“The interlinked crises of pollution, climate change and biodiversity act as threat multipliers, amplifying conflicts, tensions and structural inequalities, and forcing people into increasingly vulnerable situations,” UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said. “As these environmental threats intensify, they will constitute the single greatest challenge to human rights of our era.”

The UN rights chief cited “murderous climate events”, including the fires in Siberia and California, and floods in China, Germany and Turkey. Bachelet warned severe droughts could additionally force millions of people into misery, hunger and displacement.

Addressing the environmental crisis is, therefore “a humanitarian imperative, a human rights imperative, a peace-building imperative and a development imperative”

Environmental threats ‘greatest challenge to human rights’: UN | Climate Change News | Al Jazeera

 Human Rights Watch (HRW) accuses a few rich countries of stalling a proposal that could address vaccine inequality after being lobbied by big pharmaceutical companies.

HRW’s Aruna Kashyap, associate business and human rights director:

The push for a waiver of medical patents is back on the agenda this week with talks due to be held at the World Trade Organization, almost a year since it was first proposed by India and South Africa.

Yesterday, medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières called out the UK, EU (led by Germany), Switzerland and Norway as barriers to the proposal. Its supporters say it would allow vaccines to be produced more quickly by tapping into unused capacity around the world and take pricing out of the hands of pharmaceuticals.

The pharmaceuticals have however opposed the move and argued it would not help speed up vaccine production.

If you go to the Scottish Highlands now, you will find many valleys almost without people. Yet we know from history and archaeology that many people lived in the Highlands for thousands of years. What happened? Between about 1740 and 1900, the Highland landlords decided to clear out the people and establish great sheep farms instead. Five volumes will tell the story, starting with volume one – “Clans and Clearance”.

In Highland histories, some beliefs (though clearly at odds with the evidence) re-appear regularly, all these, and other, misapprehensions are dealt with in “Clans and Clearance” e.g –

* There was an enormous Highland population increase in the century after 1750: this never happened – the highest possible increase is 37% in the years 1750-1840 – during which time food production doubled or trebled.*. Some figures in original documents are clearly inaccurate, but have been accepted by writers who feel that documents cannot lie; they claim that Highland parishes averaged 400 square miles. This is clearly wrong, and can be disproved by anyone who has an atlas and a ruler: the average was about 100 square miles.

* The clearances were carried out by “the English”. In reality, they were carried out by the clan chiefs, after the Lowlanders and the English conquered the Highlands, following the Battle of Culloden, 1746. The British state forced the private-property system onto the Highlanders; the clan chiefs were made into landowners, who suddenly realized they could make themselves rich by driving out the clans folk and letting the land to large farmers.

* Most of the Highlanders were Catholics. In fact, 96% of the Highlanders were Protestant.

* The old Highlanders were “crofters”. In fact, the Highlanders were hunter-gatherers, with a second ample food source in their vast flocks and herds. The crofters appeared only after the clearances when some of the evicted were kindly allowed to try growing potatoes in an acre or two of barren, waste ground.

* The clan chiefs were tyrants, jailing and executing clans folk indiscriminately. No, the chiefs had no state apparatus – police, soldiers, lawyers, courts, jails, torturers, executioners etc – so had to rule with the general approval of the clans folk.

* The Highlanders’ cattle lived under the same roof as the Highlanders. No, the herds far too large; this only happened after the clearances, when Herds no longer had enough pasture for their great flocks, and therefore had very few animals left – and very little grazing, so the cow had to be housed in the same building.

* The clans folk were wildly licentious, drinking enormous quantities of whisky, while at the same time they fervently believed in a strait-laced religion. No, both these opposite convulsions appeared as extreme reactions to the social misery caused by the clearances.

Clans and Clearance. The Highland Clearances Volume One – Theory and Practice

742 pages. Available in hardback and eBook

Hardback: ISBN 978-0-9956609-9-1

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Ebook: ISBN 978-0-9956609-3-9

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Audio Talk

The Highland Clearances – spgb.net (worldsocialism.org)

 Following a plea from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres for immediate funding to protect Afghan children and other vulnerable people from starvation $1 billion in aid for Afghanistan has been pledged. 

The U.S. State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced the country would direct $64 million to Afghanistan.

