The climate change and its impact on democracy

A good opinion piece. On one end, the developed countries keep screaming that world keeps getting hotter & hotter, & the weather patterns keep getting drastic, which in turn, is throwing everything else out of whack; people's lives & their livelihoods are in severe danger. On the other hand, these same developed countries, while asking developing countries to not use fossil fuels, are using fossil fuels themselves, & have built an economic system, which is globalized, so it affects everyone around the world, & that economic system measures a country's development based on exploitation of earth's limited resources, esp. fossil fuels.

Companies of these developed countries get in contract with developing countries, where they exploit (dig up) these fossil fuels, without any regard to the climate change, due to them being cheaply available, & then export these products around the world & make a handsome profit. All the while, the developing countries, might be showing a good GDP & a positive Current Account figure, but they are also suffering due to those fossil fuels being used abundantly & adversely affecting the climate around the world. Their public is far susceptible to fighting each other for limited amount of healthy food, clean water, & clean air, & in absence of these items, these developing countries are also bear the responsibility of adverse health conditions of their public, due to unavailability of basic necessities of life.

As the author correctly suggests, the world economic system needs to separate itself from this usage & exploitation of fossil fuels. Countries should be measuring exports & current accounts based on export of solar & wind-generated energy, instead of oil & coal, & this change needs to happen now, because we have already crossed the red line, & in some places, weather patterns have drastically changed. Remember, today, it's them; tomorrow, it'll be us, fighting for healthy & clean food, clean water, & clean air.

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https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/04/climate-change-impact-democracy-160403093028956.html

Climate change intensifies conflicts and creates mass migrations. Tens of millions of people are displaced owing to climate change, according to the United Nations. Severe droughts and heatwaves in Syria and the Middle East at large preceded the war, leaving people without jobs, food or hope - and migrating for their lives.
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Climate change is a result of the Bretton Woods institutions and their deliberate policy to globalise the world economy based on extensive exports of natural resources from poor nations. This means petroleum, coal and gas, minerals, metals, forest products and meat.

Since their creation in 1945, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization have been based on hyper-exploitation of natural resources that they encouraged and even coerced from poor nations.

Low prices of natural resources have contributed a several fold increase in the wealth gap between the poor and the rich nations since World War II. This was the most successful period of industrialisation the world ever saw. It was based on extensive overconsumption of natural resources, and the direct result is climate change.
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Almost a decade ago, the UN warned that "indigenous people are among the first to face the direct consequences of climate change owning their dependence upon, and close relationship with the environment and its resources." ...

Water is now one of the scarcest resources globally, according to the UN. The story is the same around the entire developing world.

What to do?

We need to replace the Bretton Woods system. They were the first global financial institutions the world ever saw. They fulfilled their mission and now they are dragging the world into an environmental disaster.

New global financial institutions are needed to get things right. We need to limit the exploitation of the planet's atmosphere, its bodies of water and its biodiversity. These are basic needs for human survival: we need clean water, clean air and food without which we cannot survive. All this is possible and must be done.

The limits on resource use can be flexible over time with the creation of equitable and efficient global markets for the global commons.

Limits on the use of water, air and biodiversity is what humanity needs to survive. This parallels the limits on emission of CO2 nation by nation, which was achieved by the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and its carbon market that became international law in 2005.
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The recent Paris Agreement - which has no emission limits and no teeth - must be improved. The establishment of a new system that respects our planets' vital resources for life will change the global capitalistic system - as they value the global commons, clean air, clean water and biodiversity. These have no economic value today, but it can be and should be done.

We need to decouple economic progress from fossil fuels if we are to survive as a species. The International Energy Agency recently reported that this is already starting. A detailed footprint and the attendant economic policies must redress economic growth to be harmonious with the world's resources and with the survival of humankind.

Graciela Chichilnisky is a professor of economics and of statistics at Columbia University and the Director of the Columbia Consortium for Risk Management.

"How Drug and Driving Addicts Talk" by Andy Singer

 

"How Drug and Driving Addicts Talk" - Andy Singer, US

The losing game of publicly financed sports venues

Another great article on how taxes taken from hard-working public are used for something from which most of the general public will never get any meaningful benefit, & it reduces the money a municipal / provincial / state / federal government has to put it towards a better cause. Governments of all levels in the Western world are crying for more money & are putting in more austerity measures to cut expenditures & increasing taxes.

All the while, these same governments are spending the few money they have on things that are completely useless. These monies could be used for building more affordable housing for homeless & hence, reduce homelessness, or improving infrastructure (water pipelines, public transit, roads, cheaper & sustainable energy), which can also create jobs, which in turn, creates more tax revenue for the government, or simply providing or increasing funding for any number of social causes & NGOs.

But nooooo. The taxes from hard-working public, who itself, is trying to scrimp & save every nickel & dime by buying unorganic, cheap & unhealthy food, for instance, are being used to built expensive stadiums, which ultimately benefit the wealthy owners of sports franchises. They themselves pay much less in taxes but take full benefit of other people's taxes.

