Nigel Farage, Brexiteer, has criticised climate activists Greta Thunberg for “alarmism” and said wind power is “economic insanity. ” He holds a long record of scepticism if not outright climate change denialism. 

In 2013, he told the European parliament that “we may have made one of the biggest and most stupid collective mistakes in history by getting so worried about global warming”.

challenging the overwhelming consensus of the global scientific community as well as international bodies such as the United Nations, Farage claimed that “science was not settled” on the climate, and said that “measures we are taking to combat what may or not be a problem are damaging our citizens”.

Farage blames the “explosion” of the population in countries such as China for increasing global emissions, rather than accept the generally higher per capita emissions of citizens of richer countries. Under Farage’s leadership UKIP consistently argued against climate action in the European Parliament. 

The Dutch Green Business Group which trades and plants trees in the lucrative carbon capture market has now hired Farage for his services in introducing political contacts and his supposed skills in mass communication of ideas, or more truthfully, his ability to deceive.

Carbon offsetting theoretically allows polluting activities to be “carbon neutral”, but many environmental campaigners argue that it offers a front for polluters to continue their business without directly addressing their emissions.

 Farage’s new employers claim that they will “harness free market forces and the access to capital needed to rapidly accelerate the reforestation of Earth”. Reforestation “represents an exciting opportunity for the capital markets and for private individuals”, according to the website. It added that it will “act in great service to all life and to the Creator”.

A politician willing to prostitute himself for filthy lucre does not surprise the blog in the slightest. A business willing to exercise hypocrisy when there is an opportunity to make more money does not come as a surprise this blog,

Nigel Farage appointed to advisory board of green finance firm | Nigel Farage | The Guardian

 What’s new with the over-population argument and its proponents. Very little as this Socialist Standard article from 1927 suggests.

A pamphlet presents the case for reducing Britain’s population so to increase its prosperity. It is not only familiar to modern ears but is accompanied by all the usual fallacies. R. B. Kerr, the pamphlet’s author, ignores the enormous inequality of wealth existing within every nation, whether thickly or thinly populated.  He blames over-population as the cause of modern wars.  Kerr dismisses the Socialist Party’s  contention that nature is sufficiently bountiful for our needs.

There obviously can be problems with population densities, but the problem of working peoples’ poverty is not one of these. 

 Adar Poonawalla is chief executive of the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine producer, which even before coronavirus struck was making more than 1.5bn jabs a year for everything from polio and diphtheria to tetanus, BCG, hepatitis B and the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccinations.

 He and his family extraordinarily wealthy. They are now the sixth richest family in India with an estimated $15bn (£11bn) fortune. The family home is Lincoln House, a Mumbai mansion which is the former US embassy to India. At $113m it was the most expensive Indian home ever sold when they bought it in 2015. And this week he signed a deal to rent a London house, a Mayfair mansion for a record £50,000 a week. The property, which at 2,3oo sq metres (25,000 sq ft) is 24 times the size of the average English home, comes with an adjoining guest house and backs on to one of Mayfair’s “secret gardens”. He is renting it from Polish billionaire Dominika Kulczyk, who bought it for £57m last year.

Poonawalla, who was educated at £30,000-a-year St Edmund’s School in Canterbury and the University of Westminster. He travels by helicopter and private jet, a converted Airbus A320 . He owns paintings by Picasso, Dalí, Rembrandt and Rubens, and has a collection of 35 rare luxury cars including several Ferraris, Bentleys and Rolls-Royces, as well as a Mercedes S350 converted into a replica Batmobile.

Producing vaccines was not Poonawalla’s idea. His father, Cyrus, founded SII in 1966 as a sideline to his 81-hectare (200-acre) thoroughbred racehorse stables Poonawalla Stud. (Serum from purified horse blood was used in the production of early vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus, and scarlet fever.)

 After he watched a Bill Gates talk in 2015, in which the billionaire Microsoft co-founder-turned philanthropist warned that the world was not prepared for a new viral pandemic, e doubled the firm’s production facilities and began producing more vaccines for developing countries on behalf of the World Health Organization and Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), the vaccine charity supported by Gates and of which Poonawalla is a board member.

