Global Heating — Self Worsening

The American West was our last frontier not long ago.  Well, not exactly. We went on to take a good part of Mexico, set a fire-sale price of $15 million, and made it the American South West.  President James Polk called it “Manifest Destiny,” which was very appealing to many people, especially men and also slave owners.

Then it was on to Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines (a good try), …

Soon enough, it was the Whole World via fossil fuels, oil drilling, and fracking the bedrock for “natural” gas.  No one was worried about global warming, except Gadfly who called it global heating.

The western states were a little concerned — heat waves, wildfires, and smoke blotting out the sun weeks before the expected fire season.  San Francisco had red skies all day long.  The wildfires were directly adding to the heat of the planet, but also increasing the atmospheric level of CO2, the best greenhouse gas we have.

Meanwhile, more and more forest land was cleared for cattle ranching and factory farming, and cut for timber harvesting.  Forests were being decimated, and less was left to act as a carbon sink to save the Planet.

As well, some federal lands adjacent to our National Parks were going to be leased to the oil and gas companies.  The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was getting its instructions directly from the White House.

Sound the fire alarms louder!

Public Since the Pony Express

 

Only in America would the USPS be the target UPS, FedEx, Staples, and Amazon — and getting help from Congress. In 2006 a law was passed that required the Postal Service to fund future retiree health benefits 75 years into the future. No other government agency nor any private corporation puts up with such political monkey business — not UPS, FedEx, especially not Amazon. Indeed, were  it not for paying benefits 75 years ahead, the Postal Service would be self -sustaining.

But all these private delivery companies are not after taking over mail delivery and selling postage stamps. Every Post Office is located in the center of town and in a valuable piece of real estate. Imagine Amazon owning the building and being paid by McDonalds for putting up the Golden Arches on one side. It would be privatization in spades.

In addition to stealing the property, the corporation could eliminate union jobs, raise postal rates for rural areas, and rewrite the history of the Postal Service, not even mentioning the Pony Express and stage coaches. It is a classic case of alternate facts written in White House tweets.

The Race To Destroy Ourselves

Who will win the race to destroy mankind, and the other creatures of the Earth?  The nuclear powers or the populous countries that waited too long to confront the coronavirus?

Nuclear weapons had a head start in 1945 at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Soviet Union added to the US few quickly enough.  And then it was the UK, France, China, and unadmittedly Israel, India, and Pakistan in a different kind of race to destroy.  The one world movement got a strong beginning with intercontinental ballistic missiles aboard submarines and aircraft and in silos from Siberia to Idaho..

When the coronavirus struck, it was an equal-opportunity pandemic, and different countries used different strategies. Norway, Germany, New Zealand, and South Korea were most successful. The US was late in having any strategy at all until May when people started wearing masks and keeping a six foot social distance. That is everyone except the President who seemed to double-dare the virus. Yet, in the UK, the Tory Prime Minister, Boris Johnson — ostensibly Donald Trump’s colleague-in-arms — was struck by the virus even though the UK gave him the advantage of  the National Health Service.        

The coronavirus seemed to focus everyone’s attention on both the pandemic and nuclear weapons. The research labs made a bit of progress on finding a vaccine or two, and clinical trials with humans are ready to start. Which antibody-related vaccines are likely to do the trick remains to be seen.  The scientists just do their work, leaving the speculation to the politicians.

At the UN, the Nobel Peace Prize winning Organization ICAN announced that Belize just ratified the Treaty that Prohibits the Possession and Use of Nuclear Weapons. So far 37, including Belize, have signed up.  The significance of the Treaty is that once 40 nations ratify the Treaty it attains the force of International Law.  That makes only 3 nations to go.  Some countries, even a few major ones, may yet join in. Many would like to claim they are in compliance with International Law — they feel it’s good for their image.  It must be.

The Gadfly Revelry & Research Team recently met in closed session, masks and all, and decided on a new stratagem — to follow up on a successful vaccine with an endorsement of the Treaty  to Prohibit the Use, or Even the Possession, of Nuclear Weapons.  An historian of the Team suggested a return to the 1920s, the worldwide Outlawry Movement and the Kellogg-Briand Pact which is still in force in the US.  We won’t have to reinvent anything — it’s all in the history books.

Dr GADFLY Advises

Gadfly generally finds plenty of people in public life, both political and corporate, who are in need of a satirist’s sharp pen. 

But, the coronavirus is in a separate category.  So, today’s column will be serious:  The human body is complex, made of many structures and functions, none more so than the immune system.  If you’re lucky enough to have been given a strong immune system, or live a lifestyle that will maintain a functionally resilient immune system — you can thumb your nose at viruses such as the common cold or the coronavirus. 

I have a heredity that offers heart disease, hypertension, and a lipid profile that includes high cholesterol.  My lifestyle, however, has been influenced by a liking for athletics (track and field) and a few folks who have a strong background in research.  I never submit to flu shots, nor do I ever get the flu.  I am out walking (aerobic walking) when I’m not splitting wood for an evening fire.  I have also come to know Dr Larry L who has introduced me to nicotinamide (Vitamin B3), which is much more than a vitamin. 

There is more detail to such a healthful lifestyle and immune system than aerobic walking and a glass of dry red wine with dinner.  A number of supplements from the health food store should be selected, and regular meditation (Ommm) are important. A varied diet that is rich in vegetables is basic of course.

The medical profession has had no answer to the coronavirus, nor will you catch them advocating for a strong immune system as a primary strategy.

The next column will see GADFLY returning to the much needed  traditions of Jonathan Swift.

