Arms Makers Target Kids to Boost Sales

By Jonathan Ng

September 23, 2022

Originally published by Truthout.

In August, authorities in Hondo, Texas, revoked a permit for an NRA-affiliated group to hold its fundraiser on city property. The event featured a raffle for an AR-15, the same assault rifle that slaughtered 21 people in nearby Uvalde last May. At a city council meeting, families of the victims read the names of the slain, cradled their portraits, and denounced the arms lobby’s audacity. “It is a slap in the face to all of Uvalde,” explained Jazmin Cazares, who lost a sister in the massacre.

As gun ownership in the U.S. declines, arms makers have embraced the youth market to avoid industry contraction. Trade magazines such as Junior Shooters openly market rifles to children. And a recent lawsuit revealed that Remington sales tactics target minors.

The confrontation between Uvalde families and the NRA highlights the polarizing strategy and political heft of arms makers. Yet it also reveals their irreducibly economic interests. Although the industry claims to defend the Constitution and individual liberty, it has spawned a gun violence epidemic by liberalizing markets and aggressively pursuing profits.

The Political Turn

For half a century, arms makers have mobilized to destroy barriers to the industry’s growth and profits. Indeed, the modern gun lobby coalesced in response to mounting pressure for gun control.

In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy with a Mannlicher-Carcano, a surplus rifle that he purchased through the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine. Three years later, a sniper at the University of Texas at Austin killed 14 people, further fueling calls for reform and inspiring Peter Bogdanovich to film his classic thriller, Targets.

After shooters felled Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Gun Control Act (1968), imposing regulations on mail order purchases and prohibiting those with felony convictions, drug users and people with intellectual disabilities from buying arms.

Its passage triggered fierce industry resistance. In reaction, arms makers converted their economic clout into political power by wading into the nascent culture wars. They turned guns into potent symbols of American masculinity, grassroots democracy and rugged individualism by evoking the mythos of the frontier and feeding nostalgia for an imagined past of consensus, tradition and harmony.

By the late 1970s Harlon Carter led the NRA, while pioneering the brand of reactionary populism that Donald Trump later adopted. In particular, he employed the coded rhetoric of “law and order” to talk about race and promote arms sales in the same breath. Before joining border patrol, Carter murdered a Latino boy in Texas, brutally enforcing the color line.

Under his leadership, the industry propounded an “individual rights” interpretation of the Second Amendment, claiming that the Constitution enshrined the right of all citizens to own guns—a novel argument that held little water in legal circles.

Populist Gunslingers

In 1980, the NRA entered the electoral fray by endorsing Ronald Reagan for president. The decision had layers of symbolism; Reagan was a former actor who previously starred in the very Westerns that gave American gun culture much of its ideological content and allure.

Over the next two decades, the NRA became the vanguard of the New Right, as conservatives waged cultural warfare, mobilizing voters over topics such as gun control, abortion and gay marriage. To maintain popular militancy, the lobby fostered a sense of permanent crisis. NRA ads were shrill, featuring headlines like “How Much Tape Is Too Much When He Threatens to Kill You?”

Privately, officials bragged that they “pour gasoline on the fire.”

But their words have sown firestorms. In the spring of 1995, Vice President Wayne LaPierre claimed that “jack-booted Government thugs” are poised to “take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property and even injure and kill us.” Shortly afterward, the veteran NRA member Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. McVeigh believed the government conspired to confiscate his guns.

The NRA navigated the fallout by naming Charlton Heston president. Under Heston, membership soared to 4 million, and the organization helped elect George W. Bush in 2000 by a razor-thin margin. The election instilled fear of the NRA among Democrats, who remained silent on gun control for the next decade.

Best known for starring in The Ten Commandments, Heston perfectly fused religious zeal with nationalist conviction. To the NRA faithful, he was an American Moses. He represented the endangered America that heartland conservatives saw in themselves; the leader guiding the remnant of the nation that remaine —like ancient Israel—exiles in their own country, while clinging to the Second Amendment as sacred scripture.

Indeed, Heston depicted gun owners as a threatened minority. “I remember when European Jews feared to admit their faith. The Nazis forced them to wear yellow stars as identity badges. So,” Heston asked, “what color star will they pin on gun owners’ chests?”

Industry Capture

Under his leadership, the lobby launched a legislative offensive. In 2003, the NRA guided passage of the Tiahrt Amendment, which inhibits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from publicly identifying crime weapons and sharing evidence with law enforcement. The next year, corporate pressure blocked renewal of the assault rifle ban. Then in 2005, the industry rammed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) through Congress, shielding companies from lawsuits when crimes involve their guns.