“Maybe not in my lifetime, but at least in my children’s lifetimes, there’s going to be another global pandemic,” he told Bloomberg. “And I’m willing to bet anything that pandemic will be far worse than this.”

The world’s misfortune guarantees the wealth of his dynasty well into the future.

‘Vaccine prince’: the Indian billionaire set to make Covid jabs for the UK | Pharmaceuticals industry | The Guardian

 PM Boris Johnson  attributed the UK’s vaccine success to “capitalism” and “greed”. It’s extremely difficult to see how greed will help ensure the vaccine is made available for all people, in all countries, free of charge.

 Mariana Mazzucato is professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London, and the founding director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) explained that private enterprise and entrepreneurship  was not the key to the rapid development and roll-out of a COVID-19 vaccine. The private sector takes the plaudits but more importantly it also takes the profits.

The “AstraZeneca” vaccine was created by scientists at the University of Oxford and developed and distributed by the pharmaceutical giant.

The leading six vaccine candidates have received an estimated $12bn (£8.7bn) of taxpayer and public money, including $1.7bn for the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab and $2.5bn for the Pfizer/BioNTech candidate. 

 Governments have committed to guarantees that private companies that successfully produce a Covid-19 vaccine are amply rewarded with huge orders.

 Britain’s lack of capacity to manufacture sufficient doses is far from a given. Britain’s long-term failure to support its domestic manufacturing base reflected in recent quarrels between the EU and UK over the supply of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab. Prior to the crisis, the UK had been disinterested in investing in a domestic industrial base to mass-produce vaccines and other life science products.

Addressing pharmaceutical companies’ monopoly over the science, know-how and technology, and sharing this with as many countries as possible, will be essential to scaling up and decentralising vaccine manufacturing across the world. The World Health Organization has established a voluntary Covid-19 technology access pool (C-Tap) to enable governments and companies to do just this. In addition, South Africa and India have tabled a proposal to the WHO, backed by more than 100 countries, to temporarily waive intellectual property rights for Covid-related technologies. A recent poll found that 74% of people in the UK are supportive of these positions. In response, the government has overlooked the C-Tap and blocked the temporary waiver on intellectual property.

When greed is a government’s guiding philosophy, “vaccine apartheid” is all but guaranteed. Already, 56% of more than 455m doses of vaccine have gone to people in high-income countries and just 0.1% have been administered in the 29 lowest-income countries. Covax, which aims to vaccinate up to 27% of the population in 92 of the poorest countries, is unlikely to be enough on its own.

Capitalism won’t save us from Covid, no matter what Boris Johnson might think | Coronavirus | The Guardian

A well-intentioned yet a doomed futile political initiative has been launched in the US House of Representatives and Senate.

The Investing in Cures Before Missiles (ICBM) Act, introduced in the House and Senate on Friday, would stop funding on the proposed new missile, known as the ground-based strategic deterrent (GBSD) which is projected to cost a total of $264bn over its projected lifespan, and discontinue spending on a linked warhead modification program to transfer $1bn in funding from a controversial new intercontinental ballistic missile to the development of a universal Covid vaccine by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid) for development work on a universal coronavirus vaccine. 

“The United States should invest in a vaccine of mass prevention before another new land-based weapon of mass destruction,” Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, co-author of the bill, said. “The ICBM Act makes clear that we can begin to phase out the cold-war nuclear posture that risks accidental nuclear war while still deterring adversaries and assuring allies, and redirect those savings to the clear and present dangers presented by coronaviruses and other emerging and infectious diseases.”

“With all of the global challenges we face, the last thing we should be doing is giving billions to defense contractors to build missiles we don’t need to keep as a strong nuclear deterrence,” Ro Khanna, Democratic congressman from California and the bill’s co-author in the House, said.

In September 2020, Northrop Grumman was awarded an uncontested bid for the $13.3bn engineering, manufacturing and development phase of GBSD.

