Green is the new Black (Friday): Why the EU needs to embrace a circular economy 

By Tahmid Chowdhury • Updated: 30/11/2022 - 

People queue outside a retail shop in Oxford Street on Black Friday, 

in London, Friday, Nov. 25, 2022. - Copyright AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.

In Europe, we live in a linear economy. It’s a traditional model we’re all accustomed to where we take, make and create waste.

Raw materials are collected and transformed into products consumers use, until we eventually discard them, unaware (or perhaps blissfully ignorant) of the damage being done to the environment.


Let’s face it, we’re addicted to novelty, whether it's clothes, that new bit of tech or an upgraded kitchen appliance, we can’t resist a sale.

An estimated 6.6 million tons of textiles are bought every year in the EU, with 5.8 million tons thrown away over the same period – that’s about 11.3 kilograms per person.

Nothing epitomises our current cycle more than the recent Black Friday sales.

Despite the cost of living crisis, where some people are having to choose between heating and eating, this year’s deals came back stronger than ever. Millions of flash sales saw loud ad campaigns flooding our screens and dominating our high streets. Simply put, overproduction breeds overconsumption.

And what accompanies all those rushed, discounted purchases? Lots and lots of packaging. As the COVID pandemic took hold, online shopping rates surged by 129% week on week in the UK and Europe.

Black Friday highlights more than ever our need to shift to a circular economy, where we think more about what we consume and how we can reuse the materials and products we already have in the system.

The focus should be on value creation, implementing a "reduce, reuse, recycle" waste management system and optimising resources – instead of churning out newer and newer products in yet more packaging.

On a small scale, we see 2022 Earthshot Prize finalist Notpla disrupting the industry by producing an alternative to plastic packaging made out of seaweed. We might not be there yet on a global level but there is more our leaders can do from the top down to help our economy become more circular.
France to ban plastic packaging for 30 fruit and vegetables

This week we will see the release of the European Commission’s November Circular Economy Package, which should bring about progress in the EU.

It is set to include policies which mandate a minimum amount of recycled material in new packaging, as well as introducing a new "eco-design" criteria to make products more easily recyclable.

The package is also likely to address ‘Green Claims’ put forward by companies, in an effort to tackle greenwashing.

This should involve implementing carbon accounting into the value chain. Currently, there are no clear metrics on how much carbon is used to create a product, and a harmonised framework with clear definitions would support this.

It is vital the European Commission gets this right.

Earlier pilot programmes like the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) put forward a method for modelling the emissions and waste streams associated with a product throughout its life cycle.

But with a lack of clear data, these types of methodologies can be highly problematic. In a worst-case scenario, they can actually put companies off circular business models as they are unintentionally penalised.

This is a critical moment to incorporate greater circularity in our economy.

Tahmid Chowdhury

This is a critical moment to incorporate greater circularity in our economy, and it can only happen by embedding policies at a systems level.

It’s not just consumers who want to see things change, progressive businesses are also calling for greater ambition around the circular economy.

Research from CLG Europe’s Taskforce recently called for a greater link between stakeholders and legislators when it comes to making decisions, and pushed for demand-side policy on sustainable materials in order to boost business confidence.

The research highlights that building a circular economy must be given the necessary attention and support it requires, so that economic activity and environmental and societal well-being can be successfully integrated. Businesses say a gradual transition is already happening, but more ambitious policy is needed to accelerate this shift.

For the sake of our planet, it is key we embrace the principles of a circular economy.

Our current linear model is not sustainable, and without action, we will not only fail to meet our climate targets – we will run out of resources for the next generation.

Tahmid Chowdhury runs the Taskforce for Climate Neutral and Circular Materials at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).

CURISOUR AND CURISOUR

Young Cryptocurrency Experts Die Suddenly: Tiantian Kullander, Nikolai Mushegian

By Efthymis Oraiopoulos

November 30Business

The photo shows physical imitations of cryptocurrency in Dortmund, western Germany, on Jan. 27, 2020.

 (Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images)

The sudden death of another cryptocurrency expert has shocked the crypto industry.

Tiantian Kullander, 30, died in his sleep on Nov. 23, his company Amber Group said in a statement.

Kullander co-founded the Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency software company Amber Group in 2017.

His company was in the process of raising $200 million from venture capital firms. Singaporean state investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte was among the investors. Existing shareholders, including Sequoia China, Pantera Capital, and Tiger Global Management, also took part in the $200 million financing.