Ultimately, the industry’s biggest victory occurred in 2008, when the Supreme Court accepted its ample reading of the Second Amendment in D.C. v. Heller. Its fingerprints were all over the ruling. The case’s mastermind, Robert Levy, was a fellow at the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank co-founded by Charles Koch of the Koch brothers. And only months before the ruling, Charles Koch hosted Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas at his personal retreat.

Arms makers had already embedded Scalia in their camp. In 2007, the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities (WFSA), an international offshoot of the NRA, awarded him its “Sport Shooting Ambassador Award” — turning him into an honorary lobbyist. His majority opinion in Heller heavily cited scholarship that the NRA funded.

Meanwhile, the industry invested in lobbying. Between 2005 and April 2011, “corporate partners” contributed between $14.7 and $38.9 million to the NRA. While publicly denying the nonprofit received industry funds, LaPierre informed executives that it was “geared toward your company’s corporate interests.” Beretta, Glock, Ruger, and other firms generously contributed to its coffers. CEO James Debney of Smith & Wesson explained that the NRA is “our voice.”

Targeting Children

Yet gradually, a trail of mass shootings shifted public opinion and drained the industry’s legitimacy. In 2012, the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Newtown Connecticut became one of the deadliest in U.S. history, while gripping the community with muted symbolism: The sleepy town was the headquarters of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF)—the official industry lobby. A future NRA director, Joshua Powell, recalls preparing for combat. As “the bodies… were still bleeding,” Powell admits, he and his colleagues “quickly moved into fighting mode…. The adrenaline and seductive intensity of the fight was palpable. It was all I could focus on.”

Powell describes the immediate and growling response of Ackerman-McQueen, the NRA’s publicity firm: “We’re not giving a fucking inch.” Under its guidance, Vice President LaPierre assured the country, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

Yet the massacre was a turning point, galvanizing a movement for gun control, fracturing faith in the industry line, and driving a wedge between cautious Democrats and the NRA. By then, the effects of gun violence were graphically clear. Between Columbine in 1999 and 2021, over 240,000 students were on campuses during shootings. In the 2017-2018 school year alone, at least 4.1 million children—and possibly up to 10 percent of the country’s student body—participated in lockdowns. Across the nation, kids scribbled out wills and texted loved ones goodbye.

Incredibly, Thompson/Center Arms had previously debuted a tiny gun for six-year-olds.

To temper public anger after Sandy Hook, the NRA promoted its Eddie Eagle program, which teaches children proper gun etiquette. The American Academy of Pediatrics concluded that it was ineffectual. Still, the NRA hired education specialist Lisa Monroe of Oklahoma University to revamp it in 2015. She only learned afterward that the industry proposed it as an alternative to child access laws. “If they had,” Monroe stressed, “I wouldn’t have anything to do with it.”

Founder Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action asserts that Eddie Eagle is “a propaganda tool, similar to Joe Camel in marketing cigarettes to kids.” Her critique is painfully plausible. In recent decades, gun ownership has fallen drastically in the United States. While claiming to promote child safety, companies aggressively market to young customers, in order to ensure the social reproduction of the industry and its political base.

“What market isn’t tied to juniors?” Junior Shooters stressed the year of Sandy Hook. The NSSF and NRA sponsor the magazine, which targets children and features advertisements for assault rifles. One sponsor, Bushmaster Firearms, produced the AR-15 that tore apart Newtown; the title of one article was “Why I Love Bushmaster AR-15s… You Should, Too.”

Incredibly, Thompson/Center Arms had previously debuted a tiny gun for six-year-olds. Marlin appealed to children with a real-life “Marlin Man” (again the Joe Camel comparison beckons), while introducing a new rifle line. “These rifles are not just sized for kids,” the company boasted, “they’re completely designed for kids.”

Leading firms, such as Smith & Wesson and Beretta even offer “youth model” assault rifles, favoring plastic components that minimize recoil and flashy colors that attract children. And while making customers, they spread gun culture. Advertising imbues the weapons with emotional heft, fostering the fanatical attachment and easy access to arms that shooters from Columbine to Newtown have made notorious.

Simply put, children with assault rifles are not an anomaly. Rather, they embody two main industry trends. For decades, firms have both expanded and militarized the civilian market. In a country already saturated with guns, companies boost lethality to artificially stoke demand and attract new customers—including children. Firms rely on their orders to achieve economies of scale for military-grade weapons. And perversely, they sell arms to law enforcement to enhance their appeal in the larger and more profitable civilian market.

