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dragontrailz · 3 years

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LGBTQ+ Action Plan Submission

Q1. Do you think the Action Plan will increase equality for LGBTQ+ people and what do you think the priorities should be?

No, because the plan is based on an ideology that does not recognise the reality that sex is immutable and it is not aligned with protected characteristics that are enshrined in law under The Equality Act (2010). Gender identity is not a protected characteristic and this consultation appears to be an attempt to subvert this law, by blurring reality and inferring that a person can self identify as whatever sex they so desire. As such, it will violate sex-based rights, with severe consequences for women, children and same-sex attracted people. The plan does not centre equality, instead it seeks to acquire special privileges, particularly for trans women, and in doing so, this impacts hard won female rights, such as the right to female-only spaces. Existing laws are sufficient in order to protect equal rights. The plan will actually undermine several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (1953), notably articles 9, 10, 11 and 14. The debate around trans rights has already led to tensions between trans rights activists and women, with several feminist academics and feminist campaigners targeted for expressing their views. By favouring one side of this debate, the plan further encourages the encitement of hatred against women who are standing up for their right to freedom of thought (article 9 of the ECHR), freedom of expression (article 10 of the ECHR) and their right to assemble (article 11 of the ECHR). This consultation, which has been led by Stonewall, embeds a belief system that discriminates against women and same-sex attracted people, as such, this violates article 14 of the ECHR. People have the right not to believe in an ideology (this is a core principle of article 9 of the ECHR), such as the ‘Gender Ideology’ belief system that Stonewall are attempting to embed within this consultation. Further, I do not believe that this consultation serves the rights of trans people, many of whom do not agree with the aims of Stonewall. The consultation is also in denial of the lived realities of intersex people, who are the most marginalised group in the LGBTQI identity spectrum. It fundamentally misunderstands the reality that intersex is a genetic condition that affects around 0.02% of the population. The plan lacks definitions, which means it will be impossible to implement and it also contains many examples of discriminatory language. The plan would be dangerous for young people as it encourages medicalised transition, via affirmation therapy, which is not the only clinical response to gender dysphoria.

Q2. Do you agree with the overarching aims? What would you add or take away in relation the overarching aims?

No, the plan essentially renders equality definitions meaningless as it lacks definitions and attempts to subvert existing shared language of lesbian, gay and bisexual identity. Sexual orientation and gender reassignment should not be conflated and Stonewall’s ideology is already confusing younger generations. This is not progress, it is inherently regressive. Gender Ideology is a belief system that we have the right to either believe or disbelief. It should not be taught to children as if it were fact. Children develop socially and emotionally with respect to how they develop beliefs about themselves, based on reinforced ideas they receive from adults. A child only develops ideas that they are ‘another gender’ when they are told they are not conforming to a gender stereotype and this starts their thinking about themselves and being in the wrong body. In recent years, there has been a notable increase in the number of children and younger adults who experience gender dysphoria, yet this seems to be due to the inherent ideology being promoted by Stonewall, which has permeated rapidly through society. The current plan attempts to formalise and legalise this, with consequences for children’s safety.

I am opposed to the current Gender Identity Ideology Belief System training that is intended. People should have the right to withdraw on religious grounds. Training needs to be about developing an awareness of trans people and their needs and about making them feel welcome and included by working on acceptance and recognising and avoiding discrimination. Enforcing Stonewall’s Gender Identity Ideology Belief System breaches human rights of others and sets a number of dangerous precedents. An ideology should never become law for everyone.

Sex-based data collection would become impossible or disingenuous under this plan, which means that academic and governmental studies that look at male/female differences become unworkable. Evidence in Canada and Ireland suggest that the the right to self-ID (recommendation 9), is bad for women, lesbians and gay men, notably in private spaces, prisons and hospitals. There is a lack of recognition of diversity of experience and belief in feminist, lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans communities. Stonewall did not consult a number of groups in Wales and the UK who represent female, lesbian, gay, bisexual and intersex rights. The term ‘Heteronormative and Cis-normative assumptions’ is very concerning and troubling and should be removed.

Q3. Do you agree with the proposed actions? What would you add or take away in relation the actions?

No, the proposals lack accurate definitions or includes those that are inadequate or misleading.

I strongly oppose recommendation 9, to ‘devolve powers in relation to gender recognition’ which introduces self-ID by stealth, which removes rights, for women or same-sex attracted people to safety and privacy. If passed into law, this effectively upends reality opens up a whole panoply of complex issues.

This is a missed opportunity to introduce more robust anti-oppression policies. There is a danger that people will be criminalised for having a different worldview. It’s alarming that Stonewall have acquired this much power and are able to influence key legislation that violates the European Convention on Human Rights (1953) and The Equality Act (2010). Indeed, this appears to be a process by which key human rights laws can be subverted creating a legal minefield.

Q4. What are the key challenges that could stop the aims and actions being achieved?

Since articles 9, 10, 11 and 14 of the Human Rights Act are being violated it’s unlikely the current consultation could be passed into law. The consultation is also misaligned with The Equality Act (2010).

The consultation would likely be challenged by Judicial Review by a coalition of citizen’s groups.

This is a loaded question, as it suggests the Welsh Government have already decided that Stonewall’s Gender Identity Ideology Belief System can be imposed on the people of Wales. Many of us reject this.

Q5. What resources (this could include funding, staff time, training, access to support or advocacy services among other things) do you think will be necessary in achieving the aims and actions outlined?

The plan is not fit for purpose and should not be implemented. The process should be reset and a better attempt should be made to reach out and engage with feminist groups, such as Merched Cymru, the LGB Alliance and the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission whose concerns have been ignored. There is a lack of respect for single-sex exemptions and until the plan includes these, it is not fit for purpose.

LGBTQ+ people deserve an action plan that reflects their needs. This plan does not do that and raises some serious concerns. It is Stonewall’s plan and does not have their best interests at heart.

Q6. Do you feel the LGBTQ+ Action Plan adequately covers the intersection of LGBTQ+ with other protected characteristics, such as race, religion or belief, disability, age, sex, and marriage and civil partnership? If not, how can we improve this?

No, the plan badly mishandles the intersection of sexual orientation and gender reassignment.

There is a lack of awareness of how faith intersects with LGBTQ+. Sex-segregation is an absolute requirement in many religions. The plan seeks to enable additional privileges for trans women, which offer unfair advantages to these people when they compete in sport.

Many people who identify as LGBQT+ are neurodivergent and there is a lack of nuance between these interactions. This undermines support for more marginalised people, particularly those with gender dysphoria who need to navigate the healthcare system.

Within the LGBTQ+ spectrum, the recommendations are unbalanced, with more references to trans or queer than there are to lesbian, gay or bisexual. This is because the plan seeks to enable additional privileges for people who identify as trans or queer, to the detriment of same-sex attracted people.

Q7. We would like to know your views on the effects that these proposals would have on the Welsh language, specifically on opportunities for people to use Welsh and on treating the Welsh language no less favourably than English. What effects do you think there would be? How could positive effects be increased, or negative effects be mitigated?

I’m not a Welsh speaker. However, given that this was done so badly in English, it’s likely that there are issues.