Amber Group was valued at $3 billion this year, while its valuation had tripled from mid-2021, according to its website.

Kullander began his career as a market trader for Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley. He was included in the “30 under 30” Forbes list for Asia in 2019. He was also the founder of KeeperDAO, DAOs are decentralized organizations that use blockchain technology.

“He put his heart and soul into the company, in every stage of its growth. He led by example with his intellect, generosity, humility, diligence and creativity,” Amber Group’s statement said.

Kullander was also a board member of Fnatic, an e-sports organization, according to International Business Times.

Nikolai Mushegian

Nikolai Mushegian, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency lending platform MakerDAO and the decentralized stablecoin Dai, was found dead in Puerto Rico at the age of 29 on Oct. 29.

His demise sparked speculation on Twitter regarding the circumstances surrounding his death.

Mushegian reportedly drowned after being swept away by strong sea currents close to Condado Beach in an area that is known for being dangerous.

He was a highly-regarded figure in the cryptocurrency community and helped develop multiple blockchain-based decentralized financial platforms and stablecoin systems.

Just one day before his sudden death, he wrote on Twitter that the “CIA and Mossad and pedo elite are running some kind of sex trafficking entrapment blackmail ring out of Puerto Rico and Caribbean islands” and that “they are going to frame me with a laptop planted by my ex gf [girlfriend] who was a spy. They will torture me to death.”

Two months prior, he wrote on Twitter that he had “three possible futures,” which included either being “suicided by the CIA,” becoming a “CIA brain damage slave asset,” or the “worst nightmare of people who [expletive] with me up until now.”

Helicopter Crash

The more recent death of Russian crypto billionaire Vyacheslav Taran has further shocked many in the crypto world after the 53-year-old died in a helicopter crash near the French-Italian border, reported the New York Post.

Taran was the founder of Forex Club and president of the Libertex Group. He was the only passenger in the helicopter when it crashed on Friday.

Authorities have not raised suspicion of foul play in any of these cases.

Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.

WAR PROFITEERING

Elon Musk's Starlink ups prices in Ukraine as its networks are faltering: Report

World News
Published on Nov 30, 2022 

Russia-Ukraine War: There is an increase in demand for the SpaceX-manufactured satellite communication device, the report said.

Russia-Ukraine War: The Starlink satellite-based broadband system at the Kherson border region.(AFP)

By Mallika Soni

The list prices of Starlink communications devices have nearly doubled in Ukraine, a report said. This comes as Starlink's mobile networks have started failing under Russia’s assault on the country’s electricity grid. Financial Times reported.

Read more: ‘Be better’: Elon Musk fact-checked by CNN for fake headline on Twitter

There is also an increase in demand for the SpaceX-manufactured satellite communication device. Starlink terminals, made by Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, will increase price to $700 for new Ukrainian consumers, according to the company’s website which represents a rise from about $385 earlier this year.

The consumer cost of the monthly subscription to Starlink will now rise to $75 from $60, the report said adding that prices have also soared in neighbouring Poland, where many Ukrainians source Starlink to avoid problems with domestic mail delivery.

Read more: In videos, celebrations in Iran after FIFA world Cup loss to US. Here's why

Earlier, it was reported that negotiations between SpaxeX and the US department of Defence have been ongoing as the company asked Washington to pay $4,500 a month for each terminal intended for Ukraine.

Elon Musk turned on connectivity for the satellite-based service within Ukraine days after Russia launched its invasion on February 24, responding on Twitter to a request by a Ukrainian minister.

Ideas–Even the Most Foolish Ones–Have Consequences

BY WALDEN BELLOFacebook

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Photograph Source: Elekes Andor – CC BY-SA 4.0

Is the radical right pure hate and all emotion?

Well, they may start from that, but humans that they are, some of them try to rationalize their hates and fears into theories that, though detached from reality, literally provide the ammunition that enables their followers to wreak havoc, like the guy did who descended on a store frequented by Black people in Buffalo several months ago in order to kill as many African-Americans as possible.

Matthew Rose’s A World After Liberalism (Yale University, 2021) brings together and critically analyzes the thoughts of people that most of us probably have not heard of but are worshiped in far right networks around the world. Rose says we better listen to what these guys are saying, even if we find them utterly distasteful, because their ideas have consequences.