Even so the proponents of this bill aren’t totally humanitarian.  They seek an independent study to “explore viable technical solutions to extend the Minuteman III” intercontinental ballistic missile to 2050.

Democrats call for $1bn shift from weapons of mass destruction to ‘vaccine of mass prevention’ | US news | The Guardian

 DOVE OF PEACE

 In the USA a national moratorium on water shutoffs could have prevented almost half a million Covid infections and saved at least 9,000 lives, according to new research.

Amid pressure from public health experts and rights groups, hundreds of utilities and states suspended disconnections for overdue bills to ensure households kept running water for hand-washing and sanitation. But many refused, others let the bans expire after a few months, and Congress refused to step in with a national moratorium. 

This patchwork protection cost thousands of American lives between April and December last year, according to research by Cornell University and the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch (FWW). Researchers found that states which suspended disconnections significantly reduced their growth rates of Covid infections and deaths, compared to states without similar orders. The biggest reduction was seen in states with comprehensive bans covering all private and public utilities. If similar policies had been adopted across the US, the study model shows that Covid cases might have been reduced by 4% and deaths by 5.5% in the 41 states without a full moratorium.

“This research clearly shows us that the pain and suffering caused by the pandemic was exacerbated by political leaders who failed to take action to keep the water flowing for struggling families,” said Wenonah Hauter, FWW’s executive director.

 There is growing pressure on Michigan and New York state officials to extend their state moratoriums, both of which expire at the end of March. Failure to do so would leave a further 27 million people at risk of losing their water supplies for unpaid bills, as concerns grow about a potential third wave.

An investigation by the Guardian last year found millions of Americans were facing unaffordable bills even before the pandemic as ageing infrastructure, environmental clean-ups, changing demographics and the climate emergency fuelled exponential price hikes in almost every corner of the US. Federal funding for water systems has plummeted since peaking in 1977.  

Mildred Warner, a professor of local government at Cornell University, said: “This study shows the importance of a national standard for access to water, especially for low-income households.

Ban on US water shutoffs could have prevented thousands of Covid deaths – study | US news | The Guardian

Asda shop workers have won the latest key stage in their fight for equal pay in a ruling that could lead to a £500m compensation claim.

The supreme court has backed a 2016 employment tribunal decision that the supermarket’s retail staff, who are mostly women, can compare their work to those in warehouse distribution centres.

More than 44,000 shop workers say they should be paid the same as the predominantly male staff who work in the chain’s depots, and who receive£1.50-£3 an hour more in pay than the shop workers.

The GMB union called the supreme court ruling a “massive victory”.

Susan Harris, the GMB legal director, said: “Asda has wasted money on lawyers’ bills chasing a lost cause, losing appeal after appeal, while tens of thousands of retail workers remain out of pocket.

“We now call on Asda to sit down with us to reach agreement on the back pay owed to our members.”

The outcome of the landmark case – the biggest-ever equal pay claim in the UK private sector – will have repercussions for about 8,000 workers at other supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Co-op and Morrisons, who are also engaged in equal pay disputes with their employers.

Supreme court rules against Asda in workers’ equal pay case | Asda | The Guardian

 Poorer nations have contributed the least to the climate crisis yet stand to bear the brunt of its impacts, says Prof Kimberly Nicholas, a sustainability scientist from Lund University in Sweden.

Climate inequality also exists within rich countries, she says, with poorer and minority communities often facing the largest climate impacts despite causing fewer emissions. 

Research by Oxfam which found that the poorest 50 per cent of US households produce around eight tonnes of CO2 per person each year, while the richest 10 per cent emit an average of 50 tonnes.

The richest 1 per cent of people in the UK produce 11 times the amount of carbon emissions as those in the poorest half of society, according to a new report.

Wealthy must acknowledge their ‘climate privilege’, says scientist | The Independent

Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the US, is shutting down grocery stores in Los Angeles and laying off of employees in response to local hazard pay rules for essential workers even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage.

“Why are they punishing us?” said Maria Hernandez. “If it weren’t for us they couldn’t run the stores. As a person we have value. As workers we have value. They don’t seem to care about you as a human being. They don’t care.”