Q8. Please also explain how you believe the proposed policy approach could be formulated or changed so as to have positive effects or increased positive effects on opportunities for people to use the Welsh language and on treating the Welsh language no less favourably than the English language, and no adverse effects on opportunities for people to use the Welsh language and on treating the Welsh language no less favourably than the English language.

I’m not a Welsh speaker. However, given that this was done so badly in English, it’s likely that there are issues.

Q9. This plan has been developed in co-construction, and discussions around language and identity have shown that the acronym LGBTQ+ should be used. This stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning people, with the + representing other sexual identities. As a result we refer to LGBTQ+ people in the Plan. What are your views on this term and is there an alternative you would prefer? Welsh speakers may wish to consider suitable terminology in both languages.

I think intersex people are already airbrushed out of the definition. Have always thought that LGBTQI+ is a better expression. There is a division between people who identify as LGB and those who identify as TQ. The Stonewall Gender Ideology belief system prioritises those identifying as TQ and seeks to given them special privileges. For this reason, the advocacy group LGB Alliance was formed. However, my understanding is that they have been excluded from this consultation and there is a clear division between them and Stonewall. As such the umbrella term LGBQT+ doesn’t have the same meaning. If this consultation becomes law it feels like the divisions between the two camps will sadly widen.

#LGBQT HumanRights EqualityAct ECHR Stonewall

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dragontrailz · 3 years

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The Kunming Declaration - Why It’s Deeply Flawed

The Kunming Declaration has been drafted in China #COP15

Note that the directive to protect 30% of land by 2030 is in the text as expected; this will encourage land grabs and will threaten food security; ironically it won’t protect the land as it will result in the displacement of Indigenous people who are best placed to protect the environment they live in.

“Noting the call of many countries to protect and conserve 30% of land and sea areas through well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures by 2030”.

Note that the key primary drivers (HIPPO + climate change) are all there but the underlying drivers are not specified. Note also that the H in the HIPPO (habitat destruction), has been amended to land use change and sea use change.

Hence there is no mention of economic growth, neoliberal capitalism, overconsumption, inequality, affluence, debt, overpopulation, urbanisation, industrial agriculture, technology or militarism as underlying drivers that cause biodiversity loss. Without stating this the agreement is effectively null and void. In reality the agreement was never likely to reference these drivers, hence the illusion that we can protect biodiversity without #degrowth is maintained.

Note also that the text prioritises The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. (Goal 8 is: “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all”). There is no such thing as "sustainable economic growth” - perpetual growth cannot be sustained on a finite planet.

Note the inclusion of #NatureBasedSolutions which is a loaded term.

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/are-nature-based-solutions-the-silver-bullet-for-social-environmental-crises/

https://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/press-release-open-letter-to-the-cop26-presidency

Note the call to “mobilize additional financial resources from all sources, and align all financial flows in support of the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.” - that’s jargon for deregulate financial markets in order that the ‘conservation’ and 'sustainable use’ of biodiversity is unrestricted. Since 'conservation’ will displace Indigenous people and 'sustainable use’ is an equivalent of 'sustainable development’ i.e. in reality there are no limits placed on use resulting in a very weak text which is effectively meaningless.

Here are some of the key clauses which stop this from being a strong agreement #NoNewDealForNature

“We commit to:

10. Increase the application of ecosystem-based approaches to address biodiversity loss, restore degraded ecosystems, boost resilience, mitigate and adapt to climate change, support sustainable food production, promote health,and contribute to addressing other challenges, enhancing One Health and otherholistic approaches and ensuring benefits across economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, through robust safeguards for environmental and social protection, highlighting that such * ecosystem-based approaches do not replace the priority actions needed to urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Ecosystem-based approaches may also be referred to as “Nature based solutions”

13. Work with ministries of finance and economy, and other relevant ministries, to reform incentive structures, eliminating, phasing out or reforming subsidies and other incentives that are harmful to biodiversity, while protecting people in vulnerable situations, to mobilize additional financial resources from all sources, and align all financial flows in support of the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

14. Increase the provision of financial, technological and capacity building support to developing countries necessary to implement the post 2020 global biodiversity framework and in line with the provisions of the Convention.”

https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/99c8/9426/1537e277fa5f846e9245a706/kunmingdeclaration-en.pdf

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dragontrailz · 3 years

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Fascism - Some resources to prepare for what’s evolving

As promised, here’s the first iteration of the Fascism / Anti-Fascism / Totalitarianism reading list. This list covers 1920s/30s Fascism and also modern interpretations of states lost to these mechanisms (Russia, Turkey, USA).

Robert Paxton - The Anatomy of Fascism [start here for a diagnosis and the mechanism]

https://libcom.org/files/Robert O. Paxton-The Anatomy of Fascism%20 -Knopf (2004).pdf

Mark Bray - The Antifascist Handbook [start here for solutions]

Enzo Traverso - The New Faces of Fascism: Populism And The Far-Right [first two chapters are excellent on defining NeoFascism and how it differs from historical Fascism];

Shane Burley - Fascism Today - What Is It And How Can We End It?

Masha Gessen - The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

Ece Temelkuran - How To Lose A Country: The Seven Steps From Democracy To Dictatorship

Hannah Arendt - The Origins of Totalitarianism

Timothy D. Snyder - The Road To Unfreedom

Silvia Federici - Witches, Witch-hunting and Women

Peter Gelderloos - How Non-Violence Protects The State

Noam Chomsky - Understanding Power [my favourite Chomsky]

Paolo Freire - Pedagogy of the Oppressed [this is more about education, than fascism. As such it’s the lighter end of antifascist approaches].

Scotty Henricks (2016) - What Fascism Is And What It Isn’t [excellent short summary here]

https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/for-your-next-political-argument-what-fascism-really-is

Milena Popova (2016) Dear Liberal Friends You Do Not Have The Tools To Fight Trump

https://milenapopova.eu/2016/11/dear-liberal-friends-you-do-not-have-the-tools-to-fight-trump.html

Robert H. Clark (2016) Umberto Eco - UR-Fascism

https://medium.com/nonzerosum/umberto-eco-ur-facism-9d9cc1e9f317

Lew Waller (2020) - Fascism: Introduction To Speech Act Theory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws8k1JXmscU

Green Anti-Capitalist Front (2019) - Against EcoFascism

https://soundcloud.com/12rulesforwhat/against-ecofascism

12 Rules For What (2021) - Feminist Antifascism with Ewa Majewska

https://soundcloud.com/12rulesforwhat/51-feminist-anti-fascism-with-ewa-majewska

BBC (2019) - Rise of the Nazis

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m00084td/rise-of-the-nazis

BBC (1997) - The Nazis: A Warning From History (links broken, will revisit and find a better mirror)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL65A40740BC82013C

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dragontrailz · 3 years

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Wally has reached Iceland, he's halfway home

Wally has now reached Iceland and is halfway home. He went on a fact finding mission to find out why humans are destroying his homeland. His conclusion: 'Economic growth is a human disease.' His solution: 'Direct action gets satisfaction'. In an interview with Walrus Times, Wally told us that more walruses need to join the frontline struggle in Europe and North America and as he put it 'Sink some ships. Especially the yachts of the super rich.' Wally told us he's read the latest peer-reviewed human research and he can't understand why some humans understand that affluence is the problem and that others just want to become richer. He said, that without him, humans will find it harder to survive, because, in his words 'I'm a keystone species'. His slogan is 'I Am Nature Defending Itself.' We should all be more like Wally. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/01/hes-so-majestic-wally-the-walrus-hits-iceland-on-tour-of-europe

#Wally #Walrus #SixthExtinction

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dragontrailz · 3 years

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Both Sides? Why Are You Still Dancing at the Idioteque?