Globalizing the Second Amendment

Most media coverage focuses on domestic shootings, but the gun violence epidemic bleeds across borders. Beyond children, the industry vigorously pursues foreign clients. Under Secretary of State John Bolton and NRA officials led the U.S. delegation to the UN talks that culminated in the Arms Trade Treaty (2013), opposing any attempt to restrict arms flows. Later, Bolton himself became an NRA director and oversaw an export boom as national security advisor.

Industry officials even pursued the Russian market. In 2015, the NRA funded a trip to Russia for its directors, who illegally exploited it to pursue business deals and meet officials on the U.S. Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list.

Future NRA president Peter Brownell emphasized that he came seeking “an import or export opportunity.” Russian liaisons assured him that the trip “would DEFINITELY be profitable.” Afterward, a congressional investigation concluded that Russia manipulated the NRA to penetrate conservative circles and conduct espionage.

Yet the industry’s shadow hangs heaviest south of the border. Approximately 70 percent of gun crimes in Mexico involve U.S. arms, which flow in an iron torrent over the Rio Grande. Even European firms like Glock and Beretta exploit U.S. law to circumvent export controls in their own countries and inundate the region with bullets. When the U.S. assault weapons ban elapsed in 2004, homicide rates in Mexico skyrocketed. That year, only one-fourth of homicides involved a gun; by 2019, the figure was 72 percent.

As cartels and authorities pursued a relentless arms race, Mexico’s homicide rate topped 164,000 people in seven years. In 2014, U.S. guns notoriously facilitated the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa, who were about to commemorate the Tlatelolco Massacre—another atrocity involving U.S. arms.

Still, the industry blocked reform. The NRA announced a “battle” to guarantee legislators “do not use Mexico as an excuse to sacrifice our Second Amendment rights.” That fight is ongoing. Last year, Mexico sued 11 arms firms in federal court in Boston, claiming they knowingly fuel the violence.

In sum, the industry has fostered violence in the Americas, where six countries alone accounted for over half the globe’s gun-related deaths in 2018. Yet while dismantling barriers to accumulation, the NRA’s conservative base constructs border walls for the very refugees fleeing the bloodshed.

Value in Motion

In 2018, a teenager at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida followed a worn-out script, slaughtering 17 people with an AR-15. But common sense had evolved, and the country was in a boiling mood. The next month, students in 90 percent of voting districts protested arms violence. Gun control activists outspent the industry for the first time that year in elections.

By then, the organization was in shambles, facing bankruptcy, sex scandals and corruption charges. Powell admits that the “waste and dysfunction” was “staggering.” Despite the organization’s nonprofit status, directors practiced nepotism, siphoned funds and funneled contracts to friends. A former senior IRS official called its case “extraordinary”—“one of the broadest arrays of likely transgressions that I’ve ever seen.”

The disgraceful saga reached its climax on January 6, 2021, as protesters converged on the Capitol to contest the presidential election and reinstall Donald Trump, who received massive industry donations. Days before, LaPierre warned about “armed government agents storming your house,” while exhorting conservatives to “STOP GUN CONFISCATION.” In response, gun rights activists invaded the Capitol, including Richard Barnett, who seized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, and William Calhoun, who declared he would sling “enough hot lead” to stack bodies “like cordwood.”

Since then, the January 6 coup and an interminable string of mass shootings has electrified demands for reform. This summer, President Joe Biden signed a bill that bolsters background checks, mental health care and school security. And a judge ruled that a lawsuit against the NRA for violations of its nonprofit status can continue.

Yet the industry’s political base remains powerful, and the race for accumulation persists. For if the subtext of gun rights includes white nationalism and virulent anti-statism, it also includes profit. From the industry’s standpoint, shattering bullets are simply value in motion. In many ways, this history is a withering commentary on the corrosive power of capitalism; the mirror of a society where child sacrifice is tribute to the Second Amendment, and the Second Amendment protects corporate profit. As the U.S. further polarizes, the gun debate illuminates dividing lines with fire and lead.

The author would like to thank Sarah Priscilla Lee of the Learning Sciences Program at Northwestern University for reviewing this article.

Copyright, Truthout.org

Capitalism is bad for your health: study

By Matthew Rozsa

September 23, 2022

A homeless man sleeps under an American Flag blanket on a park bench. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

When supporters of capitalism claim that capitalism is an effective economic system, they often will begin by disputing capitalism's dual legacies of environmental destruction and inefficiency before arguing that capitalism leads to widespread prosperity. To support that last point, capitalists may cite a popular graph developed by the World Bank economist Martin Ravallion. At first glance it seems unremarkable, showing nothing but a straight diagonal line that plummets down. Upon further analysis, however, the Ravallion graph purports to prove that the global percentage of humans living in extreme poverty fell from roughly 90% in 1820 to roughly 10% in the early 21st century.

