Big Oil Tax Could Boost Global Loss and Damage Fund by 2000%

"The damages resulting from the industry’s operations are disproportionately borne by people who did not cause the crisis," said one campaigner.


Activists protest for loss and damage reparations outside the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on November 11, 2022.
(Photo: Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Eloise Goldsmith
Nov 18, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

A modest tax on the world's seven largest oil and gas companies could generate hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the decade to assist poor and vulnerable communities with the impact of the climate crisis, according to a new analysis out Monday from the groups Greenpeace International and Stamp Out Poverty.

The groups found that a tax on fossil fuel extraction, which would increase each year, combined with additional taxes on excess profits would grow the UN's Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage by more than 2,000%.

The loss and damage fund was created two years ago during the COP27 summit in Egypt with the aim of helping vulnerable countries confront the risings costs of climate disasters. Last year, a group of nations that included the United States made their first financial pledges to the fund—though the size of the U.S. pledge was panned as "paltry" by climate justice advocates. As one of the world's largest fossil fuel emitters, the initial pledge of $17.5 million was miniscule relative to the hundreds of billions in fossil fuel subsidies the U.S. government handed out in 2022.

Total commitments to the loss and damage fund currently hover at around $720 million, according toThe New York Times.

This year, at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, boosting the money in the fund is top of mind for a number of UN leaders.

"The $700 million is obviously insufficient," Jorge Moreira da Silva, the executive director of the United Nations Office for Project Services, toldthe Times.

"In an era of climate extremes, loss & damage finance is a must. And we must get serious about the level of finance required. At #COP29, I urged governments to deliver. In the name of justice," U.N. Sectary-General António Guterres wrote on X as the summit kicked off last week.

The joint analysis—which focused on world's largest publicly traded oil and gas companies, a group that includes ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BP, Equinor, and Eni—illustrates how major polluters could be tapped to support the fund.

Stamp Out Poverty researchers have "found that home government collection of volume-based [climate damages tax] is feasible, with many countries already collecting volume-based revenue from oil and gas producers," according to the report.

The briefing notes that the Climate Damages Tax "would be a fee on the extraction of each tonne of coal, barrel of oil or cubic metre of gas, calculated at a consistent rate based on how much CO2e [carbon dioxide equivalent] is embedded within the fossil fuel."

To illustrate the impact of this tax, Greenpeace and Stamp Out Poverty looked at the estimated costs associated with multiple extreme weather events in 2024 alongside the hypothetical tax revenue.

Hurricane Beryl, which impacted multiple Caribbean islands, Mexico and the U.S. Gulf Coast, caused at least $6.6 billion in estimated damages and losses, according to the report. Meanwhile, imposing a hypothetical Climate Damages Tax on the 2023 carbon emissions from ExxonMobil alone would raise enough money to cover nearly half of that price tag.

ExxonMobil made $38.6 billion in adjusted earnings for 2023, so levying a tax of $5 per tonne of CO2e in 2023 would yield $3.19 billion. Over the first year, the combined revenue from all seven companies would be over $15 billion. As the levy was increased over the two following years, that annual figure would grow to over $37 billion. The analysis, according to its authors "contributes to the growing civil society call for long term tax on fossil fuel extraction."

The report comes on the heels of two weeks of worldwide protests by Greenpeace activists and allies, during which some demonstrators confronted fossil fuel executives about their role in fueling climate disaster and demanded that they "pay for the climate damage they cause."

G20 Leaders Reach 'Landmark Commitment' for Global Tax on Ultrarich


"Now is the time to turn words into action and launch an inclusive international negotiation, extending beyond G20 countries, on the reform of the taxation of the superrich," said economist Gabriel Zucman.


India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, speaks with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as G20 leaders gather at their annual summit in Rio de Janeiro on November 18, 2024.
(Photo: Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Nov 19, 2024

Acknowledging that "the era of the billionaire" is still in full swing across the globe, economic justice advocates on Tuesday applauded a "landmark commitment" by G20 leaders at the group's annual summit in Rio de Janeiro, where delegates agreed to cooperate on efforts to ensure the richest households in the world are taxed fairly.

The final communiqué out of the G20 Summit includes a commitment from 19 countries, the European Union, and the African Union, to "engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed."

"Cooperation could involve exchanging best practices, encouraging debates around tax principles, and devising anti-avoidance mechanisms, including addressing potentially harmful tax practices," reads the communiqué. "We look forward to continuing to discuss these issues in the G20 and other relevant forums, counting on the technical inputs of relevant international organizations, academia, and experts."

The final text was brokered by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula, and the E.U. Tax Observatory noted that Argentina's right-wing president, Javier Milei, "failed to convince other G20 countries to block the communiqué."

The meeting took place less than a year after economist Gabriel Zucman, director of the E.U. Tax Observatory, published a report titledA Blueprint for a Coordinated Minimum Effective Taxation Standard for Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals, which informed G20 finance discussions leading up to the summit.




"A minimum tax on billionaires equal to 2% of their wealth would raise $200-$250 billion per year globally from about 3,000 taxpayers; extending the tax to centimillionaires would add $100-$140 billion," said Zucman, a leading expert on tax avoidance and reducing inequality, in the report.

Billionaires' effective tax rate is currently equivalent to 0.3% of their wealth, requiring them to pay a far lower rate than middle-class taxpayers.

Zucman hailed the agreement out of the summit in Rio de Janeiro as a "historic decision" and said concrete action by the world's governments must follow.

"Now is the time to turn words into action and launch an inclusive international negotiation, extending beyond G20 countries, on the reform of the taxation of the superrich," said Zucman.

Along with Milei, the Biden administration pushed back this year as the G20 weighed Zucman's tax proposal. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen toldThe Wall Street Journal in May that the "notion of some common global arrangement for taxing billionaires with proceeds redistributed in some way—we're not supportive of a process to try to achieve that. That's something we can't sign on to."

As Common Dreamsreported Tuesday, the U.S. is one of eight countries that are contributing to an international loss of $492 billion in taxes each year as multinational corporations and ultrawealthy individuals underpay. The eight countries—which also include Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and the U.K.—oppose a United Nations tax convention.

Jenny Ricks, general secretary of the Fight Inequality Alliance, said that particularly with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump set to take office in January, "we live in the era of the billionaire."

"We need to move to the era of the 99%," said Ricks. "This shift won't come easily. The U.S. elections have shown how the superrich can use their wealth and power to influence policies and shape the outcomes of elections. Leaders like Trump in the U.S. and Javier Milei in Argentina are actively working to derail international cooperation, while politicians around the world fail to oppose the vested interests that continue to benefit from such unequal societies."

