OMNI GROWTH WATCH NEWSLETTER #2

OMNI

ECONOMIC GROWTH WATCH,

October 20, 2018

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and ECOLOGY

http://omnicenter.org/donate/

GROWTH, EXPANSION the Dynamo of Capitalism

Of the dozen or more chief features of capitalism, growth is always at or near the top.   Understanding it (and other features of capitalism, and patriarchy, overpopulation, wars) is important for our opposition to fossil fuels emissions.  The System: Industrial Revolution, Fossil Fuels Binge, Free-Market Capitalism, Empire, Wars, Economic Growth, Population, Resources Exploitation, CO2 and Temperature Rise, Climate Chaos 

Earlier Newsletters

(#1, June 17, 2016, http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2016/06/growth-watch.html

#2, July 10, 2016, https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2016/07/growth-watch-2.html )

TABLE OF Contents: #3, OCTOBER 20, 2018

PART ONE:   ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE, OCTOBER 2018, ON CLIMA TE

ADG’S LATEST TEA PARTY EDITORIAL AGAINST CLIMATE TREATIES

NADG REPORTING ECONOMIC GROWTH: BUSINESS AS USUAL

(JAMES HANSEN, “CRIMINALITY, INDEED”)

THE LATEST IPCC REPORT: IN NADG A FEW PARAGRAPHS FOR 728pp.

PRINTING GARY KAHANAK’S LTE on URGENCY (and Art Hobson earlier)

PART TWO:  GROWTH

ENGELHARDT, ENDLESS GROWTH: DISASTER CAPITALISM

YATES, CAPITALISM’S INHERENT GROWTH IMPERATIVE

PART THREE:  ALTERNATIVES, RESISTANCE

Meadows, Limits to Growth

Jackson, Economics for a Finite Planet

Klein, Capitalism v. the Climate

Arkansas Climate Change Lobby

OMNI Climate Book Forum

Galtung, No Growth Towns

PART FOUR: CLOSELY RELATED

Overpopulation

      Grant, Too Many People

      OMNI Overpopulation Newsletters

Patriarchy:

     Books by Mies, Eisenstein, Moghadam.

     OMNI Patriarchy Newsletter

Making War Illegal

     Kellogg-Briand Pact

     OMNI Anti-war and Nuclear Abolition Newsletters

CONTENTS

PART ONE:  ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE, OCTOBER 2018 VS. FOSSIL FUELS ACCORDS

ADG’S LATEST TEA PARTY EDITORIAL in Two Parts

Part One, “Forget Paris”:   A defense of Bush and Trump for withdrawing from the “useless” Kyoto and Paris Accords

http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/oct/15/forget-paris/?opinion

Part Two, “Forget Paris II”: ridiculing a misrepresented description of the Paris Accords.

http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/oct/19/forget-paris-ii-20181019/?opinion
Pg 6B Oct 19, 2018 NWADG 

(both forwarded by Charles Sisco, CLL)

STRIKE UP THE BAND WITH THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Here’s a handful of recent celebratory reporting of growth in the business as usual NADG during June-Oct. 2018. 

WAR PROFITEERS, WARFARE NATION

Dana Hull and Richard Clough.  (Bloomberg News).  “Defense Contractors Harris, L3 Agree to $33.5B Merger.”  NADG (10-16-18).    “…poised to capitalize on military spending increases under President Donald Trump,” the “behemoth” will be “one of the industry’s largest players” to “challenge weapons-makers such as Raytheon Co. and Northrop-Grumman Corp.”    “The combination adds to a flurry of aerospace and defense deals fueled by higher government spending….”

TRANSPORTATION

AIR TRAVEL

“LR Airport on Pace for 2 Million Fliers.”  NADG (7-17-18).

“Bill and Hillary Clinton National airport “is on track in 2018 to top 2 million passengers for the second consecutive year….2.4 percent higher than the same period in 2017.”  June a “4.08 percent more than in June last year.”    (At NA Regional Airport, Highfill, “a 9.24 percent increase over the same month last year.”)  Read George Monbiot’s essay, “Love Flights.”