Radiohead - Idioteque (2000) [Kid A]

‘Iceberg coming, iceberg coming. Let me hear both sides’

‘I laugh until my head falls off. Take the money and run.’

'Women and children first and the children first.’

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DNqv3nHyteM

Little known fact. If you still need to hear both sides of the #YesCymru 'debate’ then you’re an obstacle to progress. If you support that letter that’s been circulating then you stand for a continuation of the status quo and an entrenchment of Welsh Labour in Cardiff and the Tories in Westminster. Those Tories will eventually assimilate the Labour Party. Indeed, the capitulation of Sir Keir Rodney Starmer KBC QC epitomes that process. Worse still. Mr Drakeford now appears to be playing two new games: The Great Reset, now embodied by the arrival of Vaccine Passports and the Trans Agenda, which is the starting ramp to Transhumanism. These two tentacles are scheduled to converge in the future as AI, Extended Reality and the Cyborg Agenda further divorce us from nature.

Drakeford now looks asleep at the wheel and is drunk on power. Don’t be confused by his soppy, calm demeanour. Under the surface is a plan to Americanise Wales, bring back nuclear power and increase the presence of the British Army and American spooks within Cymru. He’s being advised to do this by Washington and Langley, Virginia.

Millions to Ford, Aston Martin, Amazon and the South Wales Police.

But, no pay rise for NHS Nurses.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-58806557.amp#click=https://t.co/mFFuAne2Ki

Millions to #Stonewall in order to enact a consultation process that will endanger our children and roll back women’s and lesbian/gay rights.

'Take the money and run…’

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dragontrailz · 3 years

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Extinction Misdirection - 12 Month Sentence for “Activist Paralympian” Who Climbed on Top of an Aeroplane

What’s surprising about this story and the reaction to it, is the sheer lack of awareness of the current political reality of partaking in an action at an airport. Before this man took action, in 2017, the Stansted 15 blockaded and stopped an aircraft from leaving the UK, which was due deport people to Ghana and Nigeria. An action which saved multiples lives.

The 15 were charged with aggravated trespass, which was then upgraded to the charge of ‘endangering an airport’ under the Aviation and Maritime Security Act (2002). They were put on trial (that lasted 2 years) and eventually found guilty (but they were not sentenced to prison, even though the maximum sentence for their alleged crime was life imprisonment). This was a huge relief to the 15 and their friends, which includes me, who feared they would get 1-2 years in prison. Their conviction was later quashed in January 2021 on appeal.

Was this man aware of the actions of the Stansted 15 and the risks of a life sentence in prison before he undertook this action? No, he was not. As XR don’t really tell their activists anything and they use them as cannon fodder. The Paralympian was misadvised and misdirected in every way. In all honesty his own naivety is staggering.

The HS Rebellion thread where I first heard of the news is a real eye opener, most commenters are making the man out to be some kind of hero, which he is not. What he did is virtue signalling and it has not helped anyone.

When groups like XR wade into situations where they don’t understand the political context or the legal consequences of their actions, they become a danger to themselves and others. They also make real activism almost impossible for others who follow them, as laws such as the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill are conjured to deal with the so-called threat of XR.

HS2 Rebellion are a smarter bunch of activists and should know this. Clearly, we have an XR proxy at the controls today on their FB page. The author is still keen to encourage more actions of this kind and for people to lose the fear. The reality is that people are still being misinformed and thus put in danger.

I do feel sorry for the guy, and I hope he is freed soon on appeal. He should not have been put under this much risk.

However, we are all accountable for our own actions and he did this under his own volition. He should also consider himself fortunate that he’s got the maximum punishment for aggravated trespass, not a life sentence for endangering an airport. This was spared him, most likely due to his higher privilege as a Paralympian.

#ExtictinctionMisdirection

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dragontrailz · 3 years

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Nuclear power and weapons are STILL dangerous and unsustainable. This will never change.

Why Nuclear Power Is Unsustainable

I’ve collated some resources here outlining why nuclear power is neither safe, sustainable, nor low carbon.

Of late, forceful lobbying from the nuclear industry has attempted to frame nuclear power as a solution for our future energy provision needs. The evidence suggests otherwise. New nuclear power is the most expensive form of electricity generation, with long lead times and many modern reactor builds running well over budget. There has also been a major push to try and insert nuclear energy into the ‘Net Zero’ discourse, an increasingly confusing and corporatised conversation. These resources should help to debunk narratives that are pushed through mainstream media and by politicians who are still stuck in Cold War era thinking.

Keith Barnham (2015) - False solution: Nuclear power is not ‘low carbon’

https://theecologist.org/2015/feb/05/false-solution-nuclear-power-not-low-carbon

Beyond Nuclear International (2020) - Nuclear Reactors Make Climate Change Worse

https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/09/13/nuclear-reactors-make-climate-change-worse/

David Thorpe (2008) Extracting a Disaster, The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/05/nuclear-greenpolitics

Sussex University (2020) Two’s a crowd: Nuclear and renewables don’t mix. Only the latter can deliver truly low carbon energy says new study

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/53376

Benjamin Sovacool et al (2020) Differences in carbon emissions reduction between countries pursuing renewable electricity versus nuclear power. Nature Energy 1–8.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00696-3

Phil Johnstone and Andy Stirling (2020) Comparing nuclear trajectories in Germany and the United Kingdom: From regimes to democracies in sociotechnical transitions and discontinuities. Energy Research & Social Science 59, 101245.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101245

Benjamin Sovacool (2008) - Valuing the greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power: A critical survey, Energy Policy.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508001997

Mark Jacobson (2019) Evaluation of Nuclear Power as a Proposed Solution to Global Warming, Air Pollution, and Energy Security

https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/NuclearVsWWS.pdf

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/04/18/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-zero-or-near-zero-emission-nuclear-power-plant/

David Lowry (2020) Why Nuclear Power Is Always Going To Be Unsustainable

https://energytransition.org/2020/09/why-nuclear-power-is-always-going-to-be-unsustainable/

David Thorpe (2020) - How The UKs Secret Defence Policy Is Driving Energy Policy With The Public Kept In The Dark

https://www.thefifthestate.com.au/energy-lead/how-the-uks-secret-defence-policy-is-driving-energy-policy-with-the-public-kept-in-the-dark/

Stormsmith - Nuclear Legacy And The Second Law

https://www.stormsmith.nl/keynote.html

John Pilger (2016) Bikini Was Just The Beginning, Bombs Still Threaten The Islanders, New Internationalist

https://newint.org/features/2016/12/01/bikini-was-just-the-beginning

John Pilger (2020) Another Hiroshima Is Coming, Unless We Stop It Now

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/08/05/john-pilger-another-hiroshima-is-coming-unless-we-stop-it-now/

Serhii Plokhy (2018) - Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy. Penguin Books

Paul Mobbs (2011) When The Facts Change I Change My Mind, What Do You Do Sir?

http://www.fraw.org.uk/meir/work/ecolonomics/ecolonomics-010-20110322.pdf

Paul Mobbs (2011) “Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one” – peak oil, nuclear power and the ecolonomics of existential material reality

http://www.fraw.org.uk/meir/work/ecolonomics/ecolonomics-011-20110416.pdf

Al Williams (2017) Fukushima, Fracking and Nuclear in the UK - A Toxic Brew

https://dragontrailz.tumblr.com/post/158240888407/fukushima-fracking-and-nuclear-in-the-uk-a Daniel Jassby (2017) Fusion reactors, not what they’re cracked up to be https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/

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dragontrailz · 3 years

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Blue or Green Hydrogen? That is the question. Or is it the wrong question?