"We will fight harder than ever before to transform the rhetoric on taxing the rich into a global reality," she added. "We need more equal societies in which the richest no longer hold all the power and wealth, with devastating consequences. We need to redistribute the wealth of the superrich to fund vital public services and the response to climate change. Such a transformation is essential to creating the alternative we seek to today's broken system."

Viviana Santiago, executive director of Oxfam Brazil, applauded Lula's government and the G20 leaders for responding "to people's demands worldwide to tackle extreme inequality, hunger, and climate breakdown, and particularly for rallying action on taxing the superrich."

"G20 governments deserve praise for their groundbreaking commitment to cooperate on taxing the world's superrich. But we won't rest until this delivers real change for people and planet," said Santiago, adding that governments now ostensibly supporting a tax on billionaires' wealth should also "be championing a $5 trillion climate finance goal at COP29," the U.N. summit set to wrap up in Baku, Azerbaijan this week.

"How can they argue that climate justice is unaffordable with a deal to raise trillions of dollars by taxing the superrich on the table?" she asked.

Quentin Parrinello, policy director at the E.U. Tax Observatory, asserted that negotiations on the tax proposal "must now extend to a much more inclusive space than the G20."

"Such reforms don't happen overnight, but time is pressing," said Parrinello. "This agenda is even more important today, with the risk of geopolitical fragmentation and looming wealth concentration fueling inequality and undermining democracy."

Low-Wage Workers to Democratic Leaders: Fight for Us or Face 'Consequences'


"Democrats must act now to protect workers and show that they are fighting for the people who need them most," said one economic justice leader.


Protesters march during a rally for fair labor practices on May 22, 2023 in Chicago.
(Photo: Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for One Fair Wage)

Julia Conley
Nov 19, 2024
COMMON DREAMS


With Democratic leaders grappling with how to move forward following this month's devastating electoral losses and governors in the party moving to resist President-elect Donald Trump's policies, low-wage workers are planning on Wednesday to send a clear message to several Democrat-led statehouses: Prioritize workers and fair wages, or "face the consequences."

The national economic justice group One Fair Wage, which works closely with restaurant industry and other service workers, is organizing direct actions in Detroit, New York, and Springfield, Illinois, demanding that Democratic leaders in blue states "act decisively" to protect working people from Trump's anti-regulation, pro-corporate agenda.

The group said tipped service workers, advocates, and labor leaders will take part in the actions, in which participants will deliver an open letter calling for the passage of legislation to raise the minimum wage and eliminate subminimum wages.

"Workers in blue states are raising their voices because they cannot afford to wait any longer," said Saru Jayaraman, co-founder and president of One Fair Wage. "With a cost-of-living crisis squeezing families and an anti-worker Trump administration on the horizon, Democratic leaders must act boldly to protect workers and provide economic security. If they fail to prioritize wages and worker protections, they risk losing the trust—and the votes—of the very people they need to win."

The actions come after preliminary demographic data from the election showed working-class voters from a variety of racial backgrounds swung toward Trump. Two-thirds of Trump voters said they had to cut back on groceries because of high prices, according to a New York Times/Siena College survey, compared to only a third of people who supported Vice President Kamala Harris. Latino-majority counties shifted toward the Republican former president by 13 percentage points, and Black-majority counties did the same by about three points.

"Last week's electoral results made one thing clear: Voters overwhelmingly prioritize wages and affordability."

"Last week's electoral results made one thing clear: Voters overwhelmingly prioritize wages and affordability," said Jayaraman.

The actions were planned amid reports that U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, a key adviser to former President Barack Obama, is among those considering a run for chair of the Democratic National Committee—a plan that one former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said seemed aimed at ensuring "the Democratic Party continues to lose working-class voters." Other possible contendersinclude former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and, reportedly, progressive Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler.

One Fair Wage said that following Democratic losses across the country, and with Republicans set to take control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in January, Democratic leaders at the state level must "act boldly on behalf of working families."

In Michigan, workers will call on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to uphold the state Supreme Court's decision to raise the minimum wage and eliminate subminimum wages for tipped workers.

At the Illinois state Capitol, advocates plan to push for statewide legislation to extend fair wages for all workers, building on Chicago's minimum wage reforms.

In New York, One Fair Wage will lead the call for Gov. Kathy Hochul to "safeguard tipped and immigrant workers from the looming anti-worker policies of the incoming Trump administration."

The workers and supporters will deliver their demands to state lawmakers as well as hold "solidarity turkey giveaways for struggling families let down by elected officials."

Since the election, some Democratic governors have pledged to resist Trump's far-right agenda. California Gov. Gavin Newsom called a special legislative session aimed at "Trump-proofing" the state by finalizing climate measures and protecting reproductive and other kinds of healthcare. Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Jared Polis of Colorado announced a coalition that will resist Trump's deportation plan and reinforce key state institutions.

The governors' plans have not specifically mentioned efforts to protect workers from Trump's policies. The president-elect attempted to pass regulations that would make tips the property of employers during his last term, and the National Restaurant Association has pledged to revive such efforts in the next four years.

"There's a glaring omission in these efforts: low-wage and tipped workers," Angelo Greco, a political strategist working with One Fair Wage, told Common Dreams. "When Democrats say they will fight for the most vulnerable, who exactly does that include if not the people earning the lowest wages and facing the greatest economic instability?"


"Tipped workers—many of whom are women, people of color, and immigrants—continue to be paid below the minimum wage in a system rooted in the legacy of slavery," Greco added. "They face Trump's imminent rollback of Biden-era workplace protections, and now restaurant workers are on the front lines of his anti-labor rampage. If governors truly want to protect workers, they must include tipped workers in their efforts."

Jayaraman called on Democrats to "act now to protect workers and show that they are fighting for the people who need them most. Ignoring these demands will lead to alienated voters and further political losses."

Climate Change Gives Us the Chance to Truly Decolonize; Will We Take It?



If we are to safeguard our very existence, climate change will challenge us to rethink, review, and reinvent the very notion of civilization and modernity.


Activists demanding financing for renewable energy projects in Africa demonstrate on day seven of the UNFCCC COP29 Climate Conference on November 18, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan.   SURPRISED THEY AIN'T IN JAIL
(Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Mbong Akiy Fokwa Tsafack
Nov 20, 2024

Common Dreams

As delegates enter the final days of negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan for the 29th seating of the Conference of the Parties—COP29—one thing is certain: These discussions happen under circumstances far different from the early 1990s. At that time, it was an absolute novelty that climate activists were highlighting the consequences of a Euro-North American notion of modernity and civilization rooted in extraction and overconsumption. Today, delegates meet within the framework of a global recognition that colonialism exacerbated climate change and that decolonisation is critical in reversing its effects on humankind.

