The Erickson Report, Page 6: New Zealand

The Erickson Report, Page 6: New Zealand

On November 7, New Zealand lawmakers approved a bill that commits the country to being carbon neutral by the year 2050. The measure, which passed 119 votes to 1, demonstrates the cross-party support that climate protection has in the Pacific island nation.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she was grateful that in the past 10 years, Parliament had progressed from debating whether global warming is real to discussing what to do about it.

The Zero Carbon bill aims to provide a framework to implement climate change policies. It's in line with an international effort under the Paris Agreement to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5° Celsius above preindustrial levels.

New Zealand's bill sets an ambitious target: to reduce all greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050.

The country is well-positioned to do it. It already generates 80% of its electricity from renewables, and that portion will be higher by 2035 as offshore oil and gas are phased out. The government is shifting its fleet to electric vehicles and is working to transition other vehicles to electric, too. The government also has restarted a program to subsidize home insulation and is putting $14.5 billion over the next 10 years into transit, biking and walking infrastructure. In addition, New Zealand has already committed to planting 1 billion trees by 2028.

All of which is to the good - but when officials say "all greenhouse gases," they don't actually mean "all." The bill creates an exemption for biogenic methane, which is emitted by plant and animal sources. That loophole is actually a big deal.

Methane does not persist in the atmosphere as long as CO2 - decades as opposed to centuries - but it's far more potent, trapping about 30 times as much heat as CO2 does.

Ruminant animals such as sheep and cattle release methane as they digest grass and other leaves. Such animals made up 34% of New Zealand's total emissions of greenhouse gases. Overall, agriculture is the largest single source of greenhouse emissions in New Zealand, accounting for a whopping 48% of the total.

So in the case of biogenic methane, New Zealand isn't aiming for net zero but just to reduce emissions by 24-47% over the next 30 years. Which means that if those targets are met, in 2050 New Zealand overall still will be emitting about a quarter to over a third of what it does today. Which would be a dramatic achievement - but it ain't net zero. And it's legitimate to ask how far short of net zero we can go before it's simply not good enough.

Dozens of countries have declared a goal of net zero. Costa Rica, Denmark, Fiji, France, Germany and the UK have all said they intend to achieve net zero emissions by 2050; Sweden has gone them one better by aiming to do it by 2045.

Meanwhile, the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters - China, the United States and India - have not made any zero-carbon national commitments, although a number of US states, including California, Washington, and New Mexico, along with a large number of US cities, have pledged net zero on their own.

The New Zealand nature advocacy organization Forest and Bird called the bill's passage an important first step but says the work is far from over, which is particularly true since the main conservative opposition party, despite supporting the bill, nevertheless promised changes if it wins the next election.

The left giveth and the right taketh away.

The Erickson Report, Page 4: Burkina Faso

The Erickson Report, Page 4: Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country, a little larger than Colorado, in west Africa. It is also a country facing multiple challenges, not all of its own making.

For one thing, it is one of the world's poorest countries according to the UN's World Food Programme, with 45% of its roughly 20 million people living on the equivalent of less than $1.25 a day. Food insecurity and undernutrition are chronic problems, with over 10% of children acutely malnourished.

That threatens to get worse as climate change accelerates land degradation: Rising temperatures and increasing drought mean that in just five to 10 years of cultivation, soil is no longer able to ensure the mineral and water supply for food crops, leading to yields collapse. One-third of Burkina Faso's total territory is degraded. Half of the farmland has essentially turned to sand.

That in turn has lead to persistent conflicts over land use and massive, climate-driven migrations. Nearly half a million people were forced from their homes.

But fleeing not just food insecurity, but physical insecurity. Over the past few years there has been an increase in armed conflict and terrorism in the country, including an attack on a mosque in the northern town of Salmossi on October 11 that killed at least 15 and a November 6 attack on workers at a gold mine near Boungou that killed at least 47. Nearly 600 civilians have been killed, and scores more wounded, in recent years.

As climate change increases droughts increases land degradation increases hunger increases migration increases fanaticism increases conflict it is to be hoped that Burkina Faso can find a way out - because we could be looking at a hint of the future.

The Erickson Report, Page 6: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

The Erickson Report, Page 6: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

Ah, our regular feature and a crowd favorite, Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages.

