Waste and Capitalism

A report published in the reputable medical journal, The Lancet, highlights governments’ failure to ambitiously address the climate emergency and related health impacts. Experts from dozens of academic and United Nations institutions collaborated on the report, which tracks 44 indicators sorted into five categories: climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerabilities; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement.

“If nothing else will drive the message home about the present threat that climate change poses to our global society, this should,” Lachlan McIver, a Doctors Without Borders physician, explained. “Your health, my health, the health of our parents and our children are at stake.”

“Lowering greenhouse gas emissions is a prescription,” Renee Salas, an emergency medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital pointed out. “The oath I took as a doctor is to protect the health of my patients. Demanding action on climate change is how I can do that.”

Echoing several studies released in anticipation of the COP 26 summit, the new analysis raises alarm about the increasing risk of chikungunya, dengue, malaria, and Zika outbreaks and warns that due to rising seas, hundreds of millions of people face flooding, intense storms, and soil and water salinification that could force mass migration.

The impact of climate change on health is getting worse and it is exacerbating existing health and social inequities particularly in communities exposed to food and water insecurity, heatwaves and the spread of infectious diseases. It is increasing health inequities everywhere.

Countdown executive director Anthony Costello noted some of the specific findings: “The 2021 report shows that populations of 134 countries have experienced an increase in exposure to wildfires. Millions of farmers and construction workers could have lost income because on some days it’s just too hot for them to work. Drought is more widespread than ever before.”

“This is our sixth report tracking progress on health and climate change and unfortunately we are still not seeing the accelerated change we need,” said lead author Maria Romanello in a statement. “At best the trends in emissions, renewable energy, and tackling pollution have improved only very slightly,” she continued, describing recent extreme weather exacerbated by rising temperatures as “grim warnings” of the consequences of delayed action.

The report points out that governments around the globe are still dumping massive amounts of money into subsidies for the oil and gas industry, despite conclusions from climate scientists and energy experts that fossil fuels must stay in the ground for the sake of the planet and human health.

Recent research and newly released guidelines from the World Health Organization have highlighted how the fossil fuel industry harms humanity by degrading air quality. Advocating for a “low-carbon transition that prioritizes the health of all populations,” the experts acknowledge that “even in the most affluent countries, people in the most deprived areas overwhelmingly bear the burden of health effects from exposure to air pollution.”

Lancet Report Warns Planetary Crisis Will Spur More Infectious Diseases, Climate Refugees (commondreams.org)

One more warning that socialists can guarantee will go unheeded by capitalist corporations. 

Nike founder and billionaire, Phil Knight, is worth an estimated $58 billion. Knight has seen his fortunes almost double during the pandemic. The value of Knight’s assets increased from $29.5 billion in March 2020 to $57.9 billion on October 15, 2021, an increase of 96.4 percent.

While Knight has declared he intends to give most of his wealth to charity, the Bloomberg expose documents that for years, Knight has “been using a range of legal techniques to ensure his heirs keep control of most of his assets and profit from them in the process, quietly transferring vast piles of money in a textbook example of how the rich avoid taxes.”

Helen Flannery and Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies point out in this blog post how Knight’s philanthropic activity mostly takes the form of donations to his own private family foundation of highly appreciated Nike stock. Billionaires like Phil Knight are the largest beneficiaries of the tax reductions provided in our tax code. As we’ve documented, for every dollar a billionaire like Phil Knight gives to charity, taxpayers chip in 74 cents in lost tax revenue. Yet for billionaires like Knight, charitable giving becomes an extension of their tax reduction planning and power and influence.

IPS associate fellow Bob Lord, in an article is “The Hidden Ways the Ultrarich Pass Wealth to Their Heirs Tax Free.”  While Knight has declared he intends to give most of his wealth to charity, the using public SEC filings and other publicly available data, Lord “reverse engineered” an analysis of Knight’s tax planning techniques.  Knight has already transferred about $10 billion in wealth free of estate and gift tax (avoiding roughly $3.6 billion in tax) and could avoid estate tax on up to an additional $9 billion if he died today.

