Sunday, August 1, 2021

Lost in the Turbulence

 

I want to address a cultural flaw that, in my opinion, underlies our human predicament.

We consume too much. The planet cannot provide everyone on this spinning sphere with the oversized appetites for things that we Americans and many other citizens of the developed world feed. We keep buying more: bigger homes, bigger vehicles, more recreational toys. People, even some environmentalists, believe we just need to replace fossil fuel energy with renewable sources, be it solar or wind. In this view, as long as the power is fossil-free we can continue to consume as we did before without guilt or serious impacts. But remember, those energy forms, too, require resources mined and manufactured, sometimes creating their own hazards in someone else’s backyard, far from our field of vision. This does not even factor in what it is like to do the necessary work along the supply chain to create, assemble or install that which we consume.

As consumers we have responsibilities that we too easily shrug off. That is not to say that the producers do not also have responsibilities for that which they produce. They should in fact take more responsibility, which I will get to shortly. As a longtime volunteer in community recycling programs, we are always gratified that people take the little bit of effort to recycle some of their discards rather than bury them in a landfill. That is a key decision point. Single-stream recycling makes this easy on the resident, as opposed to separating the glass from the metal and plastic and paper. But not sorting it also pushes that work on to someone else. And if you have ever visited a materials recovery facility (MRF), you might be repulsed at the prospect of working there 40 hours a week, at low wages and limited, if any benefits. It is bad enough as only a monthly volunteer at a source-separated site, given many residents’ reluctance to simply rinse an item before throwing it in the mix. Yuck!! ,

As consumers, not only do we need to consume less, but we need to push back on producers to reduce their impacts, both in the production of the product itself and the packaging that we are left to find a home for. Consumer goods should be designed and made to be either repairable for reuse or at least disassembled so that the materials can be easily added to the production supply chain. Better yet, make the producer take the product back at the end of its life and support the reclamation of the packaging they use. That will require that we salvage all that we can and get it into the hands of the nearest responsible manufacturer. Doing so will greatly reduce the amount of energy consumed, whether fossil or renewable based, as well as the demand for mining new materials and the production of additional potentially hazardous waste.

My colleague, Dr. Rex LaMore, proposed some years back, that builders and developers should be required to put money in an escrow account to cover future deconstruction of any building they construct when it reaches its useful end of life. Think of the total embodied energy and materials that went into building a Walmart, Kmart, or Sears store that finally closes shop. What does a community do with that building and the huge concrete or asphalt parking area?

To close this loop—“circular economy” is the new catchphrase--we need to use less. But when we buy we should buy more used and reconditioned products and those with recycled content. To keep the loop sustainable, items being recycled must be clean and sorted to minimize the contamination that hinders reutilization of salvaged materials. This is a responsibility for consumers, especially here in the developed world where we have the biggest ecological footprints. The outrageous and increasing income inequality on this finite and fragile planet demands our attention to this. July 29, 2021 is this year’s overshoot day – a day by which the human family has “exhausted nature’s budget for the year.”

Once upon a time there was a simple technology called a broom or a mop. It was a simple construction of renewable materials. We used these to clean our homes. The vacuum cleaner was invented for the new carpets with longer fibers for which a broom or mop was less effective. The vacuums needed electricity to work (while there were non-electric sweepers like those made by Bissel, once shag carpeting appeared even those were not effective). These vacuum machines are made up of all types of different materials– metal, various plastic resins, electronics, wire, etc.--and aren’t always easy to disassemble. They were probably produced half a world away before arriving at Target or Best Buy and making their way into our closets at home.

Vacuums are simple technologies; I’ve repaired a few myself (that’s how simple they are!). You can even buy new parts like the rubber belts that eventually wear out, if you keep the same machine for a decade or more. But how about that desktop printer? Sure, you have to buy ink cartridges. But once it starts acting up, you’re likely to buy a new one as almost no one repairs them, parts are not readily available, and new ones are relatively inexpensive, at least cheaper than many repairs. But even here we can lessen our footprint by refilling the ink jet cartridges rather than buying new ones.