"The social dislocation associated with capitalism was so severe that, as of the most recent year of data, in many countries key welfare indicators remain lower than they were hundreds of years ago."

The Ravallion graph has gone viral since its inception, having been promoted by capitalists and capitalism sympathizers from Bill Gates to Steven Pinker. Yet despite its popularity, a new study in the journal World Development argues that the Ravallion graph's premise is fundamentally flawed — and, more importantly, that for the last 500 years unregulated capitalism has consistently worsened rather than improved living conditions.

The study — which was led by co-authors Dr. Dylan Sullivan of Macquarie University in Australia and Dr. Jason Hickel of Autonomous University of Barcelona and the London School of Economics and Political Science — concludes that extreme poverty was uncommon throughout history except when there were external causes of severe economic and social dislocation. Indeed, the rise of capitalism half a millennium ago led to a sharp uptick in human beings living below subsistence levels. When mass conditions began to improve around the turn of the 20th century, it was because of political movements that threw off colonialist regimes and used the government to redistribute wealth.

Sullivan and Hickel also pointedly critique the Ravillion graph, which Sullivan told Salon by email "suffers from several empirical flaws." By estimating poverty incomes with historical data about gross domestic product (GDP), the graph overlooks the suffering that occurs when people lose access to resources that they need but did not previously obtain as commodities. "If a forest is enclosed for timber, or subsistence farms are razed and replaced with cotton plantations, GDP goes up," Sullivan pointed out. "But this tells us nothing about what local communities lose in terms of their use of that forest or their access to food." In addition, the study relied on the World Bank's definition of the poverty line as being $1.90 purchasing power parity (PPP) per day, even though poverty is best assessed by determining whether wages are high enough and prices are affordable enough that the masses have easy access to essential goods like housing, food and fuel. Finally, Sullivan and Hickel criticize the graph for only going as far back as 1820, even though the current system of global capitalism began in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

That last criticism explains why, for their paper, Sullivan and Hickel started with the dawn of modern capitalism in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The scholars' research then spanned all over the globe while focusing on three data points linked to human welfare — real wages, height and mortality.

"Thankfully, we were able to draw on the invaluable work of economic historians, who have painstakingly gathered historical data on real wages, human height, and mortality rates over several centuries," Sullivan wrote to Salon. Analyzing the data, Sullivan and Hickel found that any region of the world which developed a capitalist economic system — defined here as an economic system global in scale and that is predicated on what Sullivan described as "the ceaseless accumulation of private wealth" — soon suffered from a sharp decline in living standards for the masses.

"Everywhere capital goes, it leaves a footprint on the empirical indicators of human welfare," Sullivan told Salon. "The social dislocation associated with capitalism was so severe that, as of the most recent year of data, in many countries key welfare indicators remain lower than they were hundreds of years ago." As of the 2000s, an unskilled Mexican wage laborer earned on average 23% less than that person would have earned in 1700. Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, real wages in India in the 2000s are lower than they had been more than 400 years earlier — in 1595.

There are documented physical consequences to this historic poverty. In Tanzania, heights were 0.67 inches lower in the 1980s than the 1880s. In Peru, a man born in the 1990s is on average 1.5 inches shorter than a man born in the 1750s. In the European nations of France, Germany, Italy and Poland, the average adult male height fluctuated wildly depending on whether the prevailing capitalist system provided for enough basic needs — which was often not the case. As such, Germans and Poles born in the 16th century were much taller than those born in the 1850s, and conditions (and height) did not improve until the 20th century.

"After the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, wages, height, and life expectancy improved rapidly. This is because the new government invested in public health care, education, and the universal distribution of food."

Indeed, in every region of the world — the study looked at Europe, China, South Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa — the trend was the same: Capitalism led to declining standards of living, and only improved when progressive social movements implemented necessary reforms.

"Life expectancy is higher today everywhere than it was in the past, and infant mortality lower," Hickel wrote to Salon, attributing this progress primarily to improvements in quality and ease of access to healthcare, vaccines, public sanitation and other important goods that improve human health and previously did not exist. As a result, despite capitalism's negative effect on human welfare, in most areas of the world today standards of living are much better than they were prior to capitalism — although this is not universally the case.

"It's true that there are several cases in the global South where wages and/or heights have not recovered from the immiseration they suffered during the process of integration into the capitalist world-system," Hickel acknowledged. He pointed to India, where extreme poverty is worse than it was several centuries ago and 1 billion people live on wages that are no more effective at purchasing food and goods than the wages of a 16th century laborer. At the same time, Hickel distinguished these examples "from quality of life in a more general sense." In regions of the world that have redistributed wealth and shed the shackles of colonialism, human welfare has vastly improved.