Steve Bannon, the incendiary Trump adviser, may be the best known activist of the international far right, but he has derived inspiration from otherwise little known figures on the fringes of history, underlining the wisdom in Keynes’ well-known observation: “Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”

The first of these scribblers in Rose’s gallery is Oswald Spengler, an intellectual outside the academy that captured the imagination of a pessimistic post-War World I generation with his celebration of the “heroic” culture of the West. Spengler asserted that culture was in danger of being overwhelmed from within by lack of confidence and loss of a sense of identity — and from without by the “downtrodden races of the outer ring,” who had begun to move from the periphery to the center, armed with the technologies shared with them by the West owing to what Spengler characterized as misguided liberal values.

People of Europe had a shared, collective identity based on one central idee fixe — the “striving for the infinite,” manifested in art, adventure, and conquest. This “Faustian” collective identity, Spengler said, was threatened by the moral sensitivity and self-doubt that liberalism had engendered and by global immigration. The “Decline of the West” (also the title of his key work) was inevitable, but he argued it could be postponed if the peoples of Europe would recognize and embrace their common collective cultural and racial identity and decisively reject the corrosive influence of liberalism, with its leveling doctrines of democracy and equality.

People studying the contemporary far right, observes Rose, are often surprised to see the continuing influence of an early 20th century figure like Spengler on today’s far right activists.

Another influential blast from the past is the Italian philosopher Julius Evola. Evola adopted what was becoming early 20th century sociology’s standard description of social evolution from gemeinschaft to gesellschaft, from traditional to modern society. But instead of seeing modern society as a positive, with its division of labor, economic development, democratic rule, and evolution of the law, he saw it as a fall from grace. Tradition, hierarchy, inequality, the superiority of the master class — these constituted the natural state of community that liberalism, democracy, and socialism had destroyed with their glorification of reason, which drained the world of meaning.

For Evola, race is destiny, and he heaped outrage after outrage on African Americans and Jews. His followers claim, however, that he was not a crude racist, since for him race was not only biological but “spiritual,” whatever that means. One might dismiss all this as nonsense but one cannot dismiss its influence, for Evola has garnered enthusiastic praise across the far right, from the Russian Aleksandr Dugin to the Frenchman Guillaume Faye and to the alt-right Americans Steve Bannon and Richard Spencer.

Spengler and Evola provided later theorists of reaction an explosive legacy of ideas.

A virulent anti-Semite, Francis Yockey argued that world domination is the essential drive of western culture, and the people of the West must live up to that destiny or witness their culture lose its “vitality.” Self-doubt engendered by liberalism was the first step on a slippery slope to cultural self-destruction.

Alain de Benoist of France denounces racial equality, celebrating instead, “racial plurality” as a “veritable human treasure.” Benoist is said to have inspired the Great Replacement Theory, which holds that immigration represents an “existential threat” to the white community and is part of a conspiracy to water down and eventually replace the white race as the dominant race in western societies.

Samuel Francis died in 2005 at age 58, but his impact on the far right continues to resonate. Like the famous sociologist C. Wright Mills, Francis saw the rise to power and consolidation of a power elite. But instead of moving left with this insight as Mills did, he moved right. Fancisc depicted a liberal managerial elite determined to advance the interests of a minority at the expense of an endangered white majority.

Francis also pioneered the depiction of liberals and progressives as promoting what eventually received the popular tag “cancel culture.” As Rose points out, Francis saw in liberalism “a coordinated project of ongoing cultural dispossession” that would “eventually target every symbol and institution of an old social order.”

Even if the Republicans won elections, in this view, the liberals’ policies would prevail because of their entrenchment in key unelected positions in the government bureaucracy — another perspective he shared with some on the left that was later popularized under as the “deep state” that allegedly countermanded Trump’s exercise of power.

Francis was among the first to uncover the political potential of the demographic of lower and middle class white Americans, people he termed “Middle American Radicals (MARS). His analytical work would contribute to activating that demographic into the angry mass that first took the form of the Tea Party Movement and later mutated into the Trumpist base.

But for all his sophisticated theorizing, Francis was obsessed with one idea, and this was that “the civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people, nor is there any reason to believe that the civilization can be successfully transmitted to a different people.”

Though Rose tries his best to treat his subjects’ ideas with care, his book serves as proof that Spengler, Evola, and their descendants are engaged in a fool’s errand, which is to rationalize that which resists reason. For reason is always critical and tied to a moral end: to dissolve or dismantle the myths, obfuscations, folk foolishness, urban legends, and outright falsehoods that stand in the way of the realization and achievement of that most fundamental and primeval of human aspirations: equality.