Prof. Robert Howarth and Prof. Mark Jacobson have published this new paper, which is a very strong critique of blue hydrogen.

They do not discuss green hydrogen in the paper, but the media articles framing this all featured the following quote from Howarth.

“This is a warning signal to governments that the only ‘clean’ hydrogen they should invest public funds in is truly net zero, green hydrogen made from wind and solar energy,” Howarth said.” - See Guardian article in comments.

[Guardian also ran a US-framed article, see also comments].

Here is the academic paper. I have quoted the abstract in full.

“How green is blue hydrogen? Hydrogen is often viewed as an important energy carrier in a future decarbonized world. Currently, most hydrogen is produced by steam reforming of methane in natural gas (“gray hydrogen”), with high carbon dioxide emissions. Increasingly, many propose using carbon capture and storage to reduce these emissions, producing so-called “blue hydrogen,” frequently promoted as low emissions. We undertake the first effort in a peer-reviewed paper to examine the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of blue hydrogen accounting for emissions of both carbon dioxide and unburned fugitive methane. Far from being low carbon, greenhouse gas emissions from the production of blue hydrogen are quite high, particularly due to the release of fugitive methane. For our default assumptions (3.5% emission rate of methane from natural gas and a 20-year global warming potential), total carbon dioxide equivalent emissions for blue hydrogen are only 9%-12% less than for gray hydrogen. While carbon dioxide emissions are lower, fugitive methane emissions for blue hydrogen are higher than for gray hydrogen because of an increased use of natural gas to power the carbon capture. Perhaps surprisingly, the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat and some 60% greater than burning diesel oil for heat, again with our default assumptions. In a sensitivity analysis in which the methane emission rate from natural gas is reduced to a low value of 1.54%, greenhouse gas emissions from blue hydrogen are still greater than from simply burning natural gas, and are only 18%-25% less than for gray hydrogen. Our analysis assumes that captured carbon dioxide can be stored indefinitely, an optimistic and unproven assumption. Even if true though, the use of blue hydrogen appears difficult to justify on climate grounds. “

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ese3.956 [should be open access, let me know if you can’t read it and want to]

Here are my thoughts on this (real content is via Twitter, so you will need to engage there) [will assemble into blog later once finished].

Twitter entry point: via Howarth - https://twitter.com/alanwilliamz/status/1427216316084150272/retweets/with_comments

Alternative entry points are available, see comments & main entry point here - https://twitter.com/alanwilliamz/status/1427214618477436931

Happy researching! Hydrogen will be something climate and ecological activists will need to get up to speed on. Many of the major economies are now pushing it to try to get to ‘Net Zero’ - my short summary on it, is that it largely won’t help, but read the threads.

Guardian UK perspective: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/12/uk-replace-fossil-gas-blue-hydrogen-backfire-emissions

Guardian USA perspective. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/12/clean-fuel-blue-hydrogen-coal-study

Three Part Critique of Green Hydrogen:

https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/special-report-is-the-future-role-of-green-hydrogen-in-the-energy-mix-being-overstated-/2-1-986796

https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/special-report-is-hydrogen-the-best-option-to-decarbonise-heating-and-heavy-industry-/2-1-986810

https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/special-report-is-hydrogen-the-best-option-to-decarbonise-land-transport-shipping-and-aviation-/2-1-986828

UPDATE 17/08/2021: The UK Government have now published their ‘Hydrogen Strategy’ which will rely on both Blue and Green Hydrogen. I haven’t had chance to look at it yet. I’m not confident this will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in any way. I’m fairly convinced it will have the opposite effect.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-launches-plan-for-a-world-leading-hydrogen-economy

#Hydrogen entropy thermodynamics green blue

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dragontrailz · 3 years

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A dystopian vision of Food-As-Software and Cell-Based Disruption

A dystopian vision of how our food system could look in the decades to come.

https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2021/08/13/Cell-based-disruption-How-many-factories-and-at-what-capacity-are-required-to-supply-10-of-the-meat-market

Say no to GMOs, gene editing, cell-based disruption, synthetic biology and Food-As-Software - they all mean more of less the same thing. As, per other solutions that claim to be solving the problem like hydroponics or aquaponics, this is not the way forward. These approaches will consume far more resources than they produce, they won't free up land and will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Their ecological footprint will be worse than what we already have. On this George Monbiot and now, Nafeez Ahmed, who has also switched sides, to join neoliberal techno-fix disruptors, "Rethink X", are both very wrong. Don't let them gaslight you on this. I'm reasonably confident that neither of them have done the number crunching and they are fronting it out by using big words in their articles and media appearances on the subject.

Food solutions should be more localised and centred around permaculture and agroecological principles as well as traditional organic, low density, integrated farms and agroforestry, silvopasture and intercropping systems. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand the problem.

Also, if we took back some land from the aristocracy and planted more wild food like fruit and nut trees, as well as food that could be foraged at the fringes, thus creating family or community homegardens (known here as forest gardens), we could begin to slide into Anarcho-Primitivism. Just a thought.

Anarcho-Primitvism and Food-As-Software are two poles of the food axis. Which direction do you want to travel in?

#food

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dragontrailz · 3 years

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Some reflections on the new IPCC Report and the media response to it; affluence, degrowth and the problems with climate-centric thinking

In light of yesterday’s new IPCC report release, everyone who campaigns on climate, or considers themselves to have a coherent understanding of the ‘climate’ problem, ought to read this new Nature Energy paper, that has been archived by our friends at the Free Range Activist Website.

If you’re concerned about the contents of the new IPCC report (which focuses on Working Group 1 - Climate Science); then you’re going to be dismayed when you look at how Working Group 3 (Mitigation Pathways & ‘Solutions’) are framing the problem. Many of their suggested 'solutions’ don’t look fit for purpose.