Starting as we usually do with the Clowns, our first example is poor, beleagured Susan Collins. Her approval rating among her constituents in Maine has plummeted from the sky-high 78% at one point in 2015 to being underwater now: 45% approval and 48% disapproval, a fact which which she blames on "unceasing attacks by dark money groups" but does not, apparently, see any connection to having sold her soul to Tweetie-pie, particularly with her vote to put Bret Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court after her risible claim she was sure, oh so sure, that he will never ever nohow how can you even suggest the idea that he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Susan Collins

Making her even more of a clown is the fact that she has already benefitted from dark money and that of the $2 million she raise last quarter for her re-election, less than $100,000 came from people in Maine.

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Our loser Clown of the week is Rep. John Ratcliffe, who auditioned for the post of Director of National Intelligence by berating Robert Mueller with the totally false claim that he didn’t follow the special counsel regulations.

Of course, in the wake of his act his name shot to the top of Tweetie-pie's list, and His High Orangeness announced on July 28 that he was going to nominate Ratcliffe only to change his mind just five days later after even Senate GOPpers couldn't stomach the idea of this thoroughly unqualified prat.

John Ratcliffe

With the withdrawal of the nomination, this may seem borderline irrelevant now but I still want to take the opportunity to point and laugh.

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Next up, we have a candidate for the Least Self-Aware Award.

William Perry Pendley, a right-wing lawyer and commentator, is the new head of the Bureau of Land Management. He has argued that climate science isn’t real, that environmentalists want to “destroy” civilization, that diversity is killing people, and that the best thing for managing public lands is for the feds to sell off more of it.

He also said in a 2018 interview that a real problem in government is that federal employees aren’t held “personally liable” or “personally responsible for the harm that they do” regarding federal land management.

William Perry Pendley

He better hope that his own standards don't apply to him. Which of course they won't, but we can dream.

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Finally, I know I said I wasn't going to mention El Paso or Dayton but I came across this as I was preparing the show and it is just so jaw-dropping stupid that I had to include it.

Mike Huckleberryhound insists that there is only one thing that can put a stop to mass shootings.

A ban on guns? Don't be absurd.
A ban on assault or military type weapons, then? Forget it.

Mike Huckabee

Universal background checks? A ban on large-capacity magazines? Nope and nope.

Nope, not even better mental health programs or a ban on video games. The only thing that will help is - wait for it -

thoughts and prayers.

No joke. That's what he said in so many words, adding that until, quoting now, "kids are brought up once again to believe that we are all made in the image of God, that life is sacred and superficial differences like skin color are meaningless” - don't know when thinks kids in this country were brought up that way but I want some of what he's been smoking - anyway, until we are, um, again he said all pacifists and totally nonracist, until then, quoting again, "passing more laws is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."

Shorter Mike Huckleberryhound: I don't give a damn and stop bothering me

25.2 - Good News: DC District judge rules against DAPL

Good News: DC District judge rules against DAPL

Here's some I-did-not-expect-this Good News: On June 14, Judge James Boasberg of the Federal Distict Court in Washington, DC, ruled that the federal permits authorizing the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross the Missouri River just above the Standing Rock reservation, permits hastily issued by the Trump administration just days after the inauguration, violated federal law in some critical respects.

The Court found that the Army Corps of Engineers

did not adequately consider the impacts of an oil spill on fishing rights, hunting rights, or environmental justice, or the degree to which the pipeline's effects are likely to be highly controversial.

The court did rule against the Standing Rock Sioux on some other issues, finding that the decision to allow the pipeline was legal in some respects, and unfortunately did not require that the pipeline be shut off pending a resolution of the case, leaving that to additional briefings and a status conference next week.

Be that as it may, even if it's not as sweeping as we would like, this is still an excellent victory in a case and on an issue thought to have been lost. Which most certainly is Good News.

128.3 - Good news #3: Monsanto Protection Act is dead

Good news #3: Monsanto Protection Act is dead

And one more bit of good news on a different topic:

The Monsanto Protection Act is dead. The House included it in its version of the Continuing Resolution but the Senate has stripped it out and there appears no move in the House to put it back in. It will now expire.

The fact that you likely don't even know what the Monsanto Protection Act is, is part of the reason this is good news.

"The Monsanto Protection Act" wasn't it's actual name. It referred to a rider that was mysteriously inserted into an emergency government spending bill signed in March; "mysteriously" because no one would admit to being responsible for getting the language into the bill. Ultimately, GOPper Sen. Roy Blunt confessed to working with Monsanto to get the rider included.