Birds, Insects, People

Environmental disasters have been reported in scientific journals of all nations, even in news journals such as Fox (Faux) News.  Nature, and Nature Briefing, and Inside Climate News have monthly and weekly reports of the effects of overheating of the earth and oceans on plant life, animal life, and the life of microorganisms.

The global overheating has brought floods, wildfires, and heat waves to the whole continent of Australia.  The change in climate has affected the language as well. It is now called climate chaos, collapse, crisis, calamity, cacophony, apocalypse … 

Several human interest stories have been reported — if you can call such unfortunate “human interest.”  The flying foxes of Australia have suffered heat exhaustion leading to impairment of their mental and physical capacities.

Sea-bird die-offs have been reported among common murres and tufted puffins as the photo- and zoo-plankton has changed and the fish and birds have had to complete with each other for food. The birds died of starvation in droves.  At first the scientists looked for viral and bacterial toxins and for parasites, but, it was nothing so esoteric. It was simply starvation.

In the countries of east Africa and around the Red Sea, there have been incessant heavy rains and accompanying heat waves — favorite weather conditions for breeding of desert locusts. The insects can eat huge amounts of vegetation. A swarm of locusts the size of Paris can eat the same amount of food in a day as all of France does. Sorry, no French cuisine or Bordeaux wine.  

Also of human interest is what’s happening to people.  We’re the new kid on the block in geologic time. Homo sapiens gracilis is only 200,000 years old, and has been living in the Pleistocene Epoch. 

The last ice age ended only about 12,000 years ago, as we entered the Holocene, the Epoch of good weather. But the Holocene itself has been changing in the last few years, mostly because of our industrial activity and our use of fossil fuels – coal, oil, and gas. The linguists are starting to use the term Anthropocene for the new climate Epoch.  Human interest, surely.

Also, the reasons may be different, but we seem to be entering the Time of the Sixth Mass Extinction.  Will we be going the way of the dinosaurs?

Money vs. Social Needs

In a recent GADFLY column, Goldman Sachs, the infamous investment bank was reported to have announced that it would decline to invest in drilling for oil In the National Wildlife Refuge. Was it Too Good To Be True? The column went into the Goldman Sachs Shenanigans of the 2007-2008 financial crisis and its sub-prime mortgage customs & habits. As well, there were credit default swaps and derivative trading that started under Lloyd Blankfein’s tutelage. With Artificial Intelligence (AI) and high speed computer trading, it is all still going on.

The column concluded with the accounting practices that go on today and the funds that would be available if a minuscule Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) were added to all purchases and sales of derivatives. Yes, Medicare For All and College for all could be financed.

In today’s GADFLY column, we look at another waste of money that is just waiting to be saved:  the cost of US military bases in foreign countries. The Pentagon admits to 800 such bases around the world. There are only 193 nations in the UN, a few of which have refused the Pentagon’s largesse, to make the math easy. You can bet that the real number of foreign military bases is well over a thousand.

These military bases have to be given something to do, so they often hold War Games. The environmental impact of tanks and planes moving at maximum velocity is (negatively) impressive and you may be sure that no one drives or flies at fuel-saving speed. 

No one complains about the waste of money in the enterprise — we have to support the troops. We hear only from the citizens of the host countries. The citizens of the US who do the financing also ought to do a little complaining when the schools have no budgets for art and music and the libraries are short on staff. 

Some free nutritious, organic food for school lunches, and creative physical education classes would add to the health and social well being of the students and their families. Let the defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and BlackWater Security et al fend for themselves and not be given any government (taxpayer) handouts.

An Investment Bank, Too Good to be True?

Goldman Sachs announced that it will henceforth decline to finance Arctic oil drilling in the National Wildlife Preserve. [Pretty weak way to say “We won’t drill for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Preserve!”] They do get a little credit for the part of the announcement regarding mountain-top removal mining, where they will also decline that opportunity.

Before you applaud too loudly — Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UniCredit were way ahead of Goldman Sachs in the investment responsibility line. As well, the (infamous) US investment house may still finance fracking and oil tar sands operations elsewhere. For them, fossil fuels are still alive.

You may remember Goldman Sachs from the 2007-2008 financial crisis which was precipitated by sub-prime mortgage financing and associated monkey business. That and the credit default swaps and exotic derivatives trading.

Lloyd Blankfein was the CEO of Goldman Sachs then. He took phone calls from and gave advice to the Secretary of the Treasury (and President?).  Lloyd B said he was just a banker doing God’s work.

If you think that the shenanagins of the sub-prime mortgages are over and Wall Street has turned over an ethical leaf, better think again. They are just more sophisticated and less transparent about it. Derivatives are still flying high. There are hedge funds and off-shore accounts. Now, with advanced computer technology and artificial intelligence, there is (very) high-frequency computer trading. There are still swaps, knock-out options, vulture options, and even plain vanilla options. The exchange of puts and calls is still on the basis of price agreement between buyer and seller which the SEC can’t keep records of, nor can the IRS can tax directly. 

It took all those years for the Securities and Exchange Commission to file a successful suit in federal court against Goldman Sachs and collect damages to the tune of $5 billion plus an admission that it defrauded its own investors in the process.

The players on Wall Street meanwhile are still playing games (but not with their own money). Even progressive Congress-people, both Democrats and Republicans, won’t propose that a tax be assessed on the exchange of money in these transactions. Yet, a tiniest Financial Transaction Tax [call it a Fee] would add up to enough money to pay for a) Medicare for All Without Deductibles and b) Totally Free College, Books and All.