In its 2022 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made a clear connection between climate change and colonialism, stating that colonialism not only caused climate change but continues to exacerbate the impact of the climate crisis on the most vulnerable around the world. This acknowledgement sent a strong message to the global community and fired up the debate around the need to decolonize our mindsets, economic systems, and definition of modernity and civilization if we are to adequately deal with the climate crisis.

Climate change has inadvertently exposed the inferiority of modern civilization, characterized by a neocolonial economic model rooted in extraction, exploitation, and destruction of nature

2024 has given humanity a foretaste of the apocalypse that awaits us all if we do not rethink our approach to development and make true commitments toward staying below 1.5°C and attaining net-zero carbon dioxide emissions globally by 2050.

With record-high temperatures in several parts of the world this year, the reality of climate change has dawned on even the hardest denialists. Climate change is a lived experience for billions around the world, as floods continue to ravage cities, droughts threaten villages and communities, and wildfires scorch through lives and livelihoods.
Can We Afford to Continue With Business as Usual?

Science tells us we must immediately halt all new investment in fossil fuels. Many countries are making significant strides in the right direction—the U.K. recently announced that it was closing the last of its coal plants following Portugal, Greece, and many others making the switch away from the most polluting fossil fuel. Despite these gains, threats still loom. Trumpism and its “drill baby drill” narrative might have left climate activists feeling despondent, while news reports expose unsettling conversations between the COP29 chair and fossil fuel corporations. The fact of the matter is that no one can truly deny that the world is facing one of its greatest challenges yet and human-made climate change is at the center of it all.

There’s no room for fossil fuels, even though capitalist greed, individualism, and desire for profits over people and the rest of nature still drive the fossil fuel industry. But this industry is well aware of the devastation it has and continues to cause humanity.

COP28 gave a glimpse of hope with terminology to transition away from fossil fuels. COP29 must be more audacious in calling for a full phase out of fossil fuels if we are to reverse the harms of the last 100 years.

Climate Change as a Gift

Unlike many other human-made disasters facing the world—wars, conflicts, economic crises, and political rivalries—climate change has no borders or boundaries. It affects the wealthy and the less privileged, even if the wealthy can adapt better to its damages. The heatwaves, droughts, and the ferocity of the wildfires which science directly link to human activity have cast a dark cloud on the credibility of the Western civilization that has driven global systems in the last 100 years.

this reality calls on every one of us who is confronted with climate change to challenge the Euro-North American notion of a good life, of well-being, of development, of wealth, that has driven us to a climate apocalypse.

Climate change has inadvertently exposed the inferiority of modern civilization, characterised by a neocolonial economic model rooted in extraction, exploitation, and destruction of nature. A civilization that has destroyed the Earth, polarised society, driven individualism and greed, and left our very existence hanging on a thread if we do not act fast to reverse the speed at which the Earth is heating.

Beyond the horrors and misery bestowed on us by extreme weather events, collapsing food systems, and negative health impacts, there may also be a gift in climate change. If we are to safeguard our very existence, climate change will challenge us to rethink, review, and reinvent the very notion of civilization and modernity.

The Imperative of Decolonial Thinking and Decolonisation

Climate talks today should prioritize the need for a decolonial mindset, focusing on an alternative economic model rooted in our relationship with nature, our relationship with self, with each other, and rethinking growth and development.

Wisdom guarded by Indigenous African communities, and other Indigenous communities around the world, shows that it is possible to live great lives, build great empires and kingdoms, while maintaining peace with nature.

Whether world leaders commit to what must be done at COP29 is yet to be seen. However, the reality of a world ravaged by extreme weather events is indisputable. And this reality calls on every one of us who is confronted with climate change to challenge the Euro-North American notion of a good life, of well-being, of development, of wealth, that has driven us to a climate apocalypse.

Whether we like it or not, we will not save ourselves unless we treat the tragedy of climate change as a gift that compels us to do things differently and ultimately to live better lives.



Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Mbong Akiy Fokwa Tsafack is a Pan-African, climate and decolonization activist and executive chairperson of Umoya MwaAfrika.
Full Bio >

Nuclear Propaganda Exposed: The Dirty Truth Behind Government and Industry Claims

The international momentum behind nuclear power reflects a coordinated global effort to promote nuclear as a solution to climate change, despite ongoing concerns about radioactive waste, environmental risks, and the diversion of resources from renewable energy.


Steam rises out of the nuclear plant on Three Mile Island across the river from Goldsboro, Pennyslvania in March 2019.
(Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Lynda Williams
Nov 20, 2024

Common Dreams


As a physicist and concerned citizen, I find myself outraged every time I scroll through social media and encounter tweets from the Department of Energy, or DOE, and the Office of Nuclear Energy, or ONE, touting nuclear power as “clean, safe, and carbon-free.”

This narrative not only misrepresents the dirty reality of nuclear power but also obscures the significant environmental and health risks associated with its production and waste. It’s infuriating to see government agencies knowingly lie and promote such misleading information, while ignoring the pressing issues faced by communities affected by the toxic reality of the nuclear power industry—propaganda paid for by U.S. taxpayers!

Oh, Canada! Leading the Charge Against Nuclear Greenwashing

Finally, someone is doing something about it—but not in the U.S., where you’d expect it. In Canada, a coalition of seven environmental organizations recently filed a formal complaint with the Competition Bureau against the Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA), accusing it of misleading the public by marketing nuclear power as “clean” and “emissions-free.” Based on Canada’s Competition Act, the complaint challenges the CNA for violating provisions related to false or misleading advertising, similar to greenwashing regulations in other countries, where deceptive environmental claims distort market competition and misinform consumers.

The complaint argues that the CNA omits critical information about the environmental damage and health risks associated with the nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium mining, radioactive waste management, and the impacts on communities near nuclear facilities. By selectively framing nuclear power as a climate solution, the CNA diverts attention and resources away from truly sustainable alternatives like solar and wind energy.

In confronting the extremism of a potential Trump administration, it’s more vital than ever to collaborate with Canada and other nations committed to challenging nuclear misinformation.