We await the Working Group 3 report next year, but am not confident they really understand the flaws with their approach to date. There has been a healthy debate around many of these points within the peer-reviewed literature and across the wider Twitter-sphere. However, these issues are not well understood or communicated by the mainstream media and thus not well known by the general public. They can be summarised as follows:

1. Many of the IPCC mitigation pathways developed to date, rely on a series of techno-fixes, foremost of which are Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs), such as BECCS (biomass energy with carbon capture and storage). These are speculative, thermodynamically unsound, potentially dangerous and won’t lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Further they are very likely to transgress other #PlanetaryBoundaries, particularly: biodiversity, freshwater usage, nitrogen / phosphorus biogeochemical cycles and land use change). Put simply, 'climate change is not the problem; everything is the problem’ (WEIRD 002, FRAW, 2020). This climate-centric thinking, is not helping!

3. The models the IPCC use assume that economic growth is both necessary and probable. These models then lock us into using NETs in order to 'decarbonise’ as they suggest that technologies such as BECCS are integral to solving this problem.

4. As Paul Mobbs stated yesterday, the agenda is really about maintaining affluent lifestyles by pursuing the same neoliberal economic growth model that created the problem. This may well explain why the media are not communicating the IPCC Working Group 3 material with any effectiveness.

5. Inequality is as problematic as affluence and perpetual growth, but again the modern state has no real desire to address this. As such, the concept is framed through neoliberal slogans such as 'Leveling Up’ or 'Build Back Better’ that suggest that they intend to address poverty, but in reality these slogan have no substance. It’s misdirection.

6. Until #degrowth pathways are taken seriously, I don’t hold out much hope the 'climate’ problem will even begin to be solved.

7. For middle class academics, this is framed through certain lenses (read the degrowth literature!); whilst there is a very interesting debate going on, certain assumptions are often made within these arenas and dominant paradigms such as the state and corporate power aren’t sufficiently challenged.

8. At the very least, we will need to support each other through Mutual Aid (an anarchist idea, first proposed by Kropotkin), build community cohesion and more localised initiatives, order to adapt and survive this, let alone solve the problem. The degrowth literature often sounds like radical socialism and this may well be insufficient to address the intersecting crises posed by the #EcocideLongList (WEIRD 002, FRAW, 2020)

9. A more radical set of solutions might look more like green-anarchism or anarcho-primitivism and/or adopt many of the principles currently being practiced by the Zapatistas in Mexico or the Revolution in Rojava in Kurdish Syria. These seek to dissolve central state power and prioritise ecological thinking, as well as dismantling the patriarchy by practicing direct or real democracy.

10. As such, educating each other will be crucial to making progress.

11. Direct action is a great tool for enabling the required directional change.

12. Resource depletion will eventually limit the rate at which the global economy can continue to expand; however continuing to exhaust these resources is destroying wildlife habitats, ecosystems and biosphere integrity. This will mean that human life becomes less viable, so beyond population growth of 10 billion or so people, we are looking at a population decrease and possible eventual collapse. I don’t think that means human extinction, but why test that hypothesis?

Jason Hickel, Paul Brockway, Giorgos Kallis, Lorenz Keyßer, Manfred Lenzen, Aljoša Slameršak, Julia Steinberger and Diana Ürge-Vorsatz (2021) - Urgent need for post-growth climate mitigation scenarios

“Established climate mitigation scenarios assume continued economic growth in all countries, and reconcile this with the Paris targets by betting on speculative technological change. Post-growth approaches may make it easier to achieve rapid mitigation while improving social outcomes, and should be explored by climate modellers.”

http://www.fraw.org.uk/data/economics/hickel_2021.pdf

See also WEIRD 002 (FRAW, 2020) - http://www.fraw.org.uk/frn/weird/weird-002-welcome_to_extinction.pdf

#affluence climatechange biodiversity degrowth anarchism

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dragontrailz · 3 years

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Some thoughts on the governments 10 point plan for a green industrial revolution

The plan as outlined appears to be little more than a list of techno-fixes which mostly focus on electricity supply and underestimate what's required to decarbonise heating. There are no plans to phase out fossil fuel usage or decarbonise the large industrial emitters.

1. A ban on combustion engine sales by 2030

Electric cars aren't going to get us to net zero, only a reduction in private car use would do that. I looked into electric cars earlier this year and my calculations suggest that electric cars running on a completely decarbonised UK grid would still be around 30% of the carbon footprint of a conventional vehicle. I suspect that embodied emissions from vehicle manufacture won't be counted as they will mostly occur overseas. This isn't genuine carbon accounting.

2. 40GW of offshore wind power

This is a welcome addition but most of the capacity appears to be under construction or currently consented. Claims that this could power all UK homes are clearly underestimates if additional requirements for electric cars and heat pumps are considered.

3. Moves to boost hydrogen production

Hydrogen isn't a solution to the climate crisis. The claim is made that one town would be heated by hydrogen by 2030. However, using hydrogen boilers is a far less efficient solution than insulating homes and using heat pumps. Government appear to favour a switch to hydrogen as its deemed a less disruptive solution. Most hydrogen is currently made from fossil fuels, which will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's unclear how much 'green hydrogen' capacity would be generated by 2030.

4. Investment of £525m towards new nuclear power, and small modular reactors.

When full lifecycle emissions are considered, nuclear is not low carbon. It would also be the least cost effective solution. The small modular reactors are not even currently available and would need to be designed and subsidised at great cost.

5. £1bn next year for funds to insulate homes and public buildings

This is nowhere near enough money to really address this problem.

6. An extra £200m invested in carbon capture

Carbon capture is another technofix that won't solve the problem. There are currently no viable designs that couple CCS to gas-fired power and with coal being phased out, carbon capture plans currently revolve around coupling this to hydrogen production or bioenergy. Notably, there are no BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture) plants in operation and only two facilities that couple the technology to hydrogen. The claims of high carbon capture rates appear to be overinflated and a number of studies suggest that BECCS may not represent 'negative emissions'. At present, the technology still appears to be speculative. In addition, there are safety concerns with possible CO2 leakage and the risks of earthquakes being triggered by induced seismicity.

7. Support for greener energies in the aviation and maritime sectors

Neither aviation or shipping can be easily decarbonised, so it's not clear where this support will be focused. Talk of zero emission planes sounds quite fantastical. Biofuels can't be considered to be a sustainable fuel. Both hydrogen and ammonia have been proposed as possible solutions to decarbonise shipping but both are plagued by low efficiencies (especially if liquid hydrogen is used) and there are significant safety concerns over the use of ammonia. Neither do electric planes look like a viable solution.

8. 30,000 hectares of trees planted every year

Government are currently missing their tree planting targets. It's not clear how they intend to get this back on track.

9. Moves to promote public transport, cycling and walking

This sounds like a vague aspiration with no concrete plans announced.

10. A pledge to make London “the global centre of green finance”

The original 10-point plan contained a commitment to stop funding overseas fossil fuel projects, which appears to have been dropped. Until this is tackled, London can't be considered as such.