 That is just a mere 6% being given by the country which plunged Afghanistan into two decades of war.

After Spending Trillions on War in Afghanistan, US Answers Call for Aid With Just $64 Million | Common Dreams News

 Many socialists have drawn attention to the dietary habits of people in contributing to global warming, a pattern of food consumption that is encouraged by the profit needs of the capitalist food production system. The damage done to the environment by a predominantly is highlighted in a new report. 

The global production of food is responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity, with the use of animals for meat causing twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods, a major new study published in Nature Food has found.

The entire system of food production, such as the use of farming machinery, spraying of fertilizer and transportation of products, causes 17.3bn metric tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, according to the research. This enormous release of gases that fuel the climate crisis is more than double the entire emissions of the US and represents 35% of all global emissions, researchers said.

“The emissions are at the higher end of what we expected, it was a little bit of a surprise,” said Atul Jain, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois and co-author of the paper. “This study shows the entire cycle of the food production system, and policymakers may want to use the results to think about how to control greenhouse gas emissions.”

The raising of animals for food is far worse for the climate than growing and processing fruits and vegetables for people to eat, the research found, confirming previous findings on the outsized impact that meat production, particularly beef, has on the environment.

The use of cows, pigs and other animals for food, as well as livestock feed, is responsible for 57% of all food production emissions, the research found, with 29% coming from the cultivation of plant-based foods. The rest comes from other uses of land, such as cotton or rubber. Beef alone accounts for a quarter of emissions produced by raising and growing food.

 The majority of all the world’s cropland is used to feed livestock, rather than people.

Xiaoming Xu, another University of Illinois researcher and the lead author of the paper, explained, “To produce more meat you need to feed the animals more, which then generates more emissions. You need more biomass to feed animals in order to get the same amount of calories. It isn’t very efficient.”

 To produce 1kg of wheat, 2.5kg of greenhouse gases are emitted. A single kilo of beef, meanwhile, creates 70kg of emissions.

Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds | Meat industry | The Guardian

Socialists do not desire to impose strict vegetarianism or veganism upon people but our view of how life will be in a future socialist society is that people will generally adopt a flexitarian diet, a greatly reduced intake of meat. 

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, has been saying something the Socialist Party has always counselled our fellow workers don’t rely on the Labour Party.

“We can’t keep hoping for the election of a Labour government to solve our members’ problems. Putting all our eggs in the Westminster basket will not deliver. When did the parliamentary Labour party win a collective bargaining agreement at a workplace? Fighting for our members must come first. We cannot have the political tail wagging Unite’s industrial dog any longer.”

“We need to get back to what it says on the trade union tin: fight for jobs, pay and conditions…So for me, it’s about going back to the workplace. A powerful union capable of winning disputes and workplace battles is the only way workers will be protected through the pandemic and beyond…”

Of course, Graham still retains the delusions of past trade union leaders that have always been a flaw in the movement when she says: 

“We want companies to do well so that our members can share in the benefits. So Unite will have no issues with what we might call “good bosses”… “

My union will no longer rely on Labour – fighting for our members must come first | Sharon Graham | The Guardian

 Nearly 70,000 people in England are likely to die waiting for access to adult social care before the changes revealed this week by Boris Johnson come into force.

 A further 72,883 adults are also likely to have died while waiting for social care in the 26 months between July 2019 – when Johnson said he had “a clear plan we have prepared” – and the point this month when details were finally released.

Nearly 70,000 may die waiting for adult social care before Johnson plan kicks in | Social care | The Guardian

 A World Bank report has found climate change could push more than 200 million people to leave their homes in the next three decades and create migration hotspots unless urgent action is taken to reduce global emissions.

The impacts of climate change upon such as water scarcity, decreasing crop productivity and rising sea levels could lead to millions of what the report describes as “climate migrants” by 2050 under three different scenarios with varying degrees of climate action and development.

Under the most pessimistic scenario, with a high level of emissions and unequal development, the report forecasts up to 216 million people moving within their own countries across the six regions analyzed. Those regions are Latin America; North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Eastern Europe and Central Asia; South Asia; and East Asia and the Pacific. The worst-case scenario is “plausible” if collective action to reduce emissions and invest in development isn’t taken, especially in the next decade.