In the U.S., similar deceptive practices could be challenged under the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act, which includes the FTC’s Green Guides. These guidelines require that any environmental claims be substantiated, transparent, and not misleading about the overall environmental impact. Yet, organizations like the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and the American Nuclear Society (ANS) continue to promote nuclear power as a “clean” energy solution while conveniently ignoring the lifecycle emissions, radioactive waste, and long-term environmental costs.

Leading the charge in Canada are groups such as the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA), Environmental Defence Canada, and the Sierra Club Canada Foundation. Here in the U.S., organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Sierra Club could take similar action against the NEI and ANS by leveraging the FTC’s guidelines to expose deceptive marketing practices in the nuclear sector.

Let’s Be Real: Nuclear Power is Not Clean or Green

Sure, nuclear fission may not produce direct carbon emissions, but the nuclear fuel cycle—including uranium mining, reactor construction, radioactive waste management, and decommissioning—creates significant greenhouse gas emissions. In places like the Navajo Nation, uranium mining has already caused immeasurable harm. Over 523 abandoned uranium mines and mills continue to contaminate the land and water with radioactive waste, leading to severe health problems that affect multiple generations. The DOE’s failure to address these ongoing harms while simultaneously promoting the narrative of “clean, safe, carbon-free” nuclear power is not just unethical—it’s a dangerous distraction from real solutions for our energy needs and the fight against climate change.
Small Modular Reactors: A Costly and Dangerous Gamble

The Biden administration has funneled billions into developing Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), touting them as the future of “clean” energy. This renewed investment includes funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, which together allocate substantial financial support to accelerate the deployment of next-generation nuclear technologies. The push for SMRs is also bolstered by private sector investments, particularly from tech companies looking to power energy-intensive AI applications.

However, this push for nuclear expansion is not happening in isolation. At the recent COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, a declaration was endorsed by 31 countries—including the U.S.—to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050. The declaration emphasized nuclear energy’s crucial role in achieving net-zero emissions, aligning with the U.S. strategy to secure a low-carbon future. The international momentum behind nuclear power reflects a coordinated global effort to promote nuclear as a solution to climate change, despite ongoing concerns about radioactive waste, environmental risks, and the diversion of resources from renewable energy.
The Peak Uranium Crisis

In addition to the delayed deployment of SMRs, high-grade uranium resources are finite, with estimates suggesting they may only last another 10 to 15 years at current consumption rates. This means that SMRs could face fuel shortages before they even become widespread. As high-grade deposits run dry, the industry may turn to in-situ leaching (ISL) methods, which pose severe environmental risks, particularly groundwater contamination. Furthermore, reprocessing nuclear waste—an extremely hazardous and costly endeavor—is not currently practiced in the U.S. due to its dangers. However, as peak uranium approaches, reprocessing may be reconsidered as a necessary but risky solution.

Better Use of Funds: Investing in Renewables

Instead of funneling billions into new unproven nuclear projects, those funds should be redirected to renewable energy sources that are ready for deployment today to reduce carbon emissions. The $4 billion allocated for SMRs could fund solar panels on rooftops for every house in a city the size of Las Vegas.Investments in wind farms and solar plants can achieve far greater reductions in CO2 emissions without the risks of radioactive waste.

Congress has the power to reprogram funds from nuclear projects to support wind, solar, and energy storage, providing immediate climate benefits.

The Way Forward: Taking Action While We Can

People concerned about the DOE’s misleading promotion of nuclear power and SMRs can take meaningful action by contacting the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to advocate for oversight of nuclear greenwashing. Additionally, individuals can request the reprogramming of funds from SMR development to renewable energy initiatives, and they can file complaints with the DOE Office of Inspector General for industry and government greenwashing. We can also support nonprofit environmental groups and ask that they follow Canada’s lead to try to hold the nuclear industry and government agencies accountable. With the Trump administration poised to make sweeping cuts to federal agencies, reduced public oversight could embolden the nuclear industry to expand greenwashing efforts unchecked. Advocacy is more crucial than ever before.

We don’t need to face this challenge alone. In confronting the extremism of a potential Trump administration, it’s more vital than ever to collaborate with Canada and other nations committed to challenging nuclear misinformation. By working together across borders, we can expose the truth, resist industry propaganda, and push for real, sustainable energy solutions that prioritize our planet over corporate interests.

Action Contact InformationSenate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources—Phone: (202) 224-4971 / Website: https://www.energy.senate.gov

FTC fraud reporting—https://reportfraud.ftc.gov

Union of Concerned Scientists—Website: https://www.ucsusa.org / Email: ucs@ucsusa.org

Natural Resources Defense Council—Website: https://www.nrdc.org

Sierra Club—Website: https://www.sierraclub.org




Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Lynda Williams is a physicist and environmental activist living in Hawaii.
Full Bio >

 

Could Trump 2.0 End the American Century?

ITS ALREADY ENDED

IT WAS LAST CENTURY 

Trump’s second term will almost certainly be one of imperial decline, increasing internal chaos, and a further loss of global leadership.



Alfred W. Mccoy
Nov 20, 2024

TomDispatch

Some 15 years ago, on December 5, 2010, a historian writing for TomDispatch made a prediction that may yet prove prescient. Rejecting the consensus of that moment that U.S. global hegemony would persist to 2040 or 2050, he argued that “the demise of the United States as the global superpower could come... in 2025, just 15 years from now.”

To make that forecast, the historian conducted what he called “a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends.” Starting with the global context, he argued that, “faced with a fading superpower,” China, India, Iran, and Russia would all start to “provocatively challenge U.S. dominion over the oceans, space, and cyberspace.” At home in the United States, domestic divisions would “widen into violent clashes and divisive debates… Riding a political tide of disillusionment and despair, a far-right patriot captures the presidency with thundering rhetoric, demanding respect for American authority and threatening military retaliation or economic reprisal.” But, that historian concluded, “the world pays next to no attention as the American Century ends in silence.”

Now that a “far-right patriot,” one Donald J. Trump, has indeed captured (or rather recaptured) the presidency “with thundering rhetoric,” let’s explore the likelihood that a second Trump term in office, starting in the fateful year 2025, might actually bring a hasty end, silent or otherwise, to an “American Century” of global dominion.
Making the Original Prediction

Let’s begin by examining the reasoning underlying my original prediction. (Yes, of course, that historian was me.) Back in 2010, when I picked a specific date for a rising tide of American decline, this country looked unassailably strong both at home and abroad. The presidency of Barack Obama was producing a “post-racial” society. After recovering from the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. was on track for a decade of dynamic growth—the auto industry saved, oil and gas production booming, the tech sector thriving, the stock market soaring, and employment solid. Internationally, Washington was the world’s preeminent leader, with an unchallenged military, formidable diplomatic clout, unchecked economic globalization, and its democratic governance still the global norm.