Ron Wood.  “Parking Deck Set to Open in August.”  NADG (6-14-18).  The new parking deck at the NWA Regional Airport, Highfill.  “The four-level deck with 1,400 parking spaces….cost about $30 million.”   Take that and stuff it George Monbiot, you and your anti-flying “Love Flights.”    Ron Wood.  “Airport Group Hopes to Speed Access Road.”  NADG (7-14-18).  Melissa Gute.  “[Bentonville] Private Money to cover Work at City Airport.  Projects planned to Widen Runway, Improve Traffic Flow.”  NADG (6- 27-18).   Laurinda Joenks.  “[Springdale] Airport Project Closer to Taking Off.”  NADG (7-3-18).   Frank Lockwood.  “Airport Aid Program Gets Infusion.”  (I missed the date, probably on or around 10-7.).   Melissa Gute.  “NWA Flying Club Taking Off.  Membership Grows Leading Up to Fieldhouse Opening.”  NADG (10-7-18).
 TRUCKING
“FEDEX’S 4q Gain Grows 10% to #$1.13B.”  NADG (6-20-18).    “J. B. Hunt’s Earnings Hit $131.1M in 3Q.”  NADG (10-16-18).  “…up from $100.4 million a year ago.”
OIL COMPANIES
Shea Wilson.  “Murphy Oil’s Net Income Tops $45M in 2^nd Quarter.”  NADG (8-9-18).  “The company produced 171,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day….” creating $618 million for the second quarter.
“Refinery Builder Aims to Sidestep Panel.”  NADG (8-10-18).Meridian Energy planning a $800 million plant 3 miles from Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota seeks state dismissal of complaint by environmental groups.
BANKS
“Bank of America’s 3Q Profit Jumps 32%.”  NADG (10-16-17).   As “lower corporate tax rates helped it save hundreds of millions on taxes.”
 “How Arkansas’ Congressional Delegation Voted.”  NADG (10-7-18).  “Aviation Programs….”  Approved 93-6 HR302 “$90 billion for aviation programs” and other budgets, thumbs up by Boozman and Cotton.
MONOPOLY:  Growth Through Mergers for Profit
AMAZON ACHIEVES $1 TRILLION IN EQUITY VALUE (up there with Apple, Facebook, Netflix, and Google).  “…the rapid ascent is a validation of the growth-at-all-costs ethos that has defined Bezos vision.”  NADG (9-5-18).
“U.S. Clears $68B C VS-Aetna Tie-Up.”  NADG (10-11-18).  “…would create a giant with a hand in insurance, prescription-drug benefits, and drugstores across the United States.”  The Justice Dept.’s antitrust division signed off on the deal, but “consumers could end up with far fewer options and higher expenses.”
“Tyson Moves Closer to Deal for Keystone.”  NADG (10-17-18).  “The all-cash acquisition expands Tyson’s domestic production and global reach into Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.”

       In his Foreword, “Criminality, Indeed,” to Unprecedented Crime by Peter Carter and Elizabeth Woodworth, Dr. James Hansen writes:  Carter and Woodworth “make an overwhelming case that the public…are victims of ‘Unprecedented Crime,’” “crimes against humanity,” particularly against young people.  The fossil fuel companies invested enormous funds in developing and fully understanding those fuels, then denying their harms, and then developing even more poisonous fuels from tar sands and shale oil.  The officers knew the truth about CO2 early but not only did they not cease, they increased production, to this day.

       Similarly, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette owner and managers knew the truth and to this day are defending fossil fuels.  But not totally; they know a little conflict sells newspapers.

    SO THE NEWSPAPER DID GIVE A FEW PARAGRAPHS TO THE URGENT REPORT BY THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).    “Climate Panel Sees Little Hope of Action.”  NADG (10-8-18).  Only a 4” column on a back page for the 728 pp. IPCC report calling for sharp reductions in emissions but seeing “little chance of the needed adjustments happening.”  This report for the 6^th Assessment reveals damning truths about the fossil fuels industry, when the story should have covered page one with screamer headlines.  Instead, as it has done since 1991 when the IPCC assessments began, the ADG dramatically underreported the latest IPCC studies and steadily beat the drum for growth.

AND NOW TODAY 10-18 IT PRINTED GARY KAHANAK’S LTE CALLING ATTENTION TO THIS IPCC REPORT (distributed online by Charles Sisco of ArkCCL). http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/oct/13/nwa-letters/?opinion  