In the most climate-friendly scenario, with a low level of emissions and inclusive, sustainable development, the number of migrants could be as much as 80% lower but still result in the move of 44 million people.

A  more inclusive development scenario, which is the middle scenario will mean 91 million displaced by climate change.

In the worst-case scenario, Sub-Saharan Africa — the most vulnerable region due to desertification, fragile coastlines and the population’s dependence on agriculture — would see the most movement, with up to 86 million climate migrants moving within national borders. North Africa, however, is predicted to have the largest proportion of climate migrants, with 19 million people moving, equivalent to roughly 9% of its total population, due mainly to increased water scarcity.

Bangladesh is particularly affected by flooding and crop failures accounting for almost half of the predicted climate migrants, with 19.9 million people, including an increasing share of women, moving by 2050 under the pessimistic scenario.

The report did not look at climate migration across borders.

“Globally we know that three out of four people that move stay within countries,” said Dr. Kanta Kumari Rigaud, a lead environmental specialist at the World Bank and co-author of the report.

Still, migration patterns from rural to urban areas often precede movements across borders.

Climate change could move 200 million people by 2050, report says | PBS NewsHour

The media  focus on the worst-case scenario because disasters make good reporting but even the optimistic alternative means misery and suffering for many millions of people.

Up to half of the estimated $14 trillion that the Pentagon has spent in the two decades since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan has gone to private military contractors, with Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and General Dynamics receiving much of the money.

That’s according to a new paper (pdf) authored by William Hartung—director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy.

According to Hartung’s analysis, from “one-third to one-half” of the Pentagon’s $14 trillion in spending since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan on October 2001 went to defense contractors, which spend heavily on government lobbying.

“A large portion of these contracts—one-quarter to one-third of all Pentagon contracts in recent years—have gone to just five major corporations: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman,” Hartung writes. “The $75 billion in Pentagon contracts received by Lockheed Martin in fiscal year 2020 is well over one and one-half times the entire budget for the State Department and Agency for International Development for that year, which totaled $44 billion.”

Those five corporations are far from the only companies that profited from the increase in U.S. Defense Department outlays following the Afghanistan invasion. numerous other firms—including Erik Prince’s since-rebranded Blackwater, the Dick Cheney-tied company Halliburton, and DynCorp—benefited handsomely from the Pentagon spending.

Hartung argues that the Pentagon’s growing reliance on private contractors to carry out U.S. foreign policy in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks “raises multiple questions of accountability, transparency, and effectiveness.”

“This is problematic because privatizing key functions can reduce the U.S. military’s control of activities that occur in war zones while increasing risks of waste, fraud, and abuse,” he writes. “Additionally, that the waging of war is a source of profits can contradict the goal of having the U.S. lead with diplomacy in seeking to resolve conflicts.”

“Reducing the profits of war ultimately depends on reducing the resort to war in the first place,” Hartung writes. “Likewise, making war less profitable decreases the incentive to go to war…”

Up to Half of the $14 Trillion Spent by Pentagon Since 9/11 Has Gone to War Profiteers | Common Dreams News

 Oxford Nanopore

Oxford Nanopore’s flotation on the London stock exchange is expected to  exceed a £2.4bn valuation achieved at a fundraising round in May, and plans to tap into the growing genomic sequencing market, estimated to be worth $5.7bn.

HeiQ

The London-listed, Swiss-based company has developed a surgical mask with an ultra-thin copper coating that destroys viruses and bacteria. HeiQ launched its “Viroblock” technology in March 2020, just as the pandemic hit, and today it is used by 150 major brands. Revenues were up by 80% last year. By the end of 2020 the company had listed on the London stock exchange, raising £60m. Chief executive Carlo Centonze called the pandemic a “tipping point for antimicrobial textiles”.

Synairgen

Synairgen’s share price has soared by 342% since July 2020 when the University of Southampton spinout made a major breakthrough with a coronavirus treatment. The company has gone from fewer than 20 employees before Covid to about 100, including freelancers. Analysts at Numis are forecasting revenue of up to £582m from the Covid treatment next year.

Oxford Biomedica

Oxford Biomedica is one of the companies making the Covid-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca.  Biomedica has made tens of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca jab and doubled its estimate for vaccine revenues to £100m in May. It expects “significant” growth in operating profits this year from last year’s £7.3m.

Croda International