"Capitalists' opposition has always delayed and often destroyed working class efforts to improve their circumstances. The claimed improvements, when real, occurred despite and against capitalist's efforts, not because of them."

"It is not only Western Europe that has experienced progress," Sullivan explained. "After the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, wages, height, and life expectancy improved rapidly. This is because the new government invested in public health care, education, and the universal distribution of food." Latin American wages and heights improved in the mid-20th century when political leaders in those nations began to focus on industrialization, Sullivan added, and during that same period living conditions improved in sub-Saharan Africa when anti-colonial leaders like the Congo's Patrice Lumumba and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah successfully fought for the rights of poor people. Conditions began to worsen in these regions in the 1980s and 1990s, however, when the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) began forcing countries to cut their social spending, deregulate their markets and privatize assets previously owned by the government.

This last development perhaps explains why, when Sullivan was asked about polices that could eliminate poverty, he started by suggesting that the World Bank and IMF be democratized. "In addition, we can establish universal public provisioning systems so that everyone can afford food, health care, and education," Sullivan added. "We can ensure all people's basic needs are met through a global universal basic income. And we can guarantee employment, as a basic right, in publicly owned enterprises. The history of the 20th century shows us that socialist policies like these can greatly improve human welfare."

Dr. Richard D. Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an expert on capitalism, responded in writing to a Salon inquiry about the new study by elaborating on exactly how capitalism as a system has led to a reduction in overall quality of life.

"Capitalist employers from the system's beginning to this present moment have striven mightily to oppose wage increases, improved job conditions, tax-based public services and all other mechanisms to improve living standards," Wolff explained. "Capitalists' opposition has always delayed and often destroyed working class efforts to improve their circumstances. The claimed improvements, when real, occurred despite and against capitalist's efforts, not because of them."

 

Colombia’s battle against Amazon deforestation: ‘The jungle is disappearing’

By Joe Parkin Daniels and Gideon Long in Bogotá

September 21, 2022

© Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty Images | A farmer cuts down trees to plant coca in Guaviare, Colombia

In a fiery speech at the UN General Assembly, Colombia’s first leftwing president did not mince his words about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, 6 per cent of which lies within his country’s borders.

“Destroying the jungle, the Amazon, has become the slogan followed by states and businessmen,” said Gustavo Petro, who took office last month after campaigning on a platform of social and environmental justice.

In front of world leaders at the UN on Tuesday, he blamed the war on drugs and rich countries’ thirst for natural resources for the increasing rate of forest loss and called for a global fund to protect the Amazon, as well as debt-for-nature swaps that Bogotá could use to invest in environmental projects.

“The jungle is disappearing with all its life,” he said.

Colombia lost more than 174,000 hectares of woodland in 2021 — an area 30 times the size of Manhattan — with illegal clearances fuelling the surge. It was the country’s worst year for deforestation since 2018 and the second year in a row that the amount of land lost had increased, putting the country’s climate mitigation targets, indigenous communities and countless species of flora and fauna at risk.

Petro’s strategy to tackle deforestation would target land grabbers who cut down the forest to turn it into cattle ranching land that can be sold off, said Susana Muhamad, the country’s new environment minister.

“We will tackle the drivers of deforestation and not only those who are cutting down the trees,” said Muhamad, a prominent environmental activist. “It’s illegal land grabbing and that’s where we will apply a strategy determined by the armed forces.”

Cattle graze close to woodland near El Capricho, southeastern Colombia © Ivan Valencia/Bloomberg

In the past two decades, Colombia has lost 3.1mn hectares of forest, 1.8mn of which are in the Amazon, a crucial absorber of carbon dioxide emissions and one of the world’s most biodiverse habitats. The first three-quarters of this year saw an increase of 11 per cent of forest loss in the Colombian Amazon compared with the same period last year, according to Ideam, the country’s environmental agency.

Muhamad said the government would prosecute those who fund land grabbing and would aim to improve the traceability of Colombian beef, 80 per cent of which is of uncertain origin. Other catalysts of deforestation include agriculture, logging, unauthorised construction, mining projects and coca production.

Up to 2014, large swaths of Colombia’s woodlands were in the hands of guerrillas and paramilitary groups and off-limits even to the most intrepid chainsaw-wielding loggers. But that changed when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), the country’s largest guerrilla group, agreed to a ceasefire that paved the way for a 2016 peace deal.

“Once Farc lost de facto control of its territories, we saw deforestation increase quickly,” said Bram Ebus, author of a 2021 report on Colombian deforestation for the International Crisis Group. “Other non-state armed groups filled the void left by Farc. The state never showed up and wasn’t able to protect its own forests.”