“Phil Knight’s estate plan demonstrates beyond doubt that loopholes in America’s estate and gift tax have rendered it useless.” 

Knight created a series of Granter Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs), a popular tax avoidance mechanism deployed by many of the super-wealthy.

GRATs “have the basic goal of making wealth look much smaller than it really is.  It’s possible to have your gifts appear to be worth almost nothing, even as you move millions or even billions of dollars tax-free.”  They “construct a legal fiction that this is a normal transaction and not a taxable gift to the trust.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/how-billionaires-pass-wealth-to-heirs-tax-free-2021/

Opinion | Phil Knight: A Case Study in to How Dodge Over $3.6 Billion in Taxes | Chuck Collins (commondreams.org)

 Ninety per cent of the US plastics industry’s reported climate change pollution takes place in just 18 communities, where residents earn 28% less than the average American household and are 67% more likely to be minority communities.

A report, by Bennington College’s Beyond Plastics project, found that the American plastics industry is releasing at least 232m tons of GHG annually, the equivalent to 116 average-sized coal-fired power plants. Since 2019, at least 42 US plastics facilities have opened, are under construction or are in the permitting process. If the facilities become fully operational, they could release an additional 55m tons of GHG – or the equivalent of another 27 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants – by 2025.

“Plastics is the new coal and it is a major environmental justice concern … The health impacts of the emissions are disproportionately borne by low-income communities and communities of color,” said Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics and former regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator under President Obama.

The World Economic Forum is projecting global plastics production to triple by 2050. 

 Enck said the new focus of the fossil fuel industry is plastics, saying: “Fossil fuel companies are making less money on generating power and less money for transportation … so they see plastics as the plan B. There’s no plan B for the rest of us. We are in a climate crisis,” she said.

The report identified 10 different stages in which plastics manufacturing emits the most significant GHG. Hydro-fracking is expected to release 45m tons of methane annually in the US by 2025. Transporting and processing fracked gases emit roughly 4.8m tons of methane a year. Petrochemical ethane gas cracker facilities release at least 70m tons of GHG annually. Other plastic raw materials manufacturing is responsible for 28m tons of GHG emissions per year. Exports and imports of plastics raw materials and products emit at least 51m tons of GHG annually, equivalent to more than 25 coal-fired power plants.

US plastics to outstrip coal’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, study finds | Climate crisis | The Guardian

 United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has said the world’s current climate situation is “a one-way ticket for disaster”

“The carbon pollution of a handful of countries has brought humanity to its knees and they bear the greatest responsibility. I hope we are still on time to avoid a failure in Glasgow, but time is running short, and things are getting more difficult and that is why I’m very very worried. I’m afraid things might go wrong,” 

UN chief warns world on ‘one way ticket to disaster’ over climate | Climate Change News | Al Jazeera

Countries are trying to change a crucial scientific report on how to tackle climate change.

Nearly 4 million low-income households are behind on rent, bills or debt payments, up threefold since the pandemic hit, according to a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).

It reveals the growing cost of the living crisis facing the UK’s poorest families.

A third of the 11.6 million working-age households in the UK earning £25,000 or less were found to be in arrears on their rent or mortgage, utility bills, council tax bills or personal debt repayments. The findings indicate that 3.8 million households are behind with household bills, 950,000 are in rent arrears, 1.4 million are behind on council tax bills, and 1.4 million are behind on electricity and gas bills.

A third of all low-income families are in arrears, up from 11% prior to the pandemic, it estimated. This rises to 44% of working-age households and 71% of younger households aged between 18 and 24. Families with children and black, Asian and minority ethnic households were particularly hard hit.

“Behind these figures are parents gripped by anxiety, wondering how they will put food on their children’s plates and pay the gas bill; young people forced to rely on friends to help cover their rent and avoid eviction,” said Katie Schmuecker, the JRF deputy director for policy and partnerships.