But then again, as the article asks that are governments merely stupid to bend to the demands of these wealthy individuals & then answers right away that sports subsidies are a political winner. So who is to blame here? Government or the public. The same public who will give their hard-earned money to a wealthy individual & wealthy players, & gets a paltry return for its own investment. Ironically, while the owners & players are swimming in cash & laughing how they have duped the public, the public is also not only cheering "their team" (who will leave the city as soon as it bleeds the city dry) but also buying expensive merchandise with their own money & still giving their taxes. I blame the public who claims to have open eyes & ears & have common sense, but then take such a stupid step.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-losing-game-of-publicly-financed-sports-venues/article25563294/

The people of Quebec City & Edmonton are falling prey to one of the oldest con games – the notion that spending public money on pro sports venues is a sound investment.

Facts don’t seem to matter in this game. And your city could be fleeced next.

Stacks of independent research over many decades have shown that building a stadium or luring a new franchise does little for a city’s economy. They typically don’t generate significant new tax dollars, jobs or growth. In most cases, the money would be more wisely spent on badly needed public infrastructure, such as roads, transit or schools.

And yet, governments serially ignore the evidence & continue to shower subsidies on team owners & their media partners.

In Quebec City & Edmonton, governments are currently sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into new arenas. In Quebec City’s case, the aim is to attract an NHL franchise. The rationale in Edmonton is to keep its team, the Oilers, from leaving.

Gobs of taxpayer cash will similarly be needed if Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre gets his wish of bringing professional baseball back to the city. The price tag for buying a franchise & building a new baseball stadium – presumably, a domed one – will top $1-billion. And it won’t happen unless taxpayers pick up a big chunk of the tab.

So why are governments so gullible?

The simple answer is that sport subsidies are a political winner.

They’re sold as investments in the economy. But it’s really about civic pride, the thrill of the game & cheering for the home team.

Montrealers, for example, overwhelmingly support the idea of bringing baseball back to their city more than decade after the Expos left for Washington, D.C., according to a recent Abacus Data poll. Nearly 90% of 500 residents surveyed expressed varying levels of support, ranging from lukewarm to strong. Just 12% are against it. Roughly 8 out of 10 respondents said Major League Baseball would be good for the economy & generate more taxes for the city.

The reality is quite the opposite, according to numerous independent economic studies conducted over several decades in North America.

“The weight of economic evidence … shows that taxpayers spend a lot of money and ultimately don’t get much back,” according to a 2001 study, “Should Cities Pay for Sports Facilities?” for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “And when this paltry return is compared with other potential uses of the funds, the investment, almost always, seems unwise.”

The subsidies rarely stop once the venues are up & running. Billions of dollars a year in hidden subsidies flow to existing sport venues, according to a 2012 book by Judith Grant Long, now an associate professor of sports management at the University of Michigan. In her book, Public-Private Partnerships for Major League Sports Facilities, Ms. Grant Long found that taxpayers are subsidizing 78%of the average professional sports facility in Canada & the US.

Earlier this year, US President Barack Obama moved in his budget to close down one financial vehicle that has encouraged subsidies by barring the use of tax-exempt bonds to finance professional sports facilities. In Canada, governments often fund the projects directly from their own coffers, tapping into lower government borrowing costs.

The real story, however, may be that the main beneficiaries of government largesse are team owners.

Quebec City’s $400-million Centre Vidéotron was built with a combination of municipal & provincial government money. It's ... a lure for an eventual NHL franchise sought by Videotron owner Quebecor Inc., controlled by Parti Québécois Leader Pierre Karl Péladeau.

The cost of Edmonton’s $480-million Rogers Place arena, due to open in time for the 2016-17 NHL season, is being split between the city & wealthy team owner Daryl Katz, who had earlier threatened to move the Oilers to Seattle.

Mr. Katz, who also owns the Rexall pharmacy chain, is now poised to cash in with a massive mixed-used residential, office & entertainment development he’s planning for the surrounding area, dubbed “The Ice District.” The $2-billion project will include 1,000 residential units, 1.3 million square feet of office space in skyscrapers that will rank among the tallest buildings in Western Canada, a luxury hotel & a public plaza with an outdoor skating rink, casino, restaurants & stores.

The private development wouldn’t make much sense without the subsidized Rogers Place as its anchor. And businesses elsewhere will lose as customers inevitably migrate to the new entertainment area, making the deal a wash on the city’s tax ledger.

This losing scenario will play out in your city too unless someone stands up and says, enough.

World's refugee population hits all-time high of 60 million, half of them children – UN

Unsurprisingly, what else to expect from the report. To help these refugees, peace has to be instituted in the developing countries, but then that would mean that developed countries of the West (US, Canada, UK, Germany, France) and even new economic powers like China & Russia have to stop selling arms & weapons to these developing countries. These developing countries where these refugees are coming from don't have any resources of their own to manufacture these deadly arms & weapons.

