Woodside is a wealthy San Francisco Bay area suburb.  It is home to some tech oligarchs such as Scott Cook and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. 

The median home price in the town is $5.5m, and the median household income is more than $250,000. The landscape is scattered with sizable mansions.

The wealthy have said it cannot approve the development of new duplexes or fourplexes to ease the statewide housing shortage. As California pushes to expand housing amid a crisis of housing affordability and homelessness, communities across the state have resisted efforts to build more densely, often using the state’s strict environmental laws as a shield. With SB 9 taking effect this year, cities across the state also sought to pass design restrictions, or designate historic districts and sites in a scramble to find loopholes in the law.

SB 9 is a a new California measure that makes it easier to build multi-unit housing in neighborhoods previously reserved for single-family homes. But a clause in the measure exempts areas that are considered habitat for protected species. “Given that Woodside – in its entirety” is habitat for mountain lions that environmental groups are petitioning to list as threatened or endangered under the state’s Endangered Species Act, “no parcel within Woodside is currently eligible for an SB 9 project”, the town’s planning director wrote. 

Housing advocates, have accused the town of cynically using environmental concerns to avoid compliance with state law. “This is nimbyism disguised as environmentalism,” said Scott Wiener, a California senator who co-authored SB 9. “The notion that building duplexes hurts mountain lions – it’s just ridiculous.”

Winston Vickers, director of the Mountain Lion Project at the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center, explained, “Any development should be done with careful consideration of whether it is going to impact a nearby travel corridor, green belt or large adjacent habitat area for mountain lions,” Vickers said. “But to say that any expansion of housing, anywhere in a given city, would likely impact mountain lions is likely a bit of a stretch.”

Wealthy California town cites mountain lion habitat to deny affordable housing | California | The Guardian

 10% of the 8 billion people on earth are already undernourished with 3 billion lacking healthy diets, and the land and water resources farmers rely on stressed to “a breaking point.” And by 2050 there will be 2 billion more mouths to feed, warns a new report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

 “Human-induced degradation affects 34% (1,660 million hectares) of agricultural land, the FAO reports. “The treatment of soils with inorganic fertilizers to increase or sustain yields has had significant adverse effects on soil health, and has contributed to freshwater pollution induced by run-off and drainage.”

The FAO reports also that globally, agriculture accounts for 72 percent of all surface and groundwater withdrawals, mainly for irrigation, which is depleting groundwater aquifers in many regions. 

Climate change exacerbates farmers’ challenges by making weather more extreme and less reliable. The FAO reports that 31% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from agri-food systems. Extreme heat can stress crops and farm workers while increasing evaporation of water from soil and transpiration from plants, thus amplifying agricultural water demands. Here too, it’s not all bad news: Agricultural productivity is expected to increase in regions that are currently relatively cold, but decrease in places that are hotter and drier, especially as climate change exacerbates droughts.

For example, as the primary or sole producer of many of the country’s fruits, vegetables, and nuts, California effectively acts as America’s garden. But climate change is exacerbating droughts and water shortages in the state, and farmers are struggling to adapt. About 80% of all almonds in the world are grown in California, generating $6 billion in annual revenue, but almonds are a very water-intensive crop. As a result, some farmers have been forced to tear up their lucrative almond orchards. It’s a stark reminder that “adaptation” can sound easy on paper, but in practice can sometimes be painful and costly.

Regenerative agriculture is a simple idea, instead of using pesticides, irrigation systems, and heavy tilling machinery, cover crops are used during the off season to keep the moisture and nutrients in the soil. That also controls the weeds. Rotations of crops and livestock from season to season, allows worms do the work that machines do elsewhere. 

The state of the world’s land and water resources for food and agriculture | Land & Water | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | Land & Water | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (fao.org)

 Each year on average more than 3 million people die from zoonotic diseases, those that spill over from wildlife into humans. The analysis assesses every zoonotic virus over the last century known to have killed more than 10 people, including the Spanish flu, repeated bird flu outbreaks, Marburg virus, Lassa fever, Ebola, HIV, Nipah, West Nile, Sars, Chikungunya, Zika and Covid-19.

Wildlife is known to harbour vast numbers of viruses, and outbreaks are increasing in frequency and severity. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, experts have repeatedly warned that the root causes must be tackled. Inaction has left the world playing an “ill-fated game of Russian roulette with pathogens”, they have said, and protecting nature is vital to escape an “era of pandemics”.

  Scientists heavily criticise approaches by global bodies and governments that focus only on preventing the spread of new viruses once they have infected humans, rather than tackling the root causes as well. “That premise is one of the greatest pieces of folly of modern times,” said Prof Aaron Bernstein, of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at Harvard University. 

“Our salvation comes cheap because prevention is much cheaper than cures,” Bernstein said. “If Covid-19 taught us anything, it is that we absolutely cannot rely on post-spillover strategies alone to protect us. Spending only five cents on the dollar can help prevent the next tsunami of lives lost to pandemics by stopping the wave from ever emerging, instead of paying trillions to pick up the pieces.”

Bernstein said action to stop pandemics at source had been ignored because “ this primary prevention does not result in profits for corporations,” he said.

Failure to prevent pandemics at source is ‘greatest folly’, say scientists | Conservation | The Guardian

The Bank of England boss urged workers not to ask for big pay rises, to help stop prices rising out of control.