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dragontrailz · 4 years

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Greta Thunberg - Her Privilege Makes Her Blind To Her Own Manufacturing

This is what privilege looks like - 'Only people like me dare ask tough questions on climate’. Only the affluent upper middle classes could possible engineer a quote quite this stupid.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/11/greta-thunberg-people-like-me-ask-difficult-climate-questions

She’s not the only type of person to do this. She’s not the only person with a disability, autism or Asperger’s to speak up. She’s playing on the fact that she’s on the spectrum. Many people have spoken up before she did. Some of them from working class and ethnic backgrounds. She literally can’t see that her privilege, affluence and her parents connections have made this happen for her. As Cory Morningstar has pointed out, Greta Thunberg’s mum was a WWF Hero of the Year in 2017; she does adverts for Greenpeace and moves in those circles. When the 15 year old created her Twitter account in 2018, after her mother, the next accounts she followed were Greenpeace Sweden, Greenpeace International, Greenpeace UK, Friends of the Earth International and Friends of the Earth USA. A little further down the list we find Bill McKibben, 350.org, fellow speakers who would join her at XR’s Declaration of Rebellion (months later on October 31st): George Monbiot and Rupert Read and soon after that We Don’t Have Time, an NGO that would play a crucial role, as well as This Is Zero Hour, their founder, Jamie Margolin and the main account for Extinction Rebellion. Morningstar also cites Callum Grieve, a former Communications Director at The Climate Group and We Mean Business, who now works for Mission 2020, as a key architect of her manufacturing. Grieve also assisted Thunberg; on the first day of her protest he was the third person to respond on that platform. He’s not a huge Twitter influencer though, as he doesn’t have so many followers there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzCgKEjgCng

https://soundcloud.com/lastborninthewilderness/cory-morningstar

http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/01/17/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/

This 17 year old is still being used; but nows seem to enjoy the limelight so much, that they’ve made a film. Her mum is an opera singer, her dad an actor, she was propelled from her first protest to global superstar within weeks. On the day of her first protest, on August 20th, 2018, she was approached by We Don’t Have Time’s Ingmar Rentzhog who ‘discovered’ her and she was soon a major story, appearing on the front page of Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet the same day. Rentzhog had met Greta Thunberg’s mother at a climate event in May 2018, shortly before Greta’s Twitter account was set up. On September 1st, Greta Thunberg was featured in her first Guardian column. It’s worth noting that the Aftonbladet account was followed after those mentioned in the previous paragraph, which suggests she was looking to the global stage before the Swedish national stage.

https://medium.com/@frackfree_eu/green-capitalism-is-using-greta-thunberg-66768db6c0e1

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/01/swedish-15-year-old-cutting-class-to-fight-the-climate-crisis

The sequence of events which led to Greta’s sudden rise to prominence and the role of Ingmar Rentzhog is explained in more detail here:

https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/the-pr-guru-behind-the-rise-of-greta-thunberg/news-story/fae7bd1704d58e8ff0dd4d93ec0b3560

Talk of her “'zero-carbon yacht” in this article is nonsense. There is no such thing. Manufacture of it has embodied energy, besides which, how many of us can afford a transatlantic yacht for those times when we want to sail to the USA to lobby the climate capitalists in that country? The same narrative was peddled when she made her way from Sweden to London by electric car for XR’s Declaration of Rebellion on October 31st, 2018 (I was there that day). What was wrong with using public transport? Surely that would have conveyed a much more sustainable message?

Climate change isn’t the only crisis we face; people have been trying to defend nature from the onslaught of extractive capitalism for a long time; again many of them were poor or Indigenous people, so their narratives were airbrushed away and they weren’t given a number of Guardian articles to platform themselves so that the middle classes could be softened up.

Since those early days, the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos used Thunberg and the global media to manufacture consent for what’s coming - the new fake ‘Net Zero’ world, the '4th industrial revolution’ and next year’s 'New Deal for Nature’.

http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/10/19/perfect-distractions-and-fantastical-mitigation-plans/

Thunberg herself happily plays along signing the letter about 'Natural Climate Solutions’ that appeared in the Guardian alongside fake green George Monbiot, who also wrote an abysmal column to go with it, which seemed to be more about geoengineering and terraforming than habitat restoration, particularly when the academic references to support his narrative are analysed. This climate-washing of the narrative has got to stop.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/03/natural-world-climate-catastrophe-rewilding

The Climate Emergency Fund (USA), set up by Trevor Neilson and funded by Aileen Getty and Rory Kennedy are just one of the big money foundations who now fund the movement she helped create, Youth Strike. I was at the first big Youth Strike protest in London; it was organic and spontaneous. Children took the roads and risked arrest; the cops brought out mounted patrols, some children were arrested, later de-arrested. I noticed that several people within the UK, who’ve positioned themselves at the heart of the climate movement, people from 350, UK Youth Climate Coalition, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth etc. were already there on the sidelines, coordinating and framing the media message.

At the second big Youth Strike protest in London, the children were pushed aside, the speakers on the big red bus that positioned itself on Victoria Embankment were now mostly adults. The Trade Unions were now also in attendance, alongside other NGOs like Global Justice Now, War on Want and MPs like Jeremy Corbyn (he gave a great speech that day) and Caroline Lucas (she did not and seemed very irritable afterwards when I tried to speak to her, a first). The SWP were eagerly recruiting youngsters and filling their heads full of propaganda. It was painful to observe.

By the third big protest, the children were told to march aimlessly around the streets of London, whilst 'activists’ from Greenpeace, FoE and 350 who had coordinated the event looked on. Something so energetic faded so quickly. Very little has happened since that day in Autumn last year, although #Covid19 perhaps has also been responsible for muting any efforts to mobilise.

Her marketing team now seems to think a film about her, to go with the numerous books (yes, I’ve read one of them, the speeches have aged very badly) is now what’s required. Roger Hallam recently made a film, called 'The Troublemaker’, it was largely a work of propaganda. I wonder what Greta’s film will say?

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/16/i-am-greta-review-slick-yet-shallow-thunberg-documentary

“Intriguingly, even bafflingly, Grossman’s film begins by showing Thunberg’s pre-famous self as a high-schooler with her homemade climate strike placard, enduring a lonely vigil outside the Stockholm parliament every Friday with a few grumpy older shoppers coming up and telling her off for not being in school. Here she is: the non-famous nobody, and these scenes lead seamlessly to later moments showing her campaign taking off. So … does this mean Grossman has been prophetically following her career from the very beginning?“

This journalist has clearly not been following the story. That all these early protests were filmed shows they had much larger plans.

Do people think any of this is normal? This post is likely to grate with people. If it does, may I suggest you’re emotionally invested in this story and you can’t see what’s really happening. Step back and get some perspective. I invite discussion but nobody is fooling me with what’s happened over the last two years.

https://starecat.com/greta-thunberg-theyve-stolen-my-childhood-hardworking-kid-cool-story-bro/

Many people seem to be of the opinion that Greta can’t be criticised. There’s a confirmation bias in wanting to believe her story, from a one person protest to meeting world leaders, the UN and the Davos set at the World Economic Forum, where she platformed herself alongside David Attenborough and Jane Goodall. These people won’t engage with the narrative that indicates she’s been manufactured. This is compounded by her support from those in XR, who also can’t seem to see their own movement is also constructed and coupled to her story. A lot of the themes in her speeches, that of the planet being 'on fire’ or that we’re running ‘out of time’ are common to XR and Youth Strike and then later authors like Naomi Klein, and are based on mobilising people based on urgency. We’ve seen this go very badly wrong many times, notably in Afghanistan (See Adam Curtis - The Power of Nightmares)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwvSQ56HYg8&list=PL46FkcYcj-72IK9xFcWVRwoIu9Lfsi1S9&index=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwvSQ56HYg8&list=PL46FkcYcj-72IK9xFcWVRwoIu9Lfsi1S9&index=2

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB8m6nNWpMA&list=PL46FkcYcj-72IK9xFcWVRwoIu9Lfsi1S9&index=3

In her film trailer, we see the time theme being repeated once again. Her father also continues to perpetuate the myth that she did this on her own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwk10YGPFiM

“My name is Greta Thunberg and I want you to panic!” - but this repeated doomerism has had a paralysing effect on many people. Other flanks of people have been mobilised to take action, notably within the UK as XR, which is a larger movement than Youth Strike. However, much of the mobilisation has been about virtue signalling, their virtuous non-violence and colourful boats has meant their movement has failed to really diversify beyond it’s white, middle class base. The movement appears to have now peaked and largely run out of money.