Muhamad said that fully implementing the 2016 peace accord would pave the way for rural development programmes that boost eco-tourism and reforestation. “In the end, it will be more profitable to be with the rule of law than to be involved in illegal economies,” the minister said.

In 2019, Iván Duque’s conservative government launched Operation Artemisa, tasking the military with going after those responsible for deforestation. Last year, the government passed legislation making it easier to prosecute people for deforestation, with jail sentences of up to 15 years. Smallholder farmers, however, complain that the operation has targeted them unfairly.

Germany, Norway and the UK in 2019 offered Colombia combined financial incentives of up to $260mn if the country could show a sustained reduction in deforestation and emissions by 2025. But after the increase in destroyed woodland over the past couple of years, the country risks missing out on that money.

The state’s next goals are to reduce forest loss to 100,000 hectares a year by 2025 and to zero by 2030. But Margarita Flórez, head of Ambiente y Sociedad, a Colombian environmental NGO, said “it’s very unlikely” that the final target, which was agreed at last year’s COP26 climate summit, would be met.

“It takes just one day to destroy a hectare of rainforest with a chainsaw,” Carlos Correa, former environment minister under Duque, told the Financial Times just days after leaving office. “But it takes 25 years to restore it.”

Deforestation can have a devastating effect on indigenous and rural communities. Isaac Paez, who grows plantains on a small plot of land in Cartagena del Chiará, a deforestation hotspot in southern Colombia, said he and other people in his community who have opposed unregulated cattle ranching had received threats from armed groups.

“Ever since the 2016 peace agreement, deforestation has been on the rise here,” said Paez. “Unless we put a stop to large-scale cattle farming, it’s going to continue.”

Colombia was by far the most dangerous country in the world for land and environmental defenders in 2020, according to Global Witness, an international NGO. Of the 227 killings the organisation recorded worldwide, over a quarter were in Colombia.

Ole Reidar Bergum, a Norwegian diplomat who left Colombia last month after nearly five years as his embassy’s counsellor for climate and forests, said six people he knew personally were killed defending indigenous rights and the environment.

“You really think, ‘there’s no future here’, but then you stop and think about what these people were fighting for: their individual struggles,” he said. “And that’s when you think, ‘No! this fight has to go on’.”

Fight Climate Emergency by Nationalizing US Fossil Fuel Industry, Says Top Economist

September 23, 2022
By Danny Leeds
BOOKS


“If we are finally going to start taking the IPCC’s findings seriously, it follows that we must begin advancing far more aggressive climate stabilization solutions than anything that has been undertaken thus far,” writes Robert Pollin.

In the wake of a United Nations report that activists said showed the “bleak and brutal truth” about the climate emergency, a leading economist on Friday highlighted a step that supporters argue could be incredibly effective at combating the global crisis: nationalizing the U.S. fossil fuel industry

“With ateast ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips under public control, the necessary phaseout of fossil fuels as an energy source could advance in an orderly fashion.”

Writing for The American Prospect, Robert Pollin, an economics professor and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, noted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and high gas prices exacerbated by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“If we are finally going to start taking the IPCC’s findings seriously,” Pollin wrote, “it follows that we must begin advancing far more aggressive climate stabilization solutions than anything that has been undertaken thus far, both within the U.S. and globally. Within the U.S., such measures should include at least putting on the table the idea of nationalizing the U.S. fossil fuel industry.”

“With at least ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips under public control, the necessary phaseout of fossil fuels as an energy source could advance in an orderly fashion”

Asserting that “at least in the U.S., the private oil companies stand as the single greatest obstacle to successfully implementing” a viable climate stabilization program, Pollin made the case that fossil fuel giants should not make any more money from wrecking the planet, nationalization would not be an unprecedented move in the United States, and doing so could help build clean energy infrastructure at the pace that scientists warn is necessary.

The expert proposed starting with “the federal government purchasing controlling ownership of at least the three dominant U.S. oil and gas corporations: ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips.”

“They are far larger and more powerful than all the U.S. coal companies combined, as well as all of the smaller U.S. oil and gas companies,” he wrote. “The cost to the government to purchase majority ownership of these three oil giants would be about $420 billion at current stock market prices.

Emphasizing that the aim of private firms “is precisely to make profits from selling oil, coal, and natural gas, no matter the consequences for the planet and regardless of how the companies may present themselves in various high-gloss, soft-focus PR campaigns,” Pollin posited that “with at least ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips under public control, the necessary phaseout of fossil fuels as an energy source could advance in an orderly fashion.”