“A Message of Danger” by Gary Kahanak, NADG (10-18-18)
      The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just released a report, and it’s stark. Keeping the planet at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times is barely possible, but will still cause suffering and death from climate disruption and weather extremes. The conclusion: Greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2020, then drop 50 percent by 2030, then achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
      That’s a tight schedule, a big ask. Unprecedented international cooperation and infrastructure transformation are required. Physically possible, but not probable politically, says IPCC. This is a “Danger: Iceberg dead ahead!” message.
      Eighty-five percent of the world’s energy still comes from burning fossil fuels. No longer may we be content knowing that we have done a little bit that helps. We have been given an evidence-based emissions target and a timeline for achieving it. We can set verifiable milestones of accomplishment.
      Time is short. We must use every tool and technique at our disposal in the most effective manner. That includes nuclear power, which currently provides 76 percent of the clean, zero-emission electricity for Arkansas. Summing up the IPCC report: If the entire world gets its act together and pushes—hard—starting today, we might just miss hitting the metaphorical iceberg, and sustain only “tolerable” damage to our vessel. Or we can head down to the lounge for another cocktail and strike up the band, secure in our belief that no action is required, that all will be as it has ever been.
      The choice is ours. This is our “Titanic” moment.
      GARY KAHANAK
      Fayetteville

PART TWO

CAPITALIST ECONOMIC SYSTEM OF ENDLESS GROWTH

 “The present capitalist model. . .is also a model for planetary decline, possibly of a precipitous nature.  The very definition of success—more middle-class consumers, more car owners, more shoppers, which means more energy used, more fossil fuels burned, more greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere—is also, as it never would have been before, the definition of failure.  The greater the ‘success,’ the more intense the droughts, the stronger the storms, the more extreme the weather, the higher the rise in sea levels, the hotter the temperatures, the greater the chaos in low-lying or tropical lands the more profound the failure. . . .This process. . .gives a new meaning to Naomi Klein’s term ‘disaster capitalism.’”  Tom Engelhardt, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.  2014.

 (94-95).

EXPAND!

Michael Yates.  “Nothing to Lose But Their Chains.”  Monthly Review (October 2018).   “To grasp Marx and Engels’s meaning, it is necessary to understand just how radical capitalism is.  Of great significance is the fact that it is the first economic system in which there is an inherent growth imperative.” (p. 17).  [This essay is an excellent 101 introduction to capitalism from perspective of the independent socialist journal, MR.]

PART THREE

ALTERNATIVES, RESISTANCE TO GROWTH 1972—

Academy for Systems Change

« A Different Vision of the Path To International Security Thirty Years Later:  the Idea of Limits to Growth Is More Important Than Ever »

A Synopsis: Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update

 By Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows.

The following piece is a short synopsis of Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update.

http://donellameadows.org/archives/a-synopsis-limits-to-growth-the-30-year-update/

The full length book (2004) is available at Chelsea Green’s website.

 The signs are everywhere around us:

Sea level has risen 10–20 cm since 1900. Most non-polar glaciers are retreating, and the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice is decreasing in summer.

In 1998 more than 45 percent of the globe’s people had to live on incomes averaging $2 a day or less. Meanwhile, the richest one- fifth of the world’s population has 85 percent of the global GNP. And the gap between rich and poor is widening.

In 2002, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN estimated that 75 percent of the world’s oceanic fisheries were fished at or beyond capacity. The North Atlantic cod fishery, fished sustainably for hundreds of years, has collapsed, and the species may have been pushed to biological extinction.

The first global assessment of soil loss, based on studies of hundreds of experts, found that 38 percent, or nearly 1.4 billion acres, of currently used agricultural land has been degraded.

Fifty-four nations experienced declines in per capita GDP for more than a decade during the period 1990–2001.

These are symptoms of a world in overshoot, where we are drawing on the world’s resources faster than they can be restored, and we are releasing wastes and pollutants faster than the Earth can absorb them or render them harmless. They are leading us toward global environmental and economic collapse—but there may still be time to address these problems and soften their impact.

We’ve been warned before. More than 30 years ago, a book called The Limits to Growth created an international sensation. Commissioned by the Club of Rome, an international  group of businessmen, states- men, and scientists, The Limits to Growth was compiled by a team of experts from the U.S. and several foreign countries. Using system dynamics theory and a computer model called “World3,” the book presented and analyzed 12 scenarios that showed different possible patterns—and environmental outcomes—of world development over two centuries from 1900 to 2100.  MORE   http://donellameadows.org/archives/a-synopsis-limits-to-growth-the-30-year-update/

While the past 30 years has shown some progress, including new technologies, new institutions, and a new awareness of environmental problems, the authors are far more pessimistic than they were in 1972. Humanity has squandered the opportunity to correct our current course over the last 30 years, they conclude, and much must change if the world is to avoid the serious consequences of overshoot in the 21st century.