But the larger systems push back against this. When something breaks our tendency is to just get a new one.  It is more “cost efficient” to just replace old with new. Sometimes the immediate cost is cheaper, but environmentally it’s not. It’s the same with accidents. When a car is “totaled” it simply means the financial cost to repair it is more than the resale value of the car. But the environmental cost of producing a new car, or a new roof, or a new anything is almost always higher, because the extra energy and mining and manufacturing of new materials, but it’s externalized. Even the insurance system reinforces this because they only look at out-of-pocket expenses, so why repair a few damaged parts when it costs as much to replace the whole dang thing? And we accept it, because we are hooked into thinking of “out-of-pocket” costs as the primary test. I suffer from it too, even as I decry its impact.

Another underlying force we should push back on is the distinction between “wants” and “needs.” The advertising industry works on sparking the “wants” and then pushing that to a “need” level. Perhaps if we asked ourselves a question like the following before we jump down the consumer rabbit hole we might pause: “If I don’t buy this item now, in ten years will I have felt my life was diminished?” If our lives are that connected with things as opposed to experiences and relationships, will we really find true fulfillment and meaning? If we look at our brethren in the developing world, what would we be willing to reduce so that they might have a little more security? Could we lower the thermostat one or two degrees in the winter and raise it one or two in the summer? Would we pay a little more to keep local responsible businesses thriving in our communities? Might we turn off lights when we aren’t using them? Will we pay a bit more to support responsible businesses, which endeavor to lighten their impacts and share with their workers and local communities?

As the world community comes together this November under the umbrella of the United Nations Climate Summit, we owe it to these neighbors who suffer as a result of our own energy and resource consumption to make some commitment to fairness and justice. Perhaps we can begin to look inside ourselves to see what we are called to do – to take care of each other and conserve what we have.

Thursday, May 6, 2021

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?


A major reason we never experience a peace dividend when we wind down a war is the fact that those that can profit through fear, construct another enemy that will require more or more powerful  weapons, more soldiers at the ready, and certainly no additional investment in diplomacy. We’ve been replaying this scene since at least the end of WWII. I say at least WWII, because over the past few months I have found myself reading about the end of that war and the role that fear towards Russia and China was stoked by key figures in government, the military, and hawks of that time.

There were progressive voices, including from the military offering alternatives to these more confrontational approaches, like making huge investments in economic conversion from weapons to redevelopment in war torn arenas, and to peace time needs that could employ the returning GIs. But the industries that were strongest and relied heavily on the government to buy their products, were resistant. As later President Eisenhower would call the Military Industrial Complex:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
[President Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953]

 Many of the leaders that made the birth of the United Nations possible struggled constantly to build a world of peace, openness, diplomacy, and economic prosperity. Factions that believed Russia was committed to conquering the world, or that the communists in China had all of Southeast Asia in their sights, foisted their fears on the general population fueled by right wing fear-mongering. Today is no different.

This became quite apparent especially with the decision to drop the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. It is clear from the records of those involved in that decision, that it was more to show Russia how tough we were, than to defeat the crumbling Japanese force. From there we see the rise of J. Edgar Hoover and his socio-pathic fear of everything; the rise of Joseph McCarthy; the failed domino theory of Vietnam, etc., etc., etc.

When Gorbachev changed the Soviet Union’s approach and Reagan engaged with him, they found both nations willing to limit nuclear weapons. When the Soviet Union broke apart as Gorbachev cut the chains, the peace dividend that should have followed evaporated as the new enemies du jour were transplanted to the Middle East and Central America, followed by the Axis of Evil, and now full circle to China and Russia again. If we keep following this circus train that shines its floodlights on ever new enemies, we will bleed the world of resources needed to meet the globally agreed upon Sustainable Development Goals and the encroaching global threats of pandemics, climate change and income inequality. We need to get off this escalator to nowhere and get serious about building enduring institutions, avenues of diplomacy and shared prosperity.

The fight is on once again to bump up an already over-bloated, un-auditable war budget. President Biden is asking for more money for the war machine, even as he ends the Afghanistan war. Deficit hawks rarely suggest a cut to the sacred war budget. Yes, you can cut food stamps, cut environmental protection, shrink diplomatic corps, or make tax evasion by the wealthy so much easier, but please don’t touch the war budget.

Just today it was reported that the ten largest defense industry contractors spent $25.7 million lobbying their case in just the first three months of this year!!!

 

Economic conversion as discussed at the end of WWII and then intermittently and briefly thereafter with a slight resurfacing at the end of the cold war, has never seriously been debated in the public sphere. Yet, studies like those at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Affairs “Cost of War” project show that the same amount of funds invested in education, health care or renewable energy, will produce substantially more jobs than the defense industry, not to mention all the social and environmental benefits that would follow. Recent polls show an overall willingness of voters to support a reduction in military spending (not at the expense of our soldiers).