Looking forward, leading historians of empire agreed that America would remain the world’s sole superpower for the foreseeable future. Writing in the Financial Times in 2002, for instance, Yale professor Paul Kennedy, author of a widely read book on imperial decline, argued that “America’s array of force is staggering,” with a mix of economic, diplomatic, and technological dominance that made it the globe’s “single superpower” without peer in the entire history of the world. Russia’s defense budget had “collapsed” and its economy was “less than that of the Netherlands.” Should China’s high growth rates continue for another 30 years, it “might be a serious challenger to U.S. predominance”—but that wouldn’t be true until 2032, if then. While America’s “unipolar moment” would surely not “continue for centuries,” its end, he predicted, “seems a long way off for now.”

Writing in a similar vein in The New York Times in February 2010, Piers Brendon, a historian of Britain’s imperial decline, dismissed the “doom mongers” who “conjure with Roman and British analogies in order to trace the decay of American hegemony.” While Rome was riven by “internecine strife” and Britain ran its empire on a shoestring budget, the U.S. was “constitutionally stable” with “an enormous industrial base.” Taking a few “relatively simple steps,” he concluded, Washington should be able to overcome current budgetary problems and perpetuate its global power indefinitely.

After the steady erosion of its global power for several decades, America is no longer the—or perhaps even an—“exceptional” nation floating above the deep global currents that shape the politics of most countries.

When I made my very different prediction nine months later, I was coordinating a network of 140 historians from universities on three continents who were studying the decline of earlier empires, particularly those of Britain, France, and Spain. Beneath the surface of this country’s seeming strength, we could already see the telltale signs of decline that had led to the collapse of those earlier empires.

By 2010, economic globalization was cutting good-paying factory jobs here, income inequality was widening, and corporate bailouts were booming—all essential ingredients for rising working-class resentment and deepening domestic divisions. Foolhardy military misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, pushed by Washington elites trying to deny any sense of decline, stoked simmering anger among ordinary Americans, slowly discrediting the very idea of international commitments. And the erosion of America’s relative economic strength from half the world’s output in 1950 to a quarter in 2010 meant the wherewithal for its unipolar power was fading fast.

Only a “near-peer” competitor was needed to turn that attenuating U.S. global hegemony into accelerating imperial decline. With rapid economic growth, a vast population, and the world’s longest imperial tradition, China seemed primed to become just such a country. But back then, Washington’s foreign policy elites thought not and even admitted China to the World Trade Organization (WTO), fully confident, according to two Beltway insiders, that “U.S. power and hegemony could readily mold China to the United States’ liking.”

Our group of historians, mindful of the frequent imperial wars fought when near-peer competitors finally confronted the reigning hegemon of their moment—think Germany versus Great Britain in World War I—fully expected China’s challenge would not be long in coming. Indeed, in 2012, just two years after my prediction, the U.S. National Intelligence Council warned that “China alone will probably have the largest economy, surpassing that of the United States a few years before 2030” and this country would no longer be “a hegemonic power.”

Just a year after that, China’s president, Xi Jinping, drawing on a massive $4 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves accumulated in the decade after joining the WTO, announced his bid for global power through what he called “the Belt and Road Initiative,” history’s largest development program. It was designed to make Beijing the center of the global economy.

In the following decade, the U.S.-China rivalry would become so intense that, last September, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall warned: “I’ve been closely watching the evolution of [China’s] military for 15 years. China is not a future threat; China is a threat today.”
The Global Rise of the Strongman

Another major setback for Washington’s world order, long legitimated by its promotion of democracy (whatever its own dominating tendencies), came from the rise of populist strongmen worldwide. Consider them part of a nationalist reaction to the West’s aggressive economic globalization.

At the close of the Cold War in 1991, Washington became the planet’s sole superpower, using its hegemony to forcefully promote a wide-open global economy—forming the World Trade Organization in 1995, pressing open-market “reforms” on developing economies, and knocking down tariff barriers worldwide. It also built a global communications grid by laying 700,000 miles of fiber-optic submarine cables and then launching 1,300 satellites (now 4,700).

By exploiting that very globalized economy, however, China’s industrial output soared to $3.2 trillion by 2016, surpassing both the U.S. and Japan, while simultaneously eliminating 2.4 million American jobs between 1999 and 2011, ensuring the closure of factories in countless towns across the South and Midwest. By fraying social safety nets while eroding protection for labor unions and local businesses in both the U.S. and Europe, globalization reduced the quality of life for many, while creating inequality on a staggering scale and stoking a working-class reaction that would crest in a global wave of angry populism.

Riding that wave, right-wing populists have been winning a steady succession of elections—in Russia (2000), Israel (2009), Hungary (2010), China (2012), Turkey (2014), the Philippines (2016), the U.S. (2016), Brazil (2018), Italy (2022), the Netherlands (2023), Indonesia (2024), and the U.S. again (2024).

Set aside their incendiary us-versus-them rhetoric, however, and look at their actual achievements and those right-wing demagogues turn out to have a record that can only be described as dismal. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro ravaged the vast Amazon rainforest and left office amid an abortive coup. In Russia, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, sacrificing his country’s economy to capture some more land (which it hardly lacked). In Turkey, Recep Erdogan caused a crippling debt crisis, while jailing 50,000 suspected opponents. In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte murdered 30,000 suspected drug users and courted China by giving up his country’s claims in the resource-rich South China Sea. In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has wreaked havoc on Gaza and neighboring lands, in part to stay in office and stay out of prison.
Prospects for Donald Trump’s Second Term

After the steady erosion of its global power for several decades, America is no longer the—or perhaps even an—“exceptional” nation floating above the deep global currents that shape the politics of most countries. And as it has become more of an ordinary country, it has also felt the full force of the worldwide move toward strongman rule. Not only does that global trend help explain Trump’s election and his recent reelection, but it provides some clues as to what he’s likely to do with that office the second time around.

In the globalized world America made, there is now an intimate interaction between domestic and international policy. That will soon be apparent in a second Trump administration whose policies are likely to simultaneously damage the country’s economy and further degrade Washington’s world leadership.

As the world shifts to renewable energy and all-electric vehicles, Trump’s policies will undoubtedly do lasting damage to the American economy.