When The Limits to Growth was first published in 1972, most economists, along with many industrialists, politicians, and Third World advocates raised their voices in outrage at the suggestion that population growth and material consumption need to be reduced by deliberate means. Over the years, Limits was attacked by many who didn’t understand or misrepresented its assertions, dismissing it as Malthusian hyperbole. But nothing that has happened in the last 30 years has invalidated the book’s warnings.

On the contrary, as noted energy economist Matthew Simmons recently wrote, “The most amazing aspect of the book is how accurate many of the basic trend extrapolations … still are some 30 years later.” For example, the gap between rich and poor has only grown wider in the past three decades. Thirty years ago, it seemed unimaginable that humanity could expand its numbers and economy enough to alter the Earth’s natural systems. But experience with the global climate system and the stratospheric ozone layer have proved them wrong.

All the environmental and economic problems discussed in Limits to Growth have been treated at length before. There are hundreds of books on deforestation, global climate change, dwindling oil supplies, and species extinction. Since The Limits to Growth was first published 30 years ago, these problems have been the focus of conferences, scientific research, and media scrutiny.

What makes Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update unique, however, is that it presents the underlying economic structure that leads to these problems. Moreover, Limits is a valuable reference and compilation of data. The authors include 80 tables and graphs that give a comprehensive, coherent view of many problems. The book will undoubtedly be used as a text in many courses at the college level, as its two earlier versions have been.    MORE

http://donellameadows.org/archives/a-synopsis-limits-to-growth-the-30-year-update/

Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet by Tim Jackson.   2016.  

Is more economic growth the solution? Will it deliver prosperity and well-being for a global population projected to reach nine billion?  In this explosive book, Tim Jackson - a top sustainability adviser to the UK government - makes a compelling case against continued economic growth in developed nations.

No one denies that development is essential for poorer nations.  But in the advanced economies there is mounting evidence that ever-increasing consumption adds little to human happiness and may even impede it.  More urgently, it is now clear that the ecosystems that sustain our economies are collapsing under the impacts of rising consumption. Unless we can radically lower the environmental impact of economic activity - and there is no evidence to suggest that we can - we will have to devise a path to prosperity that does not rely on continued growth. 

Economic heresy? Or an opportunity to improve the sources of well-being, creativity and lasting prosperity that lie outside the realm of the market? Tim Jackson provides a credible vision of how human society can flourish within the ecological limits of a finite planet. Fulfilling this vision is simply the most urgent task of our times.

This book is a substantially revised and updated version of Jackson's controversial study for the Sustainable Development Commission, an advisory body to the UK Government. The study rapidly became the most downloaded report in the Commission's nine year history when it was launched earlier this year.

Capitalism vs. the Climate

That is the subtitle of Naomi Klein's book, This Changes Everything.  If you’re really short of time, read her Intro. where she explains the CONTRACTION needed against the fierce, ceaseless drive to EXPAND by our economic system. (See OMNI's Growth Newsletter  #2: http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2016/07/growth-watch-2.html,  and Capitalism, Newsletter #22: http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2015/04/us-capitalism-newsletter-22.html).

     Klein divides her book into 3 parts:  I. the barriers to life-saving, planet-saving climate action.  II. All the false solutions (dinner with a green billionaire anyone?).  III. Blockades.  Because “our economic system and our planetary system are at war,” become a climate warrior with Native Americans.  Blockade everything that grows and expands and are killing us.   Join the global revolution.   

ARKANSAS CLIMATE CHANGE LOBBY, CHAPTER OF FEE/DIVIDEND CAMPAIGN

Dear Friends, Partnership is our core.  It is who we are and how we work at Arkansas Citizens' Climate Lobby and Arkansas Citizens' Climate League.   We view the necessity of climate solutions and ecological conservation, as a challenge that requires fluid, meaningful, and respectful collaboration between individuals and organizations. We are fortunate in Arkansas to have so many opportunities to join forces in raising awareness and building momentum for action.  In September our collaborations stretched across the state from Mountain Home to Little Rock to Fort Smith, Conway and Russellville. We tabled with the Twin Lakes Sustainability Volunteers at the Baxter County Fair, partnered with Interfaith Power and Light and Arkansas Audubon for a showing of Happening: A Clean Energy Revolution at the Little Rock Oyster Bar, joined in speaking at the Peace One Day event at UA Fort Smith, took part in the University of Central Arkansas student volunteer fair, had a conversation with the Arkansas Tech Campus Environmental Coalition, united with other advocates at the Arkansas Citizens' First Congress Meeting, and teamed up with UA Fayetteville rice researcher Kosana Suvocarev for a presentation to the Mind Stretchers Fort Smith group. October brings more chances for working together, including an invitation to you to take part in our Climate Change Costume Contest.  You'll learn more about this fun Fall Fundraiser and other upcoming community collaborations in the photo stories and articles that follow.  Please take a quick moment to scroll through and find your favorite collaboration. Once again my heartfelt thanks to your for your partnership in preserving a livable world. Jan Schaper   State Coordinator   Arkansas Citizens’ Climate Lobby janschaper@live.com