[A new report released today from the Center for International Policy, notes not only the outrageous salaries of the defense industry CEOs, but the great disparity between soldiers we send into battle and the industry executives.]

Too many members of Congress, with rare exceptions, have been unwilling to challenge the military industrial juggernaut that always calls opponents “soft on defense” or “socialists” or some other pejorative name. The same playbook keeps working. It has gotten so bad that Congress has all but forfeited its Congressional power to declare war, allowing presidents of either party to initiate and/or continue armed incursions without approval.

Maybe there is kindling a possible formidable challenge to this unbroken circle. The following signs suggest a change in direction might finally be possible. In recent months we have seen the emergence of a Defense Spending Reduction Caucus in the House of Representatives with more than 50 members signing on to a letter to President Biden to reduce military spending.

Organizations as diverse in political orientation as the National Taxpayers Union, Cato Institute to Code Pink, Public Citizen, FCNL, and World Beyond War are calling for reductions. The Poor Peoples’ Campaign has made redirecting bloated military spending to human needs one of the five primary issues. A coalition of more than 20 national organizations has been formed to resist the lobbying of the wealthy defense industry under the name People Over Pentagon label. H.R. 256 that would repeal the 2002 AUMF that has been used to authorize so many military excursions now, has a remarkable 128 co-sponsors.

All that seems to be missing to move the needle are citizen voices ringing on the phones of Congress. Can you spare two minutes of your time to help break this circle of violence and redirect our resources towards real human security?

 

* Telephone:  202-224-3121

 

Sunday, February 14, 2021

So Tired of Playing Defense

 

I’ve been moving myself through Gar Alperovitz’s stunning 1995 The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth for the past month or so. This 843 pager (48 chapters plus appendices) with more than 2,600 footnotes is a compelling historical detective work. I’ve completed the first 46 chapters and 588 pages.

The 2,600+ notes do not include additional author notes sprinkled every few pages. It was one of these that led me to check out yesterday The Price of Vision: The Diary of Henry A. Wallace 1942-46 (edited by John  Morton Blum) and published in 1973. This is no lightweight volume either, coming in at 707 pages. One of the appendices that Blum adds is a speech, “The Way to Peace” that Wallace gave in September 1946 at Madison Square Garden that led to his firing by Truman.  Wallace was by all accounts a unique and interesting figure. One can’t help but wonder what the world would look like now, had not Roosevelt substituted Truman for Wallace as VP in 1944.

I read that 1946 speech and then a few minutes later read a report in a defense industry post I receive each weekday morning about the addition of a U.S. joint aircraft carrier strike force into the South China Sea. Wallace might have been a bit too idealistic in 1946 about the Russian threat, but the analysis he offered then, seems strikingly similar to the forces at play today. My concerns that President Biden’s administration would continue the militarism of the previous administrations suggests we are on the same conveyor belt which Wallace objected to, which benefits primarily weapons manufacturers. Even Eisenhower who was critical of that same force as most forcefully demonstrated by his farewell address, was controlled by it.

Who in government is willing to call it out today, besides a few members of the Progressive Caucus (see the new Defense Spending Reduction Caucus)? Biden’s cabinet selections on the foreign/military policy side are no doubt loyal to him and have largely hawkish resumes. If they dare to publicly speak otherwise, they would no doubt suffer the same fate as did Wallace 75 years ago. We need some courageous souls within government to call this out.

Many of us have been pushed into defensive postures over the past four years by attempts to dismantle American democracy. It has drained the energy of many. We might be tempted to relax our postures with the election of a liberal to the executive branch, but some myths of American exceptionalism die hard. While we must defend  against continued theft of our common wealth by the drivers of the corporate military-industrial complex, it is equally important that we offer real alternatives. As I have reflected in this blog frequently over the past, there are alternatives.

Let me offer one sterling example. The London School of Economics shared a wonderful webinar on Friday, featuring the amazing economist Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics, which I have reviewed on more than one occasion. Listen attentively to her present a real alternative, now being adopted and applied in places around the world. She’s not a dogmatist. This is a framework that makes total sense with what we know about our world today. As we learn more, we may need to shift and adapt it, as she readily admits. But the possibility for a better world for all is there if we will look, reflect, and act to as Jean Luc Picard might say, “Make it so.” 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku4AV2Ummq0