Ideas — even the most foolish, unfortunately — have consequences.

Walden Bello, a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus,  is the author or co-author of 19 books, the latest of which are Capitalism’s Last Stand? (London: Zed, 2013) and State of Fragmentation: the Philippines in Transition (Quezon City: Focus on the Global South and FES, 2014).

Rumbles of Discontent in China Over Xi’s Zero-Covid Policy

BY TOM CLIFFORDFacebook

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Photograph Source: LatakiaHill – CC BY-SA 4.0

Beijing.

It was a tiny incident, not captured by TV cameras, nor did it make headlines across the world. But it suggested a seismic shift in attitudes. The men in white hazmat suits, (the Big Whites as they are known as or da bai in Mandarin) had come to lock down a building of about 100 residents in northern Beijing. It was close to 5pm on Sunday. The Big Whites erected steel barriers and were about to cordon off the 26-floor structure with a large metal fence. Then the women came out. They were a group of mothers of small children and residents of the building. They berated the officials, shouting at them. Security guards hurriedly arrived and menacingly took up position. Everyone expected the women to back down, accept the lockdown, be arrested or at least cautioned. Those who challenge authority in China normally pay a heavy price. But the women stood their ground. Shouts and insults were exchanged. And then incredibly the men in white suits took down the barriers and left. The security guards also left. People on the street who were queuing for Covid tests witnessed the incident and applauded the outcome. China is changing socially as well as economically.

The miracle that has transformed the country’s fortunes over the past four decades was due in large part to local-level policy innovation and experimentation. Beijing unleashed the hounds of capitalism and let the provinces get on with the job. Growth was the priority. President Xi Jinping changed that. His priority and the party’s since he came to office in 2012 was enhancing the party’s position. He believed that great prosperity gave people greater choice and the party position would, consequently, be undermined. People with financial security do not need to follow party manifestos or doff their caps to officials. Even before COVID broke in early 2020 Xi had implemented measures to curtail GDP growth that was then about 6 per cent. Then Covid hit and Xi shut down Wuhan city, the scene of the first mass outbreak, with 11 million people. This it must be stressed met with initial public acclaim. But Xi’s zero-covid policy was political and not health based. People quickly tired of it. Shunning the introduction of more effective Western vaccines, Xi allowed the elderly to avoid vaccination and claims, wrongly, that the Omicron variant is as lethal as the initial outbreak. It isn’t. The health sector in China has been ravished by corruption. Exposing it to the harsh spotlight of extensive media coverage would raise questions about its financing or more pertinent, lack of investment even though billions of dollars have been allocated to the sector. Even a cursory visit to any state hospital would show the chronic lack of investment in what is, after all, still a communist country. 

It is worth bearing in mind that Covid cases in China, a country of 1.4 billion people, barely record a blip on the radar.  According to official figures 5,200 have died since the pandemic began. That works out at about three Covid deaths in every million.

It is 3,000 per million in the US and 2,400 per million in the UK. It must also be pointed out that not all Covid-positive fatalities were caused by Covid, but it still gives an indication of the likely numbers.

Beijing is not threatened by sporadic unrest. It has immense firepower and other measures to deal with protest. Covid restrictions will remain as the loss of face in reducing them would carry a heavy political price. But something has changed. Xi is no longer considered beyond reproach. His policies are facing higher scrutiny in the public arena. Since Mao’s death China has been on a journey. During those tumultuous decades the party has broadly enjoyed public support under the promise of a better and wealthier tomorrow. The Chinese now fear they are being short changed. The women who protested on Sunday gave voice to frustrations shared by millions. 

Tom Clifford, now in China, worked in Qatar with Gulf Times from 1989-1992 and covered the Gulf War for Irish and Canadian newspapers as well as for other media organizations.

Survey of the AgroAbsurd

BY BILL HATCH   

NOVEMBER 30, 2022Facebook

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California Aqueduct. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

The Kumeyaay People have lived in the region between the Pacific Coast of San Diego County, Baja California Norte. and Imperial Valley for 10,000 years. They hunted, fished, gathered and traded according to the seasons, from Bighorn sheep in the mountains to Mesquite beans in the desert, from abalone to yucca, rabbits to pinon nuts. They lived with this land for millennia before there was a Mexico or a United States. Even the desert provided for them abundantly.