In response to a local ordinance passed by the Los Angeles city council on 3 March to grant frontline workers at large employers a $5-an-hour hazard pay increase for 120 days, Kroger announced plans to shut down three grocery stores in the city, eliminating more than 250 jobs.

Tina Jones said, “It’s retaliation.” She continued, “…these executives at Kroger…they’re sitting in their nice houses in the hills or wherever they live, and telling us we don’t deserve an extra $5 an hour.”

As demand for groceries soared due to the coronavirus pandemic, Kroger reported an operating profit of $2.8bn in 2020, an increase from $2.25bn in 2019. Kroger’s sales have continued to outperform 2019, with more than a 10% sales increase in the last fourth quarter of 2020. Kroger’s CEO, Rodney McMullen, received more than $21m in total compensation in 2019, a 789 to 1 ratio compared to the median wage for Kroger employees. In September 2020, Kroger announced a $1bn stock buyback program. Kroger spent $1.32bn on stock buybacks in 2020, and increased dividends to shareholders totaling a $534m payout, providing nearly $1.9bn to shareholders, more than double Kroger’s return to shareholders in 2019 of $951m.

In Long Beach Kroger shut down two grocery stores in Long Beach after the $4-an-hour hazard pay ordinance passed. In February 2021, Kroger also shut down two grocery stores in Seattle after a $4-an-hour local hazard pay ordinance for grocery workers was passed by the Seattle city council.

When the pandemic began, Kroger enacted a $2-an-hour hazard pay along with several other large retailers and grocery chains, but ended it in May 2020 after buying nationwide television ads thanking their essential employees.

“It’s punishing the workers and communities for deciding what our communities look like and how workers should be compensated,” said John Grant, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 in Los Angeles. “They are, as best we can tell, the only grocery chain that is acting punitively and trying to punish workers in the community. Nobody else is shutting down stores.”

‘They don’t care’: US supermarket chain shutters stores after hazard pay rules | California | The Guardian

 The militarisation of Europe’s borders has been increasing steadily since 2015. The EU has invested in fortifying its borders. Drones, thermal-vision cameras and devices that can detect a heartbeat are among the new technological tools being increasingly used by to stop migrants from crossing borders, or to push them back when they do.

Between 2005 and 2016, Frontex’s budget grew from €6.3m to €238.7m, and it now stands at €420.6m. 

The EU has ear-marked €34.9bn (£30bn) in funding for border and migration management for the 2021-27 budget, while sidelining the creation of safe passages and fair asylum processes.

Between 2014 and 2017, with EU funding, Croatia bought 13 thermal-imaging devices for €117,338 that can detect people more than a mile away and vehicles from two miles away. In 2019,  Croatia acquired four eRIS-III long-range drones for €2.3m. They identify people up to six miles away in daylight and just under two miles in darkness, they fly at 80mph and climb to an altitude of 3,500 metres (11,400ft), while transmitting real-time data. Croatia has infrared cameras that can detect people at up to six miles away and equipment that picks up heartbeats.

Romania now has heartbeat detection devices, alongside 117 thermo-vision cameras. Last spring, it added 24 vehicles with thermo-vision capabilities to its border security force at a cost of more than €13m.

Petra Molnar, associate director of Refugee Law Lab, believes the over-emphasis on technologies can alienate and dehumanise migrants.

“There’s this alluring solution to really complex problems,” she says. “It’s a lot easier to sell a bunch of drones or a lot of automated technology, instead of dealing with the drivers that force people to migrate … or making the process more humane.”

A 2021 report by  Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) claims that enhanced border control technologies have led to increased violence as police in the Balkans weaponise new equipment against people on the move. Technology used in pushing back migrants has “contributed to the ease with which racist and repressive procedures are carried out”, the report says. The often violent removal of migrants without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum is illegal under EU law, which obliges authorities to process asylum requests whether or not migrants possess identification documents or entered the country legally. BVMN’s website archives hundreds of reports of violence. 

‘They can see us in the dark’: migrants grapple with hi-tech fortress EU | Migration | The Guardian