 Wealthy people have disproportionately large carbon footprints and the percentage of the world’s emissions they are responsible for is growing, a study has found.

In 2010, the most affluent 10% of households emitted 34% of global CO2, while the 50% of the global population in lower-income brackets accounted for just 15%. By 2015, the richest 10% were responsible for 49% of emissions against 7% produced by the poorest half of the world’s population.

In terms of energy demand in the UK, the least wealthy half of the population accounts for less than 20% of final demand, less than the top 5% consumes.

Aimee Ambrose, a professor of energy policy at Sheffield Hallam University and author of the study published in the journal Science Direct, says, the cost of living crisis was likely to make those on middle to low incomes reduce their carbon consumption by holidaying in the UK, if at all, and by using less fuel. However, those who consume the most are unlikely to have to make such changes.

“It is much easier for richer consumers to absorb these increases in costs without changing their behaviour. In many ways, the rich are being largely insulated from the spike in energy costs.”

‘Carbon footprint gap’ between rich and poor expanding, study finds | Carbon footprints | The Guardian

Two days after the Grenfell Tower fire, the UK government mounted a public relations rebuttal operation to counter potentially damaging reports that building regulations had allowed the use of combustible cladding. 

Brian Martin, the official in charge of fire safety building regulations at the Ministry of Housing, Local Government and Communities, rebutted press claims that the plastic-filled panels that fuelled the inferno were allowed in the UK but not abroad. Martin contacted Diane Marshall, now operations director at the National House Building Council (NHBC), which provides building control services, asking her to “say this (or something similar) in public” to counter critical reporting that the government’s building control system had allowed the west London council block to be wrapped in combustible materials.

Housing ministry ‘started rebuttal operation two days after Grenfell fire’ | Grenfell Tower inquiry | The Guardian

 Starbucks on Tuesday reported a 31% increase in profits during the final three months of 2021, but the massive Seattle-based coffee chain nevertheless announced plans to further raise its prices this year. 

Starbucks’ revenue grew to $8.1 billion at the tail-end of 2021, a 19% jump compared to the previous year.

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson saw his compensation soar by 39% to $20.4 million in 2021.

Starbucks employees are increasingly fighting back against their low wages and poor working conditions by launching union drives.

Historian Andy Lewis argued that Starbucks’ explanation for the impending price increases amounts to nothing more than “word salad to hide corporate greed.”

Starbucks Profits Soar by 31%—But It’s Raising Prices Anyway (commondreams.org)

Loopholes in the U.S. tax code have made the payment of estate, gift, and generation-skipping taxes effectively optional for the “ultrawealthy.” Over the next 24 years, the richest American families could avoid paying about $8.4 trillion in taxes, while passing $21 trillion on to heirs. 

The Americans for Tax Fairness report—entitled Dynasty Trusts: Giant Tax Loopholes that Supercharge Wealth Accumulation – details how loopholes have made the payment of estate, gift, and generation-skipping taxes—collectively called wealth-transfer taxes—effectively optional for the “ultrawealthy” and thereby accelerate the “accumulation of dynastic wealth.”

“Ultrarich families use dynasty trusts—the term for a variety of wealth-accumulating structures that remain in place for multiple generations—to ensure their fortunes cascade down to children, grandchildren, and beyond undiminished by wealth-transfer taxes,” the report explains.

Some U.S. states, such as South Dakota, have even changed their laws on dynasty trusts to attract wealthy residents.

The lobbyist group, Patriotic Millionaires, said, “There’s no denying our economy and democracy are rigged in favor of the ultra-wealthy. When the richest 100 Americans have 60,000 times more political power than the bottom 90% of people— it’s time to get dynastic wealth under control.”

Tax-Dodging Billionaire Dynasties Could Cost US $8.4 Trillion: Report (commondreams.org)

 With the Blessing of the State

O bless the British bourgeois state indeed

For its many benefits and largesse,

There are so, so many hardships and distress

As profit taking triumphs over need.

Government employs executive power

To mitigate the very worst effects,

But whichever party the voter elects

Prospects for many are reduced and dour.

There are honest politicians for sure,

With such good intentions, trying their best,

Yet for all their reforms, what isn’t addressed

In this rich world, why do the poor stay poor?

The fiscal blessings the state arranges,

Aim to ensure nothing really changes.

D. A.

 Myanmar’s annual employment losses in 2021 amounted to an estimated 8%, or 1.6 million jobs lost, indicating a sizable decrease from employment of 20.5 million in 2020, the International Labor Organization (ILO) stated in its January 2022 report. The estimates cover the whole labor force of Myanmar, including formal and informal economy workers. The country’s construction, garment, tourism and hospitality industries were among the hardest hit, according to the report, as were rural farmers.

25 million people (almost half Myanmar’s population) were living in poverty by the end of 2021, and 14.4 million people are now in need of humanitarian assistance, the ILO reported. The number of people living in poverty in Myanmar is expected to have more than doubled from before the pandemic, according to the World Bank.

The World Bank, meanwhile, said in its January report that Myanmar’s economy is about 30% smaller than it might have been in the absence of the pandemic and the military coup. International sanctions, a halt in foreign aid and the withdrawal of foreign investors have all pushed Myanmar to the brink of economic collapse.  Businesses all over Myanmar are facing bankruptcy.

Myanmar on brink of economic collapse one year after military coup | Asia | An in-depth look at news from across the continent | DW | 01.02.2022