But then, shrewd white men arrived and discovered that the soil of this desert was in fact a rich alluvial plain of Colorado River silt that could be cleared, ploughed, harrowed, irrigated, planted and made to grow profitable crops for export on the railroad. So, they bought a great deal of land, developed a small canal from the Colorado, sold land to other white men, who began the new form of gaining food – not by gathering the fruits of this rich desert, but by planting crops and gambling on markets.

Soon, the gamblers started a more ambitious canal, the All-American Canal. It blew out and flowed north into the Salton Sink for three years, creating the Salton Sea. It took the resources of Southern Pacific to stop the flow in 1907.

Farmers went on to develop the desert for more than a century, first creating Imperial County out of eastern San Diego County in 1907. In 1911, they created their most powerful institution, the Imperial Irrigation District.  In 1922 they bargained in the 7-state Colorado River Compact for 3.1 million acre-feet of water out of California’s total share of 4.4 million acre-feet. An acre-foot of water equals 325,851 gallons or three-quarters of a football field covered in a foot of water.

Irrigation ditch, near Tule Lake, California. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Although Imperial Valley is the last stop in the US for the Colorado River, due to its early development of irrigation and the volume of water it wanted and created the irrigation system to get, and the legal doctrine of “Prior appropriation rights” (first in use, first in right), Imperial Valley receives more water than five states in the compact and almost as much as the whole state of Colorado.

Prior appropriation rights are not the only method of distribution of river water in the West. The first water right recorded on the Colorado River was given to the San Luis Peoples’ Ditch, in 1854, a community owned and operated irrigation canal in the San Luis Valley established under the Spanish (ultimately Arab) acequia irrigation system. The New Mexico Acequia Association protects this communal system of water distribution to this day in that state.  Utah also has its own community irrigation tradition. I point this out because so many people, urban or rural, particularly in Southern California, think Imperial Valley is a normal, inevitable fact of human progress.

It isn’t. It’s not normal or inevitable that any California irrigation district should contract to provide 5 acre-feet of water to its members, about 500 farms owned by a few large, absentee farmers, in control of 3.1 million acre-feet of water from a catastrophically overdrawn river. A benchmark figure for irrigation in California is around 3 acre-feet for almond orchards or vineyards.

Harris feed lot, near Coalinga, California. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Today, the largest commodity in Imperial Valley is feedlot cattle, mostly for Holstein steers and heifers, provided by the California dairy industry, largest in the US. Next comes alfalfa, sold to California dairies, feedlots and horse ranches and exported to Asia and Arab countries. Alfalfa is in several ways a beneficial crop: its long roots loosen soil and fix nitrogen in the soil, which tends to improve rather than deplete soils. But the price is more than 6 acre-feet of water to irrigate it.

The feedlot Holstein steers and heifers in those temperatures need between 15-30 gallons a day depending on age and weight, (adapted from Nutrient Requirements of Beef Cattle: Eighth Revised Edition: Updated 2016). Last year the seven Imperial Valley feedlots reported feeding 460,000 head.

Imperial Valley, a desert in the southeast corner of California, hardly figures in the thoughts of urban Southern Californians. Their hectic lives do not foster any curiosity about the crisis of infrastructure, economics, law and politics that underlies their water and power supply. Mainstream Southern California media has pacified environmental concerns for decades and reassures them daily that new technologies to desalinate and recirculate wastewater will provide enough water if, as the usual academic advises, “we use it wisely.”

Whatever may be done, if anything is done about the Colorado River, will be decided by Power and Money, Southern Californians say.

This simple clarity is undimmed by thoughts of the Common Good or the Public Benefit. It is not per se political; in fact, it simply recognizes the brutal private Power and Money operating behind the array of public agencies and bought politicians against state and federal law and regulation.

But Lake Mead, behind Hoover Dam and its electric generators, is at 25-percent capacity. La Nina is still in place and the drought will continue, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Power and money will decide the winners and losers of Colorado River water next year and the decision will be sold as, somehow, beneficial to economic growth and the environment. But, that growth is not for everyone. Imperial, Tulare, and Fresno counties, each national agricultural powerhouses, are the three poorest per capita counties in California.

Irrigation agriculture in the Imperial Valley. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

The Bureau of Reclamation has clearly adjudicated authority to decide apportionment of water in years of drought. Last summer BOR Commissioner Camille Touton gave the three lower river states, Arizona, Nevada and California, a month to come up with a plan for voluntary cutbacks. They didn’t and she didn’t use her authority to mandate cutbacks.