The Monsanto Protection Act effectively stripped from both government agencies and the courts the ability to regulate GMOs, genetically-modified organisms - particularly the seeds, the genetically-modified, patent-protected, seeds of grains and other plants sold to farmers by outfits like Syngenta, Bayer, Dupont, and yes and most particularly, Monsanto.

I'm not here going to get into the arguments about GMO seeds, about whether they will ultimately be boons or banes. I will say that on the evidence so far I go with the latter and that I as a general rule oppose them scientifically because there are still too many unknowns, economically and socially because they wind up trapping farmers into an economic bondage with these corporations (since they have to buy new seeds every year and then use the particular pesticides or herbicides to which the plants are designed to be resistant, products made - of course - by those same corporations), and politically because their development and survival in the market has so far depended on government largesse and the corporation campaign donations that buy it.

But regardless of whether or not my objections - which are hardly mine alone - can be overcome, the Monsanto Protection Act still stood as a prime example of the dirty, sneaky, slimy way corporations get their way. So it's good news that at least this time, they failed.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/monsanto-protection-act-extension_n_3908249.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/25/1241315/-Sen-Tester-Kills-Monsanto-Protection-Rider
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/short-take-sneaky-monsanto-protection-act-set-to-expire/article_dbdeb20a-68ea-56d2-a7a2-9224bc210079.html
http://www.foodlawfirm.com/2013/04/the-monsanto-protection-act/
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=no+gmo

Footnote to the preceding

Earlier this month, Abdallah Abu Rahmah was sentenced to a year in prison by an Israeli military court.

You likely have never heard of him, but you should. Abu Rahmah is a Palestinian activist who had been organizing weekly nonviolent protests against Israel's so-called "separation barrier," better called the "apartheid wall," where it was to cut though the land of the farmers of the West Bank town of Bil'in. This is an area where the Israeli Supreme Court had earlier ruled that the wall must be moved - but that order was never carried out. In short, the route of the wall is illegal - but it's still being built.

Last December, Abu Rahmah was arrested. In August, he was tried on charges of "organizing illegal demonstrations," "incitement," "throwing rocks," and "possession of weapons." He was acquitted on the latter two charges; in fact, the charge of weapons possession was based on his gathering of spent IDF (Israeli Defense Force) tear gas canisters and bullet casings to prove such force had actually been used on protestors, an argument that proved too much even for the military court.

He was, however, convicted on the first two. But they are both by their nature bogus charges aimed at obtaining a conviction, not at punishing a crime. For one thing, it is surely true that under the occupation, it would be almost impossible for any Palestinian demonstration to be "legal" in the eyes of the IDF. And "incitement" is such a vague charge that saying or doing most anything that might inspire someone to do something the Israeli government (or the IDF) doesn't like - such as taking part in nonviolent demonstrations - becomes a crime.

The conviction sparked protest from a variety of sources, including Amnesty International, which "condemned" the conviction, the European Union, which described the conviction as "intended to prevent him and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to protest," and Human Rights Watch, which called the trial "unfair" and accused Israeli authorities of "effectively banning peaceful expression of political speech."

Last week, his year-long sentence came down. Having been in prison since December, it would appear he would be out in a couple of months.

But maybe not.

In July, another Bil'in organizer, Adeeb Abu Rahmah, was sentenced to a year in prison for his role in the "illegal" protests. Having been in prison for a year already prior to conviction and sentencing, he should have been released immediately. Instead, upon the motion of military prosecutors unhappy with what they insisted was a too-light sentence, the judge ordered him to be held pending the prosecution's appeal of the sentence.

On Thursday, his sentence was lengthened to 18 months.

So with the prosecution in the case of Abdallah Abu Rahmah having been given a month to appeal the sentence, it may be some time yet before he is freed.

And by the time he is, the struggle may be over. The Jerusalem Post says that the wall in the vicinity of Bil'in will be completed in a few weeks, with a tall concrete wall replacing the current fence.

About 650 dunams [about 160 acres] of agricultural land will be given back to Bilin. Nonetheless, according to attorneys representing the village, roughly 1,300 dunams [about 320 acres] of private farmland will remain on the Israeli side. It was decided a concrete wall would be constructed in place of a fence, since this replacement barrier will skirt a new neighborhood in Kiryat Sefer, known as Matityahu East. If left as a simple fence, the Israeli residents might be at risk[, the Post reported].

