Meating Need

Don’t set an Amazonian ranch hand

To cut or burn the rain forest for beef,

As animal husbandry is the thief

Of earth. Pork and mutton degrade the land

No matter how organically they’re farmed.

Then, however well-tended, there must be

The trauma of the slaughterhouse, To see

A grassy grazing meadow is to be charmed

By an idyll, concealing the bolt gun

And letting blade. Also, there’s the methane.

Yet the world can be fed all its protein

Once precision fermentation’s begun,

And three quarters of farmland reconciled

To a natural carbon reserving wild.

D. A.

 November 15, 2022, is predicted to be the day that the global population reaches eight billion. 

UN projections suggest that the world’s population could grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050, before reaching a peak of around 10.4 billion people during the 2080s. The population is expected to remain at that level until 2100.

 UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said,  “Let us protect human rights and the ability of all individuals to make informed choices about whether and when to have children.” Guterres added that “eight billion people means eight billion opportunities to live dignified and fulfilled lives”. He urged everyone to contribute to a common future with greater equality and solidarity for the planet and future generations.

The annual 2022 World Population Prospect report notes that the global population is growing at its slowest rate since 1950, having fallen to less than one per cent in 2020.

Fertility rates has fallen markedly in recent decades for many countries: today, two-thirds of the global population lives in a country or area where lifetime fertility is below 2.1 births per woman, roughly the level required for zero growth in the long run, for a population with low mortality.

61 countries or regions, the population is expected to decrease by at least one per cent over the next three decades, as a result of sustained low levels of fertility and, in some cases, elevated rates of emigration.

More than half of the projected increase in the global population up to 2050 will be concentrated in eight countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United Republic of Tanzania. Countries of sub-Saharan Africa are expected to contribute more than half of the increase anticipated through 2050.

“Further actions by Governments aimed at reducing fertility would have little impact on the pace of population growth between now and mid-century, because of the youthful age structure of today’s global population,” said John Wilmoth, Director of the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). “Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of lower fertility, if maintained over several decades, could be a more substantial deceleration of global population growth in the second half of the century”.

The report said in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in parts of Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, recent reductions in fertility have led to a “demographic dividend”, with a rise in the share of the working-age population (25 to 64 years), providing an opportunity for accelerated economic growth per capita. The report argues that to make the most of this opportunity, countries should invest in the further development of their human capital, by ensuring access to health care and quality education at all ages, and by promoting opportunities for productive employment and decent work.

More Older People, Living Longer

By 2050 it is expected that the number of persons aged 65 years or over worldwide will be more than twice the number of children under the age of five,  and about the same as the number under age 12.

Further reductions in mortality are projected to result in an average global longevity of around 77.2 years in 2050. Yet in 2021, life expectancy for the least developed countries lagged seven years behind the global average.

The report recommends public programs for the growing numbers of older persons, establishing universal health care and long-term care systems, and by improving the sustainability of social security and pension systems.

The World Population Fund (UNFPA) upheld that we live in a world in which “higher shares of people are educated and live healthier lives than at any previous point in history”. It said,  “Societies that invest in their people, in their rights and choices, have proven time and again that this is the road to the prosperity and peace that everyone wants — and deserves.”

World Population To Reach 8 Billion Tomorrow, Growth Rate Slows| Countercurrents

Senate Armed Services Committee, Senators Jack Reed (D) and Jim Inhofe (R), have their way, Congress will soon invoke wartime emergency powers to build up even greater stockpiles of Pentagon weapons. The amendment is supposedly designed to facilitate replenishing the weapons the United States has sent to Ukraine, but a look at the wish list contemplated in this amendment reveals a different story.

Reed and Inhofe’s idea is to tuck their wartime amendment into the FY2023 National Defense Appropriation Act (NDAA) that will be passed during the lameduck session before the end of the year. The amendment sailed through the Armed Services Committee in mid-October and, if it becomes law, the Department of Defense will be allowed to lock in multi-year contracts and award non-competitive contracts to arms manufacturers for Ukraine-related weapons. 

If the Reed/Inhofe amendment is really aimed at replenishing the Pentagon’s supplies, then why do the quantities in its wish list vastly surpass those sent to Ukraine?