Secondly, developed countries of the West have to stop installing their own puppet governments in these developing countries. They need to stop interfering with the negative development of the countries. It's well known how US constantly interfered in the internal affairs of Latin American & Middle Eastern countries. US interfered with Japan to the point that Japanese PM Shinzo Abe changed the constitution to make the country more militaristic. That's not exactly a positive step towards creating peace in the world.

Thirdly, aside from covert & political interference by the developed West, the West also needs to stop with the military interference in the shape of active invasions. Recent examples of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan & some old examples of Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines etc. by the American, British, French, & other forces would provide ample evidence of this interference.

In one of my prior blog posts, I mentioned that one of the primary reasons the developed countries of the West do all these interferences in the developing world is to create active chaos in developing countries. This chaos & anarchy helps developed countries to keep a strong control over financial, mineral, energy, & human resources of the developing countries.

Developing countries keep themselves embroiled in these messes, & spend their valuable resources in resolving these matters. Developed countries provide loans to developing countries, take out resources from the grounds of developing countries for their own use, & let the bright minds of the developing countries move to developed countries, where they are mostly used for menial labour.

Developing countries, which are embroiled in wars or not, are left to shoulder all the burden of either suffering from internally displaced refugees or provide for refugees who have sought refuge in their lands from foreign lands. Developed countries, on the other hand, cause the problem & then get out of the picture.

The primary reason this problem of refugees is keep getting worse with no sign of any improvement is that developed countries actually want more chaos & anarchy in developing countries. Hey, it's not happening in their corner of the world, so why bother resolving it. They actively cause it & prefer to keep it that way. When there is a problem in their corner of the world (problems arising from the dissolution of former Yugoslavia), then they are on the mission of resolving it asap & actually successfully achieve it, too. After all, when there's a will (to resolve a problem), there's always a way.
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https://www.rt.com/news/268144-un-report-refugee-increase/

The annual “Global Trends Report: World at War” was released ... by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

It stated that worldwide displacement is at the highest level ever recorded, adding that the number of people forcibly displaced at the end of last year had reached 59.5 million – compared to 51.2 million a year earlier, & 37.5 million a decade ago. 14 million people were displaced in 2014 alone.

According to figures detailed in the report, over half of those refugees are children.

The year 2014 also hit a 31-year low for the number of refugees who were able to return to their home countries, at just 126,800.

"We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres.

The figures show that one in every 122 people on the planet is now either a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum. If these people had a country of their own, it would be the world's 24th largest.

Every day last year, approximately 42,500 people became refugees, asylum seekers or internally displaced, the report said.

And those numbers – which represent the biggest leap ever seen in a single year – are likely to worsen, according to the agency.

Causes of displacement

Since 2011, the main reason for the surge has been the war in Syria – now the world's largest driver of displacement, surpassing Afghanistan for the first time. A total of 7.6 million Syrians are internally displaced, & 3.9 million are outside the country.

The report noted that at least 15 conflicts have erupted or reignited worldwide in the past 5 years: 8 in Africa, 3 in the Middle East, one in Europe & 3 in Asia.

"Few of these crises have been resolved & most still generate new displacement," the report stated.

Meanwhile, continuous instability & conflict in Afghanistan, Somalia & other areas has led millions to be constantly on the move, stranded as long-term internally displaced or refugees.

The report also drew attention to the current Mediterranean refugee crisis – the result of instability in North Africa.

It added that countries housing the majority of refugees are part of the global poor. Almost 9 out of every 10 refugees were in regions or countries considered less economically developed. One-quarter were in nations among the UN's list of least developed nations.

In the face of the rising displacement numbers, Guterres warned that people in need of “compassion, aid & refuge are being abandoned.”

"For an age of unprecedented mass displacement, we need an unprecedented humanitarian response & a renewed global commitment to tolerance & protection for people fleeing conflict & persecution,” he said.

The UNHCR report comes just 3 days after an Amnesty International report said the world is facing the “worst refugee crisis since World War II.”

The report, called 'The Global Refugee Crisis: A Conspiracy of Neglect, accused governments of effectively letting thousands of people die by failing to provide them with basic human protection.

It paid particular attention to the situation in Syria, Mediterranean, Africa & Southeast Asia.

Amnesty is urging world leaders to call an international summit on tackling the refugee crisis, & for all countries to ratify the UN Refugee Convention. This gives displaced persons legal rights & status in the nations where they have sought refuge.

"Earth Home" by Jen Sorensen

"Earth Home" - Jen Sorensen, US

"China as Banker" by Paresh Nath

"China as Banker" - Paresh Nath, India

"Buying Halal Certified" by Peter Broelman

"Buying Halal Certified" - Peter Broelman, Australia