aren’t a little thing — they matter intensely. And for that reason, this claim is particularly odious — it makes a mockery of the idea that emotions matter in a society, which they do, very much so. But there is almost no case, if we think about even for a moment, in which people living peacefully can be hurting your feelings.

Those cases do exist. But what they do is prove that this claim — “Those people living their own lives are hurting my feelings!!” is bad faith. You see a famine, and people starving — that hurts your feelings, because emotions are contagious. But in the same way, people joyfully living their own chosen lives can’t be hurting yours. Instead, you must be making a claim about your own judgments about those feelings — you’re resentful of their happiness.

See how all that works? It was Sartre who was the great thinker of this idea — bad faith. Let me leave you with a quote of his that’s particularly stunning.

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

Sartre understood the truth all those decades ago, in the ashes of war and hatred. “They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.” All of us should re-read that one a few times, and memorize it, because this is what today’s fascists are still out there doing. They’re out there shouting at the rest of us that they have to interfere in our lives — our lives, our lives. They have to control, limit, dominate, take away, our choices, freedom, dignity, truth, right down to actual political rights. Why? When pressed, they offer absurd arguments that are textbook examples of bad faith. It hurts my feelings when you’re out there happily living peacefully! That’s not a hurt feeling, that’s resentment, which is a judgment. And all that bad faith? It’s just what Sartre said it was: an attempt to “intimidate and disconcert.”

We shouldn’t play into their hands, my friends. We? The rest of us? We have to remember that nothing has mattered more than this principle, which is what modernity is. You live your life — go right ahead. It doesn’t bother me. In your potential expanding, unfurling, soaring, mine does too. This is what peace and democracy are made from, the raw clay of their forging. And we should be standing shoulder to shoulder today, with the hated. Defending them from the worst of the hate and poison the fascists have to sling at them. Because that is how we really — and only — win. Right there, deep down in the soul.

Umair
February 2023

umair haque
Feb 25
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