“The government could determine fossil fuel energy production levels and prices to reflect both the needs of consumers and the requirements of the clean-energy transition,” he explained. “This transition could also be structured to provide maximum support for the workers and communities that are presently dependent on fossil fuel companies for their well-being.”

Pollin pointed out that some members of Congress are pushing for a windfall profits tax on Big Oil companies using various global crises—from Russia’s war to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic—to price gouge working people at the gas pump. The proposal, he wrote, “raises a more basic question: Should the fossil fuel companies be permitted to profit at all through selling products that we know are destroying the planet? The logical answer has to be no. That is exactly why nationalizing at least the largest U.S. oil companies is the most appropriate action we can take now, in light of the climate emergency.”

The economist highlighted the long history of nationalizing in the United States, pointing out that “it was only 13 years ago, in the depths of the 2007–09 financial crisis and Great Recession, that the Obama administration nationalized two of the three U.S. auto companies.”

In addition to enabling the government to put the nationalized firms’ profits toward a just transition to renewables, Pollin wrote, “with nationalization, the political obstacles that fossil fuel companies now throw up against public financing for clean energy investments would be eliminated.”

Nationalization “is not a panacea,” Pollin acknowledged. Noting that “publicly owned companies already control approximately 90% of the world’s fossil fuel reserves,” he cautioned against assuming such a move in the U.S. “will provide favorable conditions for fighting climate change, any more than public ownership has done so already in Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, or Iran,” without an administration dedicated to tackling the global crisis.

Pollin is far from alone in proposing nationalization. Writing for Jacobin last month, People’s Policy Project founder Matt Bruenig argued that “an industry that is absolutely essential to maintain in the short term and absolutely essential to eliminate in the long term is an industry that really should be managed publicly.”

“Private owners and investors are not in the business of temporarily propping up dying industries, which means that they will either work to keep the industry from dying, which is bad for the climate, or that they will refuse to temporarily prop it up, which will cause economic chaos,” he wrote. “A public owner is best positioned to pursue managed decline in a responsible way.”

In a piece for The New Republic published in the early stage of the pandemic a few years ago, climate journalist Kate Aronoff—like Pollin on Friday—pointed out that nationalization “has a long and proud tradition of navigating America through times of crisis, from World War II to 9/11.”

As Aronoff—who interviewed New College of Florida economist Mark Paul—reported in March 2020:

In a way, nationalization would merely involve the government correcting for nearly a century of its own market intervention. All manner of government hands on the scales have kept money flowing into fossil fuels, including the roughly $26 billion worth of state and federal subsidies handed out to them each year. A holistic transition toward a low-carbon economy would reorient that array of market signals away from failing sectors and toward growing ones that can put millions to work right away retrofitting existing buildings to be energy efficient and building out a fleet of electric vehicles, for instance, including in the places that might otherwise be worst impacted by a fossil fuel bust and recession. Renewables have taken a serious hit amid the Covid-19 slowdown, too, as factories shut down in China. So besides direct government investments in green technology, additional policy directives from the federal level, Paul added, would be key to providing certainty for investors that renewables are worth their while: for example, low-hanging fruit like the extension of the renewable tax credits, now on track to be phased out by 2022.

While Pollin, Bruenig, and Aronoff’s writing focused on the United States, campaigners are also making similar cases around the world.

In a June 2021 opinion piece for The Guardian, Johanna Bozuwa, co-manager of the Climate & Energy Program at the Democracy Collaborative, and Georgetown University philosophy professor Olúfẹ́mi O Táíwò took aim at Royal Dutch Shell on the heels of a historic court ruling, declaring that “like all private oil companies, Shell should not exist.”

“Governments like the Netherlands could better follow through on mandates to reduce emissions if they held control over oil companies themselves,” the pair added. “It is time to nationalize Big Oil.”

Leaked Study Shows Exxon, Partners Overspent by $138 Billion

By Kevin Crowley

September 23, 2022

Oil and natural gas projects that Exxon Mobil Corp. invested in between 1998 and 2017 ended up costing $138 billion more than early-stage estimates, potentially due to mismanagement by operators and poor planning, according to an internal analysis seen by Bloomberg.

The 2020 study, reviewing 110 projects in which Exxon took a stake over two decades, suggested two theories for the overspend: the sheer complexity of large-scale developments and “human biases” that resulted in “overoptimistic” plans designed to win approval from senior executives for funding. Twenty-one of the projects accounted for 93% of the overspend, according to the analysis. The worst ended up costing more than six times an early estimate.