There is also the common theme of expecting governments to act to resolve this. When are people going to realise that’s not going to happen. Parliaments are not going to end capitalism. Who was the last parliamentary candidate who ran on a #degrowth platform? As such, both movements are self defeating and tend to reinforce hierarchy and statism. In the worst case scenario what they are asking for is EcoFascism. If people are struggling to deal with Covid19 restrictions on movement which have only brought about around a 6-7% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, then how would they cope when they are told the truth about what ‘Net Zero’ would really mean: private cars would be banned, consumption would be drastically reduced along with an end to pointless bullshit jobs, international flights would be rationed and restricted and people in the Global North would have to eat perhaps 75% less meat. Some of us have made or are making these changes already and will be ready for this world when we run out of oil and when critical metal resource depletion also punctures the myth of the electric car.

Net Zero within 5 years is a fallacy. Anyone who’s looked at the data knows this. The Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth, Wales appear to be asking for a radical strategy in stating that a 60% reduction in primary energy usage is required, then you realise that they’ve massively underestimated the actual emissions as they don’t include consumption emissions from overseas. This suggests an 85-90% reduction in energy demand would be required.

Meanwhile the IPCC based their models on a doubling of energy consumption between now and 2050. The pretence is maintained by claiming there are ‘Negative Emissions Technologies’ that will magically sequester away our historical and future carbon debt. The primary technology that they envision will do this, Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is not yet technically viable and never will be. It’s neither safe, nor ethical and it won’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Delaying the urgent mitigation required now leaves a larger problem for future generations. BECCS would also require huge amounts of land, freshwater and fertiliser and would destroy biodiversity, threaten food security and trample on Indigenous land rights. The IPCC ‘science’ that Greta Thunberg claims is her version of the truth, is merely only one part of the picture. There are good scientists and bad scientists. Which ones is she backing?

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1318216965639503873

She seems blind to the modelling work going on which assumes that #BECCS is viable and cost effective, a trick of economic models within which subsidies and discounting correct for impossibilities. BECCS will never happen at scale as citizens will mobilise against it. Thus Thunberg’s attempt to lecture Joe Biden, who is well aware of what carbon capture is and has opened the door to it, merely show how little she understands the bigger picture. In the following article, Steve Horn explains how Biden has embraced carbon capture under pressure from oil industry lobbying, which will lead to enhanced oil recovery and won’t reduce emissions.

https://www.drillednews.com/post/biden-climate-change-platform-fossil-fuel-carbon-capture

In reality, what we now have is this pretend world of ‘Net Zero’ False Solutions, where corporations have taken centre stage. Yet, XR, Youth Strike and Greta Thunberg are largely silent on this and are still screaming for governments to take action. In the UK, they did take action as XR suggested and set up a citizen’s assembly, which was then rigged to provide the wrong outcome as these resources clearly show. Under the guidance of the Committee on Climate Change, the process has been captured by false technofix solutions and corporate thinking.

https://www.climateassembly.uk/resources/

The conversation is so far from where it needs to be. Greta now has a film about her life, which will make the middle classes feel like they can change the world if they just shout loudly enough. The trouble is their dominance of the debate and misdirection has wasted two years. Only Covid19 has really reduced emissions, as its forced a much needed reduction in hypermobility and a reduction in oil use.

I hope people can start to see what’s happened over the last two years now. Some folks are waking up to the reality of what needs to be done. No one else is going to fix this mess but us. The only way we can do that is by collectively disengaging from the system, but in more constructive ways, where we can come together, build community and connection. I’ll be writing more about how we do this another time. The solutions need to be centred on mutual aid, land rights, agroecology and permaculture.

#GretaThunberg Privilege Entitlement Affluence

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dragontrailz · 4 years

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Fascism - Some resources to prepare for what’s evolving

Robert Paxton - The Anatomy of Fascism [start here for a diagnosis and the mechanism]

https://libcom.org/files/Robert O. Paxton-The Anatomy of Fascism%20 -Knopf (2004).pdf

Mark Bray - The Antifascist Handbook [start here for solutions]

Enzo Traverso - The New Faces of Fascism: Populism And The Far-Right [first two chapters are excellent on defining NeoFascism and how it differs from historical Fascism];

Shane Burley - Fascism Today - What Is It And How Can We End It?

Masha Gessen - The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

Ece Temelkuran - How To Lose A Country: The Seven Steps From Democracy To Dictatorship

Hannah Arendt - The Origins of Totalitarianism

Silvia Federici - Witches, Witch-hunting and Women

Peter Gelderloos - How Non-Violence Protects The State

Noam Chomsky - Understanding Power [my favourite Chomsky]

Scotty Henricks (2016) - What Fascism Is And What It Isn’t [excellent short summary here]

https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/for-your-next-political-argument-what-fascism-really-is

Milena Popova (2016) Dear Liberal Friends You Do Not Have The Tools To Fight Trump

https://milenapopova.eu/2016/11/dear-liberal-friends-you-do-not-have-the-tools-to-fight-trump.html

Robert H. Clark (2016) Umberto Eco - UR-Fascism

https://medium.com/nonzerosum/umberto-eco-ur-facism-9d9cc1e9f317

Lew Waller (2020) - Fascism: Introduction To Speech Act Theory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws8k1JXmscU

Green Anti-Capitalist Front (2019) - Against EcoFascism

https://soundcloud.com/12rulesforwhat/against-ecofascism

12 Rules For What (2021) - Feminist Antifascism with Ewa Majewska

https://soundcloud.com/12rulesforwhat/51-feminist-anti-fascism-with-ewa-majewska

BBC (2019) - Rise of the Nazis

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m00084td/rise-of-the-nazis

BBC (1997) - The Nazis: A Warning From History (links broken, will revisit and find a better mirror)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL65A40740BC82013C

#Fascism AntiFascism EcoFascism Totalitarianism

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dragontrailz · 4 years

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David Attenborough - The Colonialist

More platitudes are being rained down on David Attenborough now that he’s finally beginning to notice the destruction of our planet and the consequence of climate change. Yet, a closer look at how he frames his arguments reveals many contractions. I find his late life pleading to be too little, too late. ‘Curbing excess capitalism’ - what does he even mean by that? What is he himself prepared to give up? Will he stop flying around the world lecturing us all about what we need to do? We need a new paradigm, reforming capitalism isn’t going to do anything.