So because the residents of a settlement that is illegal under international law "might" be at risk, Palestinians are denied access to their own land, in essence that land is stolen, in direct defiance of a Supreme Court decision.

What was that about Israel being "democratic?"

Second sight, one

Quickly revisiting an old item that has relevant recent news.

In October 2004 and June 2005 I commented on the case before the Supreme Court regarding a move by the city of New London, Connecticut to seize private homes under the rubric of eminent domain, not for some public purpose but to turn the property over to a developer. The city claimed that the "public benefit" of the supposedly greater property taxes the new upscale development would bring in justified the forcible sale.

At the time, I described such a claim as

a perversion of the Constitution. The "takings" clause of the Fifth Amendment, as it is known, was designed to protect people from arbitrary government authority, not to enable that government to take land away from one private party only to give it to another.

It was, I said, part of a disturbing pattern of

cities ripping up established, stable neighborhoods in order to mortgage their economic futures to greed-driven corporations, selling their birthright, as it were, for a mess of pottage ... in pursuit of what too often turns out to be a mirage rather than a miracle.

Unhappily, the Court ruled 5-4 in support of the city, meaning that in essence there was no constitutional limit on the power of cities to impose eminent domain so long as they could claim some "benefit," however indirect.

The development in question in the case was supposed to involve hotels, condos, and a Pfizer research center and after the ruling the city spent $80 million preparing the land - but the project never got off the ground. And earlier this month,

Pfizer dealt a final blow to the project and the struggling seaport city by announcing that 1,400 jobs would leave the area as the pharmaceutical giant scales back amid tepid sales and a lack of new drugs in its pipeline. The move will vacate a 750,000 square foot complex built in 2001 and nothing is planned in its place.

The jobs will be gone in two years as Pfizer leaves behind

the city’s biggest office complex and an adjacent swath of barren land that was cleared of dozens of homes to make room for a hotel, stores and condominiums that were never built.

The project proved to be, that is, "a mirage rather than a miracle."

The upside of the story is that as a result of the outcry over the Supreme Court decision, 43 states have adopted laws putting some restraints on this sort of overbroad use of eminent domain.

But Robert M. Pero, a New London city councilman who is about to become mayor, still defends the original city action.

“I’m sure that there are people that are waiting out there to say, ‘I told you so,’ ” Mr. Pero said. “I don’t know that even today you can say, ‘I told you so.’ ”

Actually, the homeowners whose property was, in the words of one, "stolen" for economic development can say that. And they do.

So, for that matter, can I. And so do I.

Footnote to the preceding

Just as a sort of sidebar, we should never forget that there is another present-day cost to our commitment to a fossil fuel-driven economy: damage to our health.

According to the National Research Council, the cost of early deaths and health damages to Americans from the use of fossil fuels is about $120 billion a year. About half of that comes from pollution from coal-fired power plants and most of the rest is from motor vehicles.

This was the result of an examination of the costs of energy production and the use of fossil fuels that aren't reflected in the price of energy.

The report's figure, which included costs from electricity production, transportation and heating, is undeniably low because the group didn't try to put a dollar value on all the hidden costs of energy use, such as certain air pollutants such as mercury, harm to ecosystems, and risks to national security. It also didn't examine air, rail or water transportation, which make up 25% of total transportation energy usage.

The dollar amounts were mainly early deaths due to pollution, with the value of each life put at $6 million, consistent with other studies. More than 90 percent of the costs were the statistical cost of early deaths. Other costs in studies the panel examined included chronic bronchitis and asthma, [Maureen] Cropper[, an economist at the University of Maryland and Vice-chair of the report committee,] said.

Total early deaths were about 18,000 to 19,000 per year, said another member of the panel, Daniel Greenbaum, the president of the Health Effects Institute in Boston, a nonprofit organization that researches the effects of air pollution on health.

Yet another cost is the effects on the land itself.

As attacks on mountaintop-removal mining in Appalachia have grown increasingly sharp, the coal industry and its supporters have defended the practice by saying that reclaimed mine areas provide flat land for development in a place where level sites are scarce.

However, development was planned for less than 3 percent of the roughly half-million acres of land covered by surface-mining permits in Kentucky over the last decade, according to state data.

Which raises the perennial question about the coal industry and its supporters: Why the hell do we listen to these people?