Let’s start with the clearest of his commitments: environmental policy. During the recent election campaign, Trump called climate change “a scam” and his transition team has already drawn up executive orders to exit from the Paris climate accords. By quitting that agreement, the U.S. will abdicate any leadership role when it comes to the most consequential issue facing the international community while reducing pressure on China to curb its greenhouse gas emissions. Since these two countries now account for nearly half (45%) of global carbon emissions, such a move will ensure that the world blows past the target of keeping this planet’s temperature rise to 1.5°C until the end of the century. Instead, on a planet that’s already had 12 recent months of just such a temperature rise, that mark is expected to be permanently reached by perhaps 2029, the year Trump finishes his second term.

On the domestic side of climate policy, Trump promised last September that he would “terminate the Green New Deal, which I call the Green New Scam, and rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.” On the day after his election, he committed himself to increasing the country’s oil and gas production, telling a celebratory crowd, “We have more liquid gold than any country in the world.” He will undoubtedly also block wind farm leases on Federal lands and cancel the $7,500 tax credit for purchasing an electrical vehicle.

As the world shifts to renewable energy and all-electric vehicles, Trump’s policies will undoubtedly do lasting damage to the American economy. In 2023, the International Renewable Energy Agency reported that, amid continuing price decreases, wind and solar power now generate electricity for less than half the cost of fossil fuels. Any attempt to slow the conversion of this country’s utilities to the most cost-effective form of energy runs a serious risk of ensuring that American-made products will be ever less competitive.

To put it bluntly, he seems to be proposing that electricity users here should pay twice as much for their power as those in other advanced nations. Similarly, as relentless engineering innovation makes electric vehicles cheaper and more reliable than petrol-powered ones, attempting to slow such an energy transition is likely to make the U.S. auto industry uncompetitive, at home and abroad.

Calling tariffs “the greatest thing ever invented,” Trump has proposed slapping a 20% duty on all foreign goods and 60% on those from China. In another instance of domestic-foreign synergy, such duties will undoubtedly end up crippling American farm exports, thanks to retaliatory overseas tariffs, while dramatically raising the cost of consumer goods for Americans, stoking inflation, and slowing consumer spending.

Reflecting his aversion to alliances and military commitments, Trump’s first foreign policy initiative will likely be an attempt to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. During a CNN town hall in May 2023, he claimed he could stop the fighting “in 24 hours.” Last July, he added: “I would tell [Ukraine’s president] Zelenskyy, no more. You got to make a deal.”

Just two days after the November election, according toThe Washington Post, Trump reputedly told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephone call, “not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of Washington’s sizable military presence in Europe.” Drawing on sources inside the Trump transition team, The Wall Street Journalreported that the new administration is considering “cementing Russia’s seizure of 20% of Ukraine” and forcing Kyiv to forego its bid to join NATO, perhaps for as long as 20 years.

With Russia drained of manpower and its economy pummeled by three years of bloody warfare, a competent negotiator (should Trump actually appoint one) might indeed be able to bring a tenuous peace to a ravaged Ukraine. Since it has been Europe’s frontline of defense against a revanchist Russia, the continent’s major powers would be expected to play a significant role. But Germany’s coalition government has just collapsed; French president Emmanuel Macron is crippled by recent electoral reverses; and the NATO alliance, after three years of a shared commitment to Ukraine, faces real uncertainty with the advent of a Trump presidency.
America’s Allies

Those impending negotiations over Ukraine highlight the paramount importance of alliances for U.S. global power. For 80 years, from World War II through the Cold War and beyond, Washington relied on bilateral and multilateral alliances as a critical force multiplier. With China and Russia both rearmed and increasingly closely aligned, reliable allies have become even more important to maintaining Washington’s global presence. With 32 member nations representing a billion people and a commitment to mutual defense that has lasted 75 years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is arguably the most powerful military alliance in all of modern history.

Yet Trump has long been sharply critical of it. As a candidate in 2016, he called the alliance “obsolete.” As president, he mocked the treaty’s mutual-defense clause, claiming even “tiny” Montenegro could drag the U.S. into war. While campaigning last February, he announced that he would tell Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO ally that didn’t pay what he considered its fair share.

Right after Trump’s election, caught between what one analyst called “an aggressively advancing Russia and an aggressively withdrawing America,” French President Macron insisted that the continent needed to be a “more united, stronger, more sovereign Europe in this new context.” Even if the new administration doesn’t formally withdraw from NATO, Trump’s repeated hostility, particularly toward its crucial mutual-defense clause, may yet serve to eviscerate the alliance.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the American presence rests on three sets of overlapping alliances: the AUKUS entente with Australia and Britain, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (with Australia, India, and Japan), and a chain of bilateral defense pacts stretching along the Pacific littoral from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines. Via careful diplomacy, the Biden administration strengthened those alliances, bringing two wayward allies, Australia and the Philippines that had drifted Beijing-wards, back into the Western fold. Trump’s penchant for abusing allies and, as in his first term, withdrawing from multilateral pacts is likely to weaken such ties and so American power in the region.

Although his first administration famously waged a trade war with Beijing, Trump’s attitude toward the island of Taiwan is bluntly transactional. “I think, Taiwan should pay us for defense,” he said last June, adding: “You know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything.” In October, he toldThe Wall Street Journal that he would not have to use military force to defend Taiwan because China’s President Xi “respects me and he knows I’m f—— crazy.” Bluster aside, Trump, unlike his predecessor Joe Biden, has never committed himself to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack.

Should Beijing indeed attack Taiwan outright or, as appears more likely, impose a crippling economic blockade on the island, Trump seems unlikely to risk a war with China. The loss of Taiwan would break the U.S. position along the Pacific littoral, for 80 years the fulcrum of its global imperial posture, pushing its naval forces back to a “second island chain” running from Japan to Guam. Such a retreat would represent a major blow to America’s imperial role in the Pacific, potentially making it no longer a significant player in the security of its Asia-Pacific allies.
A Silent U.S. Recessional

Adding up the likely impact of Donald Trump’s policies in this country, Asia, Europe, and the international community generally, his second term will almost certainly be one of imperial decline, increasing internal chaos, and a further loss of global leadership. As “respect for American authority” fades, Trump may yet resort to “threatening military retaliation or economic reprisal.” But as I predicted back in 2010, it seems quite likely that “the world pays next to no attention as the American Century ends in silence.”