 The Tory-controlled District Councils Network (DCN), which represents 200 councils in English towns, has warned of a rise in homelessness this winter as a result of the end to government support measures such as furlough and eviction ban. A survey of district councils completed earlier this month found that just under three-quarters reported an increase in homelessness acceptances over the past four months, while nearly two-thirds said people they had housed during the pandemic had recently slipped “back in the homelessness cycle”.

District councils also reported increased numbers of families seeking support, and increases in the numbers of residents with severe mental health and other complex needs using council services. More than a third of councils reported significant increases in referrals to local food banks.

Third of low-income households unable to pay bills, finds research | Household bills | The Guardian

 Tax evasion and avoidance schemes have cost governments an estimated €150bn (£127bn) in lost revenues, research by a team of experts at the University of Mannheim, in partnership with the German not-for-profit group Correctiv, shows.

TRY SOCIALISM INSTEAD

 Despite all governments and politicians claims, Greta Thunberg concludes “there are no climate leaders … at least not among high-income nations” 

Greta Thunberg accused countries including the UK of being in denial over the extent of the climate and ecological crisis and using “creative carbon accounting” to augment their green credentials.

In an opinion piece for the Guardian, the Swedish activist says world leaders have been responsible for several years of inaction in reducing emissions which she has termed “their decades of blah, blah, blah”.

Thunberg also accused the UK, the US and China of spinning emissions statistics to make it appear that their levels are lower.

She wrote: “Between 1990 and 2016, the UK lowered its territorial emissions by 41%. However, once you include the full scale of the UK emissions – such as consumption of imported goods, international aviation and shipping etc – the reduction is more like 15%.

“And this is excluding burning of biomass, like at Drax’s Selby plant – a heavily subsidised so-called “renewable” power plant that is, according to analysis, the UK’s biggest single emitter of CO2 and the third biggest in all of Europe. And yet the government still considers the UK to be a global climate leader.

“The UK is, of course, far from the only country relying on such creative carbon accounting. This is the norm.

“China, currently by far the world’s biggest emitter of CO2, is planning to build 43 new coal power plants on top of the 1,000 plants already in operation – while also claiming to be an ecological ‘trailblazer’ committed to leaving “a clean and beautiful world to future generations.”

Despite increasing pledges of action from many nations, governments have not yet made plans to wind down fossil fuel production, a report, produced by the UN Environment Programme (Unep) and other researchers, found.

Fossil fuel production planned by the world’s governments “vastly exceeds” the limit needed to keep the rise in global heating to 1.5C and avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis, the report explained.  Global production of oil and gas is on track to rise over the next two decades, with coal production projected to fall only slightly. This results in double the fossil fuel production in 2030 that is consistent with a 1.5C rise.

The gap between planned extraction of coal, oil and gas and safe limits remains as large as in 2019 when the UN first reported on the issue. 

The report also found that countries have directed more than $300bn (£217bn) of new public finance to fossil fuel activities since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, more than that provided for clean energy.

“The research is clear: global coal, oil and gas production must start declining immediately and steeply to be consistent with limiting long-term warming to 1.5C,” said Ploy Achakulwisut, at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and a lead author of the report. “However, governments continue to plan for and support levels of fossil fuel production that are vastly in excess of what we can safely burn.”

Inger Andersen, executive director of Unep, said: “The devastating impacts of climate change are here for all to see. At Cop26 and beyond, the world’s governments must step up, taking rapid and immediate steps to close the fossil fuel production gap and ensure a just and equitable transition.”

Detailed analysis of 15 major fossil fuel-producing nations found that the US, Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia and China all project increases in oil and gas, while India and Russia intend to increase coal production. Only two of the countries expect oil and gas production to decline: the UK and Indonesia.

The new report analysed publicly stated plans and projections and found the production of 240% more coal, 57% more oil, and 71% more gas in 2030 than is consistent with 1.5C. Overall fossil fuel production is 45% more than consistent with even the weaker goal of 2C.

Planned fossil fuel output ‘vastly exceeds’ climate limits, says UN | Fossil fuels | The Guardian

Socialists have always stated that national interests will supersede the welfare of the world.