His latest Netflix film offers up a hugely oversimplified narrative. Notice how the World Economic Forum have been embedded into the narrative? It was noticeable that once he began talking about 'solutions’, the problem was immediately framed as overpopulation. There was no talk of economic growth, affluence, inequality, urbanisation or industrialisation driving the problem. One coherent solution, would have been to push for a ban on pesticides. Yet there was no mention of the impacts of agrochemicals have on biodiversity collapse.

Blaming overpopulation plays into EcoFascist narratives that lay the blame at regions like Africa, which have growing populations, but where per capita resource use is much lower than in the Global North.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/26/the-big-green-lie/

Attenborough’s other solutions? He mentions 'rewilding’, but this is another colonial agenda that's associated with land enclosure and prioritised usage for the privileged few.

Attenborough has spent his whole life trying to make nature look beautiful when all around him it was being destroyed. He’s now a spokesperson for WWF (who back his latest film) and (alongside Jane Goodall and Greta Thunberg) the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WWF are associated with all sorts of wrong doing whilst supposedly protection of nature - land grabbing and displacing Indigenous people from their land being the most well documented.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/07/armed-ecoguards-funded-by-wwf-beat-up-congo-tribespeople

The head of WWF International is Pavan Sudhek, one of the brains behind the financialisation of nature, that’s documented in the film, Banking Nature. In addition to land grabbing the film documents some of the latest scams such as biodiversity offsetting and species gene banking - the short selling of biodiversity that’s a death spiral for the fabric of life on earth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1EdZeRHgbM

The WWF made another film recently, only in this film they platformed the banksters who want enable this deal for nature. You can watch the film here, decide for yourself what their agenda is

https://youtu.be/7IvNqT5aMTw

What else will magically reverse biodiversity loss and climate change? According to Attenborough, renewable energy. Again, this is populism, there’s no mention of the ecological impacts of metal mining or the resource constraints imposed by the limited amounts of critical metals.

The World Economic Forum aka the Davos set are at the heart of much of what’s gone wrong with processes at the UN level. They communicate their message via the big NGOs, such as WWF and well known faces such as Attenborough. Recently, the biodiversity circus has been plain for all to see. As the UN conference played out a few weeks ago, figures such as Attenborough and Monbiot have once again been rolled out to lecture us on how things should be done by trying to make a case for protecting 30% of land in nature reserves.

https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/12455

Much of what Monbiot, Attenborough and the rest say sounds good on the surface but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Next year the banksters grand plan will be codified in Kunming, China where world leaders will be attempting to enacting a 'New Deal for Nature’. Like the UN IPCC COP process, the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) is likely to be a corporate captured horror show, with WWF, the Nature Conservancy and Greenpeace all dancing to the WEF’s tune. This is one of the most complex scams I’ve ever seen. A lot of people are going to be confused by this process and what it really represents.

#Attenborough WEF WWF Nature Biodiversity

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dragontrailz · 4 years

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Short review of Jason Hickel's - Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save The World

Degrowth is a philosophy which emerged in France in recent decades. Activists mobilising against capitalism popularised the slogan Décroissance, which came from the writing of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Serge Latouche. "Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced resource and energy use" (Kallis et al, 2018). A community of activists and academics studying and practicing degrowth later formed around a series of international conferences which began in 2008.

The book starts well by explaining the severity of biodiversity loss, ecological collapse and climate change. I like the fact that he began by emphasizing the sixth extinction as this component is often underplayed and misunderstood.

The multiple crises are linked to capitalism and economic growth and the myth of green growth is debunked. Planetary limits clearly prevent the ability for an economy to continually grow and this is well conveyed. All this is set within the historical context as land enclosure and colonialism are outlined as central mechanisms of extractive capitalism.

Hickel outlines why technology won't save us paying particular attention to the fallacy of so-called 'negative emissions' technologies such as BECCs. The key limitations of renewable energy are also outlined. Notably, the ecological footprint of metal mining and the scarcity of critical elements required for 'green' or 'renewable' technologies.Efficiency gains and the limits to the circular economy are given a reality check by explaining the Jevon's Paradox and Khazzoom-Brookes postulate. Inequality is another key structural flaw in our current system and it's impacts on human welfare and happiness are also well understood.

The book certainly offers an excellent diagnosis of the problem. It's a fairly comprehensive sweep of the peer-reviewed literature and as such will serve as an excellent reference text. Unfortunately, this takes up well over half of the book and there appears to be far less attention to detail given over to what degrowth is as a framework and the set of solutions it encompasses.

Hickel states the key components of degrowth to be:

1. End planned obsolescence

2. Cut advertising

3. Shift from ownership to usership - i.e. the sharing economy

4. End food waste

5. Scale down ecologically destructive industries

6. A shorter working week and a living wage

7. Reduce inequality

8. Decommodify public goods and expand the commons; this means improved provision of health, education, transportation and housing needs.

9. Debt jubilee & deleverage fractional reserve banking

10. Direct democracy

On the latter point his text is rather threadbare. He doesn't really explain how a more deliberative and participatory democracy framework might work. This is a shame since the Zapatistas in Mexico and Rojavva in Syrian Kurdistan could have both been described to give examples of where this is working. Hickel fails to really explain one of the fundamental problems with neoliberal capitalist society - hierarchy. He overlooks the clear parallels between anarchist thought and much of what the degrowth movement offers. As such his overall philosophy is more influenced by ecosocialism which appears to be framed from a more affluent perspective. Could it be that the author is blind to his own privilege and as such fails to see how grassroots movements could assist in much of the transformation?

On expanding the commons, he fails to make a clear case why this is important and why a localisation of the socioeconomic landscape would play a crucial role. As such he overlooks much of the excellent work of Elinor Ostrom.

He ends on a more philosophical note, I feel this section would have made much more sense as an introduction to the book. The importance of agroecology as a solution is underplayed, only appearing 5 pages before the end of the book. He refers to it as 'regenerative agroecology' - regenerative seems to be used a buzzword when talking of sustainable agricultural approaches and feels superfluous here. Instead he ought to have outlined what the key elements of an agroecological food system would look like. Ecological restoration also only gets mentioned right at the end of the text too and also ought to have been a central pillar of his thinking. Vital to rethinking food and ecosystems is the concept of land rights. Hickel doesn't seem to have really thought through how we might address land inequality and in my opinion without addressing that, we're not going to make a great deal of progress. The text is notable for omitting the concept of permaculture, which would be central to a more sustainable, resilient world where the principles of degrowth are embedded.

He also overlooks the role a reimagined education system could play and why continuous and circular learning ought to be vital to any new systems thinking.

In short, it's a good read but perhaps isn't the comprehensive book it could have been. I'm hopeful that Giorgos Kallis' Degrowth book might outline some of the solutions more thoroughly. Will be reading that soon."Capitalism can no more be 'persuaded' to limit growth than a human being can be 'persuaded' to stop breathing" - Murray Bookchin

Kallis, G., Kostakis, V., Lange, S., Muraca, B., Paulson, S., Schmelzer, M. (2018) Research On Degrowth. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 43, 291–316. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-102017-025941

#Hickel Degrowth LessIsMore

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