© 2023 TomDispatch.com


Alfred W. Mccoy is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the author of "In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power". Previous books include: "Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation" (University of Wisconsin, 2012), "A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror (American Empire Project)", "Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State", and "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade".
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ICYMI

Cosmic Jokesters Buy Cesspool of Hatemongering Psycopath Who Is Not Taking It Well


Alex Jones on Infowars
Screenshot from Infowars

FURTHER
Abby Zimet
Nov 19, 2024
COMMON DREAMS


Oh sweet justice. We salute the supremely ironic sale of Alex Jones' vicious Infowars - now bankrupt thanks to the $1.4 billion he owes Sandy Hook families for claiming the massacre of their children was a hoax - to the satirical wise-acres of The Onion, working with those families. Aptly,The Onion's most iconic headline is on gun violence - "'No Way To Prevent This’, Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens"; it has run 37 times. They call their new buy "probably one of the better jokes we’ve ever told."

Surely there could be no riper moment for such schadenfreude than in these surreal times, when a sexual-assaulting Fox host may be running the Defense Department, a child-trafficking clown could be A.G., a road-kill-eating anti-vaxer might be making our health decisions, and the timeless question will resonate ever more deeply: Is this (mostly terrifying, occasionally uproarious) story real, or from The Onion? Of course the loopy meltdowns and fever dreams and new world order conspiracies of Jones' venomous show always seemed too weird to be real. Fake moon landing! Machete race war! Sex with goblins! Illuminati linked to Hillary and Lady Gaga! Often sobbing, he ripped off his shirt - Watch this! - screamed 1776 WILL COMMENCE AGAIN IF YOU TRY TO TAKE OUR FIREARMS, ranted the lining in juice boxes was making our children gay and the Pentagon-tested gay bomb on Eye-raq and our troops was doing it to adults and PUTTING CHEMICALS IN THE WATER TURNS THE FRIGGIN' FROGS GAY. "I'M SICK OF BEING SOCIAL ENGINEERED!" he shrieked. "ITS NOT FUNNY." No, it's not.

It was also not funny when he claimed America's bloody, ceaseless shootings - Gabbie Giffords, Boston Marathon et a l- were staged propaganda using "crisis actors" in order to wrest Americans' guns from their cold dead hands. Most grotesquely, he repeatedly claimed 2012's grisly murder of 20 first-graders, along with six educators, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax, as were all those small bodies mutilated beyond recognition and the grieving, ravaged families who had to endure them. Faced with those impossible losses as well as Jones' lies and threats from his followers, the Sandy Hook families sued him, for years keeping up a legal fight for "true accountability," aka "an end to Infowars and an end to Jones' ability to spread lies, pain and fear." Under relentless pressure - and after eventually acknowledging the shooting was real - he offered them more and more money if they'd let him stay on the air spewing vitriol; they rejected each offer because not doing so "would have put other families in harm’s way."

This fall, after the families won a $1.4 billion defamation judgment against Jones' "willful and malicious" actions, a U.S. bankruptcy judge finally ordered Infowars and its assets be sold off at auction, from its Austin studio, equipment, trademarks, video archive to its snake-oil nutritional supplement store. Last week, The Onion announced its parent company Global Tetrahedron was the winning bidder; they plan to relaunch a parody version of the site in January, thus seizing a fetid platform for hateful, right-wing skulduggery and turning it into its own mordant, smart-mouthed, big-hearted soapbox. In an "especially sweet bit of justice," they worked with Sandy Hook's non-profit Everytown for Gun Safety, which will contribute gun violence prevention stories to the site. "We thought it would be hilarious if we bought this thing," they said of a choice to leave Jones "unpunished for what he's done to these families, or we could make a dumb, stupid website, and we decided to do the second thing. We hope (the) families will be able to marvel at the cosmic joke we'll soon make of InfoWars."

It's a sublimely bonkers pairing for "America’s Finest News Source," which boasts of "rising from its humble beginnings in 1756" to grow into "the single most powerful organization in human history," with "a daily readership of 4.3 trillion people" supporting "over 350,000 journalism jobs in its news bureaus and labor camps around the world." Its headlines, often witlessly taken at face value, are its macabre crown jewels: "Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex," "Trump Boys Have Slap Fight Over Who Gets To Run Foreign Policy Meetings," "RFK Jr. Vows To Ban Soaps That Smell So Good You Eat A Little," followed by "RFK Jr. Performs "Self-Surgery To Extract Big Mac," which he ate on Trump's plane. They also offered civic lessons for Democrats from the last sorry election: "Lock in John Legend’s endorsement earlier," "Try to not already hold the presidency when a thing happens that voters dislike, "Appeal to other demographics beyond the Cheney family," "One more fundraising text would’ve done the job," and the reminder, "The soul of America is a black expanse."

They offer books - "Our Dumb Country" - and many videos: "Expert Explains Why Essentially You're Fucked," "U.S. Deploys Socially Awkward Men Along Border to Deter Migrants," "Neo-Nazi Pulls Off Surprise Victory In Longheld KKK District," "Conservative Man Proudly Frightened of Everything," from cartoons to Chinese babies to big coastal cities to languages that aren't English." There's even a horoscope - for Scorpios, "Stop avoiding conflict just because you're afraid of killing again" - and FAQs. "How can I bring The Onion to my event? The writers and editors are available for speaking engagements at universities, conferences and meet-ups for disgraced veterinarians." "What if I want to sue The Onion? Please do not do that." "Where can I find The Onion? The Onionis all around you." Given the nation's bloody history - at least 125 people a day killed by guns, twice as many wounded - their famous "No Way To Prevent This" headline was published "entirely too often," including the day after the Uvalde shooting, when its entire front page was plastered with reprints of 21 earlier iterations.

The gun-obsessed Jones was a frequent target. For the resolute, grieving families of Sandy Hook, his downfall is "the justice we have long awaited and fought for," said Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting. The families' attorney Chris Mattei called them "heroes" intent on bringing down Jones, "the perpetrator of the worst defamation in American history." John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown, praised their new partnership, including a multi-year advertising agreement. "It made all the sense in the world," he said, citing their access to gun violence research and data. He also nailed "really the bottom line here, and that is poetic justice." Having resumed his rabid show from a new studio and on X, Jones has reacted as gracefully as you'd expect, raging the sale is "a total attack on free speech," the auction was "rigged" with "money that isn't real," he's working with "good guy bidders" to keep him on the air, and with the inexplicable arrival of Elon Musk on the scene, "If you want a fight, you got one. "Trump is pissed," he snarled. "The cavalry is here."