OMNI CLIMAT E BOOK FORUM

Meets first Sundays of each month with a new book.  This month Goodell’s The Water Will Come, next month Grant, Too Many People.

NO GROWTH
Johan Galtung.  TRANSCEND Media Service, #519 
A small but important signal from La Nucia…in Spain: no more permits to build new houses for some time. La Nucia wants to stop growing.  30,000 inhabitants in 2030 is the limit; with no limitation on restoration, beauty, art, well-being.

PART FOUR:  CLOSELY RELATED

REVERSING POPULATION GROWTH

Lindsey Grant .  Too Many People: The Case for Reversing Growth.     January 7, 2001. 

http://www.npg.org/library/books-by-lindsey-grant/too-many-people-the-case-for-reversing-growth.html

 This book explores a fundamental but seldom asked question: has the recent growth of human numbers and economic activity imperiled our well-being, social justice and even the natural support systems on which we and other creatures depend? Challenging a nearly universal enthusiasm for endless growth, Grant makes the unassailable point that perpetual material growth on Earth is a mathematical absurdity. Growth, moreover, is already an unrecognized root of environmental and social problems, not simply a potential danger.

Grant summarizes the evidence concerning food, water, land, climate change, the energy transition, chemicals and pollution and their threat to living systems. He observes that most people object to crowding — but without identifying the source. He recognizes – indeed emphasizes — the limits of our knowledge, but he suggests, in broad terms, what world population might be sustainable at a decent standard of living. The numbers are something like those the world passed two or three generations ago.

We are already at war with the biosphere that supports us. More than any other proposed solution, a solution on the demand side — population — offers an effective way to end or ameliorate the problems I have described… and, remarkably enough, it will save money rather than demanding more investments. (p.71).  MORE   http://www.npg.org/library/books-by-lindsey-grant/too-many-people-the-case-for-reversing-growth.html

OMNI Overpopulation Newsletters   OMNI OVER-POPULATION, GROWTH, CONSUMPTION, WARMING, CLIMATE CHANGE  NEWSLETTER #11,   June 10 , 2018.   http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2018/06/omni-overpopulation-newsletter-11.html   # 12 under construction .

PATRIARCHY
Maria Mies.  Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour.  Zed Books, 1986. 
Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism.  Edited by Zillah R. Eisenstein.  1978.
Patriarchy and Economic Development : Women's Positions at the End of the Twentieth Century.  Edited by Valentine M. Moghadam.   Clarendon Press,  1996.

 

Outlawing War

Ground Zero Center For Nonviolent Action

Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action offers the opportunity to explore the meaning and practice of nonviolence from a perspective of deep spiritual reflection, providing a means for witnessing to and resisting all nuclear weapons, especially Trident. We seek to go to the root of violence and injustice in our world and experience the transforming power of love through nonviolent direct action. F A C E B O O K Website Email Pinterest http://www.gzcenter.org/

“Outlawing war? It actually worked”, an article by Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro (NYT 5 Sep 2017) refers to the 1928 Kellogg-Briand pact that brought “an end to the right of conquest and changed the way states behave” [growth, expansion]. The pact did not abolish war but tried to make it illegal…making war for conquest a crime. Like slavery, like colonialism….” 

OMNI NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION NEWSLETTER #23, JANUARY 15, 2017.  http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2018/01/omni-nuclear-weapons-abolition.html   #24 in preparation.

OMNI ANTI-WAR, ANTI-IMPERIALISM, PEACEMAKING  NEWSLETTER #5.  December 19, 2016.    http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2016/12/anti-war-newsletter-5.html    (#1 April 2, 2012; #2 Jan. 18, 2013; #3 March 25, 2014; #4, January 25, 2015).  #6 in preparation.

GROWTH WATCH NEWLETTER #2

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2016/07/growth-watch-2.html

END GROWTH WATCH #3