The current star of U.S. military aid to Ukraine is Lockheed Martin’s HIMARS rocket system, the same weapon U.S. Marines used to help reduce much of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, to rubble in 2017. The U.S. has only sent 38 HIMARS systems to Ukraine, but Senators Reed and Inhofe plan to “reorder” 700 of them, with 100,000 rockets, which could cost up to $4 billion.Another artillery weapon provided to Ukraine is the M777 155 mm howitzer. To “replace” the 142 M777s sent to Ukraine, the senators plan to order 1,000 of them, at an estimated cost of  $3.7 billion, from BAE Systems.HIMARS launchers can also fire Lockheed Martin’s long-range (up to 190 miles) MGM-140 ATACMS missiles, which the U.S. has not sent to Ukraine. In fact the U.S. has only ever fired 560 of them, mostly at Iraq in 2003. The even longer-range “Precision Strike Missile,” formerly prohibited under the INF Treaty renounced by Trump, will start replacing the ATACMS in 2023, yet the Reed-Inhofe Amendment would buy 6,000 ATACMS, 10 times more than the U.S. has ever used, at an estimated cost of $600 million.Reed and Inhofe plan to buy 20,000 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles from Raytheon. But Congress already spent $340 million for 2,800 Stingers to replace the 1,400 sent to Ukraine. Reed and Inhofe’s amendment will “re-replenish” the Pentagon’s stocks 14 times over, which could cost $2.4 billion.The United States has supplied Ukraine with only two Harpoon anti-ship missile systems—already a provocative escalation—but the amendment includes 1,000 Boeing Harpoon missiles (at about $1.4 billion) and 800 newer Kongsberg Naval Strike Missiles (about $1.8 billion), the Pentagon’s replacement for the Harpoon.The Patriot air defense system is another weapon the U.S. has not sent to Ukraine, because each system can cost a billion dollars and the basic training course for technicians to maintain and repair it takes more than a year to complete. And yet the Inhofe-Reed wish list includes 10,000 Patriot missiles, plus launchers, which could add up to $30 billion.

Opinion | Reed/Inhofe Amendment Would Open Floodgates for War Profiteers | Medea Benjamin (commondreams.org)

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) issued a new Living Amazon Report, 2022 at COP27 . According to the report, 35% of the Amazon rainforest is either totally lost or highly degraded. 

“The situation has begun to show signs of nearing a point of no return: seasons are changing, surface water is being lost, rivers are becoming increasingly disconnected and polluted, and forests are under immense pressure from increasingly devastating waves of deforestation and fire. This could lead to irreversible change in the near future.”

According to the WWF report: There are (1) six-hundred (600) infrastructure projects in operation along Amazon rivers (2) twenty planned road projects, (3) four-hundred operating, or planned, dams; meanwhile, numerous mining operations continue to dump chemicals such as mercury into rivers. According to PRODES, a satellite monitoring system, the pace of commercialization of the Amazon trudges ahead as 4.2 million square miles of the rainforest was cleared for commercial development last year alone.

 In another recent report from Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (RAISG) claiming that 26% of the forests have already “irreversibly transformed.”

 “The savannization of the Amazon is already visible in Brazil and Bolivia while Ecuador, Columbia and Peru seem to be heading in the same direction.” (Mongabay)

Amazon Rainforest Crisis Report at COP27 | Dissident Voice

The combined methane emissions of 15 of the world’s largest meat and dairy companies are higher than those of several of the world’s largest countries, including Russia, Canada and Australia, according to an analysis from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and Changing Markets Foundation. 

Methane emissions by the companies – five meat and 10 dairy corporations – equate to more than 80% of the European Union’s entire methane footprint.

If the 15 companies were treated as a country, the report noted, it would be the 10th-largest greenhouse gas-emitting jurisdiction in the world. Their combined emissions outpace those of oil companies such as ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, researchers found.

Researchers singled out individual livestock companies such as JBS, the world’s largest meat company, and the French dairy giant Danone.

JBS’s methane emissions “far outpace all other companies”, according to the report, exceeding the combined livestock emissions of France, Germany, Canada and New Zealand.

The world’s second-largest meat company, Tyson, produces approximately as much livestock methane as Russia, researchers said, and Dairy Farmers of America produces as much as the United Kingdom.

Methane emissions from 15 meat and dairy companies rival those of the EU | Environment | The Guardian

 Humans could face a reproductive crisis if action is not taken to tackle a drop in sperm count, researchers have warned after finding the rate of decline is accelerating.

A study published in the journal Human Reproduction Update, based on 153 estimates from men who were probably unaware of their fertility, suggests that the average sperm concentration fell from an estimated 101.2m per ml to 49.0m per ml between 1973 and 2018 – a drop of 51.6%. Total sperm counts fell by 62.3% during the same period.

Research by the same team, reported in 2017, found that sperm concentration had more than halved in the last 40 years. However, at the time a lack of data for other parts of the world meant the findings were focused on a region encompassing Europe, North America and Australia. The latest study includes more recent data from 53 countries.

The rate of decline appears to be increasing: looking at data collected in all continents since 1972, the researchers found sperm concentrations declined by 1.16% per year. However, when they looked only at data collected since the year 2000, the decline was 2.64% per year.

Previous studies have suggested that fertility is compromised if sperm concentration falls below about 40m per ml. While the latest estimate is above this threshold. This is a mean figure, suggesting the percentage of men below this threshold will have increased.