Thursday, in a new legal wrangle, federal bankruptcy judge Christopher Lopez ordered a hearing to review the sale after a lawyer for the only other bidder alleged "fraud and impermissible collusion" in the auction. The bidder, First United American Companies, runs Jones' snake-oil business; their lawyer said their bid was higher, and auction trustee Christopher Murray violated earlier court-ordered rules by skipping an optional final round of bids. Calling the allegations "baseless" and "bullying from a disappointed bidder," he acknowledged their bid was higher: $3.5 million to The Onion's $1.75 million. But The Onion offered incentives by Sandy Hook families to forego up to 100% of the proceeds, enabling other Jones creditors to recover far more than under First United’s larger, but smaller-minded bid. "The sale is currently underway, pending standard processes," insisted Onion CEO Ben Collins, who used to write for NBC about paranoid quacks like Jones. "The idea he was just going to walk away (without) doing this sort of thing is funny in itself." Along with cash, he added, "We also accept Bitcoin."

In a Monday "editorial" about buying Infowars, Global Tetrahedron's "CEO" Bryce P. Tetraeder celebrated their "new addition" to the Global "family" whose members, like all families, are "abstract nodes (of) interchangeable assets for their patriarch to absorb and discard according to the opaque whims of the market." Buying Infowars was "an easy decision," he said, with its "true unicorn" mix of "delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks (to) make life both scarier and longer," and "a well-deserved victory for multinational elites." On Bluesky, Collins noted real media had requested interviews with "Tetraeder," who alas was "on his superyacht (to) do a quality control check at one of our 43,000 global puppy mills.” But The Onion is still churning out news. On Tuesday, it reported, "Trump Locks Bathroom Door So Elon Musk Can't Follow Him In" after "an audibly frustrated Trump" earlier stood up from the toilet to throw Musk out. "Bad Elon," he said. "Now, go to your kennel and lie down." Later, Trump reportedly sent Musk "to be neutered after he got out of his crate and impregnated dozens of female aides."


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Abby Zimet  has written CD's Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: azimet18@gmail.com
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An 83-year-old short story by Borges portends a bleak future for the internet

Fifty years before the architecture for the web was created, Jorge Luis Borges had already imagined an analog equivalent. 

Sophie Bassouls/Sygma via Getty Images

The Conversation

November 20, 2024

How will the internet evolve in the coming decades?

Fiction writers have explored some possibilities.

In his 2019 novel “Fall,” science fiction author Neal Stephenson imagined a near future in which the internet still exists. But it has become so polluted with misinformation, disinformation and advertising that it is largely unusable.

Characters in Stephenson’s novel deal with this problem by subscribing to “edit streams” – human-selected news and information that can be considered trustworthy.

The drawback is that only the wealthy can afford such bespoke services, leaving most of humanity to consume low-quality, noncurated online content.

To some extent, this has already happened: Many news organizations, such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, have placed their curated content behind paywalls. Meanwhile, misinformation festers on social media platforms like X and TikTok.

Stephenson’s record as a prognosticator has been impressive – he anticipated the metaverse in his 1992 novel “Snow Crash,” and a key plot element of his “Diamond Age,” released in 1995, is an interactive primer that functions much like a chatbot.

On the surface, chatbots seem to provide a solution to the misinformation epidemic. By dispensing factual content, chatbots could supply alternative sources of high-quality information that aren’t cordoned off by paywalls.

Ironically, however, the output of these chatbots may represent the greatest danger to the future of the web – one that was hinted at decades earlier by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
The rise of the chatbots

Today, a significant fraction of the internet still consists of factual and ostensibly truthful content, such as articles and books that have been peer-reviewed, fact-checked or vetted in some way.

The developers of large language models, or LLMs – the engines that power bots like ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini – have taken advantage of this resource.

To perform their magic, however, these models must ingest immense quantities of high-quality text for training purposes. A vast amount of verbiage has already been scraped from online sources and fed to the fledgling LLMs.

The problem is that the web, enormous as it is, is a finite resource. High-quality text that hasn’t already been strip-mined is becoming scarce, leading to what The New York Times called an “emerging crisis in content.”

This has forced companies like OpenAI to enter into agreements with publishers to obtain even more raw material for their ravenous bots. But according to one prediction, a shortage of additional high-quality training data may strike as early as 2026.

As the output of chatbots ends up online, these second-generation texts – complete with made-up information called “hallucinations,” as well as outright errors, such as suggestions to put glue on your pizza – will further pollute the web.

And if a chatbot hangs out with the wrong sort of people online, it can pick up their repellent views. Microsoft discovered this the hard way in 2016, when it had to pull the plug on Tay, a bot that started repeating racist and sexist content.

Over time, all of these issues could make online content even less trustworthy and less useful than it is today. In addition, LLMs that are fed a diet of low-calorie content may produce even more problematic output that also ends up on the web.
An infinite − and useless − library

It’s not hard to imagine a feedback loop that results in a continuous process of degradation as the bots feed on their own imperfect output.

A July 2024 paper published in Nature explored the consequences of training AI models on recursively generated data. It showed that “irreversible defects” can lead to “model collapse” for systems trained in this way – much like an image’s copy and a copy of that copy, and a copy of that copy, will lose fidelity to the original image.

How bad might this get?

Consider Borges’ 1941 short story “The Library of Babel.” Fifty years before computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee created the architecture for the web, Borges had already imagined an analog equivalent.

In his 3,000-word story, the writer imagines a world consisting of an enormous and possibly infinite number of hexagonal rooms. The bookshelves in each room hold uniform volumes that must, its inhabitants intuit, contain every possible permutation of letters in their alphabet

. 

In Borges’ imaginary, endlessly expansive library of content, finding something meaningful is like finding a needle in a haystack.

aire images/Moment via Getty Images

Initially, this realization sparks joy: By definition, there must exist books that detail the future of humanity and the meaning of life.

The inhabitants search for such books, only to discover that the vast majority contain nothing but meaningless combinations of letters. The truth is out there –but so is every conceivable falsehood. And all of it is embedded in an inconceivably vast amount of gibberish.

Even after centuries of searching, only a few meaningful fragments are found. And even then, there is no way to determine whether these coherent texts are truths or lies. Hope turns into despair.

Will the web become so polluted that only the wealthy can afford accurate and reliable information? Or will an infinite number of chatbots produce so much tainted verbiage that finding accurate information online becomes like searching for a needle in a haystack?

The internet is often described as one of humanity’s great achievements. But like any other resource, it’s important to give serious thought to how it is maintained and managed – lest we end up confronting the dystopian vision imagined by Borges.

Roger J. Kreuz, Associate Dean and Professor of Psychology, University of Memphis

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.