The $138 billion overspend is a gross figure that includes partners’ stakes in the projects, meaning Exxon didn’t shoulder the excessive costs alone. Exxon spokesperson Matt Furman said that the so-called Gate 2 early-stage estimates used as a comparison in the study were “rough sketches” and that the company’s share of the costs above the more important “Gate 3” final investment decision amounted to $20 billion during the period. Of that total, only $6 billion was attributable to projects that Exxon actually operated, representing a margin of error of just 1.5% compared with the total capital invested, he said.The entire energy industry suffered large cost overruns during the 2010s, made worse by the 2014 oil price crash, one of the worst in the history of the crude market. The Kashagan project in Kazakhstan, funded by a group of major oil companies including Exxon, went considerably over budget. Gorgon, a massive Australian gas operation run by Chevron Corp. and in which Exxon has a minority stake, also saw costs spiral. Other examples abound.

But the study’s findings are notable because of Exxon’s historic reputation for keeping a tight leash on spending and the sheer number of major projects in which the US company holds stakes. It was in large part this widely perceived erosion in financial discipline that led to last year’s successful activist campaign by investor Engine No. 1 to replace three directors on Exxon’s board. And while the company has seen record profits this year amid surging commodity prices, it faces decisions in coming years on whether to proceed with new, multibillion-dollar projects, including a gas development in Mozambique and low-carbon investments.

“The point of the study was to look at how it’s possible to tighten up the rough sketches to get them closer to the numbers used for final investment decisions,” Furman said. “We did so that we don’t risk wasting time on projects that may never be funded.”

The study gives several examples of how costs soared, without naming specific projects. In one instance, it was decided to shorten a length of a pipeline to cut costs, but that ended up rerouting the pipeline through a “more challenging and sensitive location.” Costs were ultimately higher than they would have been otherwise, the report said. Elsewhere, it said, “shortcuts were taken in engineering to save costs and resulted in poor quality and excessive cost in fabrication and construction.” The study didn’t say whether it was Exxon or other operators who took these short cuts.“There are a number of projects in this study in which we did not have a controlling interest,” Furman said. “This means we do not have decision-making authority on the project or how money is spent. This includes any decision making that takes place before the project is funded or built and at any time during the project.”

The analysis identified so-called “runaway projects” — defined as those that exceeded early cost estimates by more than 70% — and suggested that planners have “intentionally underestimated” the price tags of projects in critical early stages to get them green-lit. “This theory suggests human biases and behavior contribute to overoptimistic outlooks,” the study said, without attributing the actions specifically to Exxon employees. “Shortcuts can create false expectations and set a project up for failure.” 

The Esso Fawley Oil Refinery, operated by Exxon Mobil Corp., stands in Fawley, U.K., on Thursday, May 14, 2020. Oils historic plunge below $0 a barrel pummeled portfolios, broke risk models and changed the way the worlds most important commodity is traded. Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)

Exxon’s demanding culture can largely be traced back to legendary former CEO Lee Raymond, who aggressively drove down costs and relentlessly pursued new reserves, especially in downturns, during his tenure from 1993 to 2005. The result was a peer-leading return on capital employed (ROCE) that led Exxon to the top of the S&P 500 Index. Despite the cost overruns, Exxon’s ROCE “led the industry for nearly the entire period,” Furman said. 

The 2020 study was part of regular internal reviews ordered up by Exxon management to improve on how the company develops oil, gas and chemical projects. It wasn’t the first time an internal report highlighted room for improvement in Exxon’s planning of major projects.

A 2015 study known internally as the “Black and Blue” report identified misaligned employee performance incentives, a lack of communication between teams and undue pressure to meet deadlines as "hypotheses" for "inefficiencies" in its internal processes. The company’s “go fast” culture meant “key processes’’ were skipped to stay on schedule, according to a presentation of the 2015 study seen by Bloomberg. “We routinely evaluate capital investments and how we can improve,” Furman said.

Darren Woods, who took over as CEO in 2017 after then President-elect Donald Trump tapped Rex Tillerson as U.S. Secretary of State, consolidated Exxon’s front-line business units and shifted the company’s focus to operating its own assets rather than taking stakes in outside projects. He recently made a series of rare external hires, such as Chief Financial Officer Kathy Mikells from Diageo Plc and Low-Carbon Vice President Dan Ammann, who once led General Motors Co.’s self-driving division.

By next year, Woods is targeting a reduction in annual costs by $9 billion. The company has trimmed its workforce — mainly through layoffs and post-pandemic attrition — to the lowest in at least two decades.

The 2020 analysis found that “multiple runaway projects” were the result of insufficient design and planning work. “Some projects locked in to specific concepts too early, without fully considering other, better, options,” the analysis said. 

Exxon has “reduced complexity and internal interfaces, allowing faster decision-making and significant efficiencies,” Woods told investors in March. The improvements, he said, preserve “the functional excellence we’ve built over decades.”

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