“I think this is another signal that something is wrong with the globe and that we need to do something about it. So yes, I think it’s a crisis, that we had better tackle now, before it may reach a tipping point which may not be reversible,” said Prof Hagai Levine, first author of the research from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “Such a decline clearly represents a decline in the capacity of the population to reproduce.” 

Tina Kold Jensen of the University of Southern Denmark said the new study recapitulated a concerning trend. “You keep on finding the same trend, no matter how many studies you include – that is a bit scary to me,” she said.

Prof Richard Sharpe, an expert in male reproductive health at the University of Edinburgh, said the new data showed that the trend appeared to be a worldwide phenomenon.  He explained, “These issues are not just a problem for couples trying to have kids. They are also a huge problem for society in the next 50-odd years as less and less young people will be around to work and support the increasing bulge of elderly folk.”

Humans could face reproductive crisis as sperm count declines, study finds | Fertility problems | The Guardian

 “…movements such as “America first”, “China first”, “India first” and “Russia first”, “my tribe first”, threaten to descend into an us versus them geopolitics of “my country first and only”…” Gordon Brown 

Nationalism is the ideology of our age. No wonder the world is in crisis | Gordon Brown | The Guardian

 Wages are rising at their fastest rate in more than 20 years, but still lag well behind the soaring cost of living.

The Tax Justice Network (TJN) said states were depriving themselves of $89bn (£75bn) a year by allowing some of the world’s biggest companies anonymity over the way they use tax havens to conduct their tax affairs.

In its State of Tax Justice 2022 report, it called for an end to the concession made to multinational companies that they would not be named and shamed if they provided information about shifting profits into tax havens.

TJN said that on its calculations, governments could recoup 28% of the $316bn lost in cross-border “tax abuse” in 2021 if a loss of anonymity shone a light on the activities of all multinationals.

The UK legislated in 2016 to make country-by-country reporting publicly available but never used the power, and the idea was abandoned in 2020 by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor. Last year, according to TJN estimates, the UK lost £27bn to multinational corporations underpaying tax.

Rachel Etter-Phoya, a senior researcher at the Tax Justice Network, said: “The OECD concession to corporate tax abuse is a political choice to turn a blind eye. Our governments patronise us with talk about making ‘tough decisions’ to deal with the global cost of living crisis, then choose to stay quiet about multinational corporations that have privately confessed to cheating the public out of billions in tax. They’re choosing to protect the cherries on the cakes of the richest corporations while people worry about putting food on the table. Our message to governments is clear: stop the cover-up, to lift living standards up…”

Global corporations ‘cheating public out of billions in tax’, say campaigners | Tax avoidance | The Guardian

 Diabetes—a disease that can wreak havoc on organs, eyesight, and limbs if left unmanaged—affects more than 37 million U.S. adults and is the country’s seventh leading cause of death.  The price of insulin, which is needed to treat diabetes, is so astronomical in the U.S. that experts have accused the federal government and pharmaceutical industry of violating human rights.

In a letter addressed to Senate and House leaders more than 50 organizations wrote: “World Diabetes Day marks the birthday of Frederick Banting, who discovered insulin and famously sold its patent for $1 and stated, ‘Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.’ Despite its discovery more than 100 years ago and the generosity of Banting and the co-inventors, many people living in the United States still struggle to afford access to the insulin they need.”

“As people in the United States struggle to access affordable insulin, the big three drug corporations that manufacture insulin have repeatedly and sharply raised prices and aggressively sought to extend lucrative product monopolies, resulting in many billions of dollars in excessive spending,” states the letter. “Since the 1990s, insulin manufacturers have raised prices many times over for U.S. patients, as much as 1,100%, despite their products remaining largely unchanged, and low production costs.”

On Twitter last week, a user created an account posing as Eli Lilly’s official page. 

The user proceeded to tweet that “insulin is free now,” causing Eli Lilly’s share price to drop and drawing fresh attention to the sky-high price of the medicine in the U.S.

Although it costs a mere $10 to produce a vial of insulin, uninsured patients in the U.S. pay $300 to $400 per vial of the century-old drug because the three pharmaceutical corporations that control the nation’s lucrative insulin market charge excessive prices. 1.3 million people in the U.S. ration insulin, including an estimated 1 in 4 people with type 1 diabetes.

“Abusive pricing of insulin, which the very same corporations who sell insulin here sell for a fraction of the price in other wealthy countries, has led to immense profits for these corporations at the cost of preventable suffering and death of people who need insulin, in addition to billions of dollars drained from government coffers and consumers’ bank accounts,” the letter continues.

Amid Eli Lilly-Twitter Fiasco, Groups Call for End to Insulin Price Gouging (commondreams.org)