Touton began her political career in Nevada Sen. Harry Reid’s office. The top priority for the river of her boss, Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo, appears to be enforcement of the water rights of the 29 Native American tribes that have been promised since the 1922. The Assistant Secretary for Water and Science is Tanya Trujillo, a Washington resource bureaucracy attorney, who like Haaland, began her political career in New Mexico. Their careers were made by climbing the ladders of NGOs and public agencies and politics that feed on the river for the sake of grants and elite careers.

On the legislative side, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-AZ, has been the chair of the House Natural Resources Committee. His letter to Secretary Haaland last summer began:

“Dear Secretary Haaland, As you know, climate change and unsustainable water use are bringing us close to a catastrophic collapse of the Colorado River System. Avoiding this disastrous outcome will require a major change in status quo management approaches and significant reductions in Colorado River water use by all Colorado River Basin states, including Upper Basin states. Toward that end, in the absence of voluntary water use reductions, I respectfully urge the Department to fully use its existing legal authorities to require an additional 2 to 4 million acre-feet in water conservation to protect the Colorado River System…”

But Grijalva will be removed from his position when Republicans take control of the House. The front runner for House speaker is Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield CA, who is sure to be a powerful advocate for California agribusiness getting every drop of Colorado River water it believes it is owed. Haaland and Touton caved under pressure when Pelosi and Grijalva were in power. What chance has the river, despite Interior’s latest threat last month to impose cuts Grijalva suggested with McCarthy, a split Senate and another Californian, Vice President Kamala Harris. breaking tie votes?

For these reasons, the rotten politics behind the lower-states’ division of river’s water is a scandal concealed by superior PR. Nevada and Arizona will get large cuts next year, but California is likely to get much less because of it political clout, including an agreement with Arizona made 50 years ago:

“’…in 1968 when Arizona went to Congress to get federal funding to build the central Arizona project, California took the legislation hostage and would only allow them to get that federal funding if they agreed to put a clause in that would have Arizona take all of California’s cuts,’ says John Ensminger from the Southern Nevada Water Authority.” By: Joe Moeller , KTNV, Aug 17, 2022

Irrigators’ road signs along I-5 demanding more water and more dams. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Meanwhile, demand for water in the Imperial Valley is growing, irrigation efficiencies cannot keep up with it, the river is in severe decline, the Salton Sea continues to shrink, yet IID’s water rights remain nearly divine in its service area as the river water itself gets saltier by the year.

“In California’s Imperial Valley, which grows about 80 percent of the nation’s winter vegetables, irrigating with Colorado River water has caused some fields to become so salty that they have been abandoned.,, During the 1960s, so much salt flowed into the Colorado River from U.S. farms that Mexico, at the downstream end, could no longer use it for irrigation; a solution was finally negotiated in the 1970s requiring major reductions in the river’s saltiness. Laws were passed, and an array of federal program were created that gave farmers incentives to improve their irrigation methods.” –Jodi Peterson, KYNF, Dec. 22, 2020.

In coming months California will make gestures for the media, like the offer the state made to cut 400,000 acre-feet next year, with IID offering to cut 250,000 acre-feet in the coming season. But in the lower graphs of the story, the IID spokesman added the condition that the federal government would have to help it deal with the Salton Sea, a huge sump for agricultural runoff from Imperial County, which has begun to shrink in recent years, due partly to improved irrigation methods and partly to global warming. The shrinking has left several hundred yards of a shoreline of toxic dusts.  Intense windstorms pick up dust and pollute the air as far north as tony Palm Springs. Plans to mine the bottom for lithium are going forward,  but a recent proposals to pipe in seawater from the Gulf of California failed to get county approval.

Taxpayers, through the mechanism of the Farm Bill (a new one coming next year) and other spending bills aimed at drought-affected farmers, will pick up  much of the losses a few large farmers will sustain, through subsidized crop insurance and payments to fallow land. The grandchildren of the row-crop gamblers of yesteryear are playing with house money these days. But you can’t fallow a date grove or a citrus or almond orchard, and crop insurance doesn’t pay workers not to work in fields that aren’t planted.

The people that will be hardest hit are, as always, the local farmworkers, who live in Imperial Valley or across the line, breathe lousy air, care for their asthmatic children and elders, drink polluted water in punishing heat, and will lose jobs that bureaucrats call “unskilled labor.”

Bill Hatch lives in the Central Valley in California. He is a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade of San Francisco. He can be reached at: billhatch@hotmail.com.