Global Divestment Day

Are we performing an exercise in futility here? Is this a further saga in David vs. Goliath?

Preparing for a talk on divestment from fossil fuels for today I've been reading much on the pro's and cons of the debate. Almost all of the negative writing  I have found comes from sources funded by the fossil fuel industry - e.g. Exxon, Koch Brothers, etc.. It's one thing to lobby - Exxon spent $27.5 million alone lobbying against climate change in 2009. but the activity of some of the big players in the fossil fuel industry has gone well beyond lobbying.

Scientific American reported on a study out of Drexel University in late 2013 that showed that between 2003-2010 more than 100 foundations have unloaded $558 million to climate denial organizations through untraceable third party foundations.Those numbers have escalated in recent years while the traceable funds from the likes of Exxon and Koch brothers have dried up.

If this wasn't troubling enough, Mother Jones reported this week that Koch Brothers (Koch Industries is huge player in fossil fuel industry) are in the process of collecting and spending $889 million in the 2016 elections. In one of the recent donor gatherings they already raised $249 million. If you don't believe money is corrupting our democracy you might want to check your pulse!

In almost every anti-divestment article I've read in the last month, there is rarely any mention of concerns about climate change. Often the authors raise canards about how divesting from fossil fuels will hurt the poorest of the poor - as if these generous benefactors have ever shown any real concern for our brethren as they line the pockets of the executives with more and more of the profits. Exxon's CEO only made $40 million in 2012, but had to take a cut to $27 million in 2013.



South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, champion of the the anti-apartheid movement and the divestment movement that helped turn the world away from support for apartheid, has made a more compelling moral case for divestment from fossil fuels.

 

"Just as we argued in the 1980s that those who conducted business with apartheid South Africa were aiding and abetting an immoral system, today we say nobody should profit from the rising temperatures, seas and human suffering caused by the burning of fossil fuels." 

Or watch this compelling three minute video of him discussing the issue in more length. Likewise leaders like Ban Ki Moon and  Christina Figueres, UN Climate chief have made similar appeals.

     ‘The continued and dangerous rise in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is in large part the direct result of past investments in energy and mobility systems based on the use of fossil fuels. New investments must now assist in reversing this unsustainable trend, and quickly if the world is to have a chance of staying under a 20C temperature rise.’(Figueres)

 Despite the floods of money backing the attacks on the divestment movement, globally churches, local governments and universities are joining the cause. Just this  week the faculty at the University of British Columbia voted 62% in favor of divestment. David Green, an  economics professor there made perhaps one of the tightest arguments in support of that action.

 

     "As I see it, we have two choices. The first is to continue with business as usual and count ourselves as blameless because we have played within the current set of rules.
The second is to question those rules; to step back and look for a way to change the rules; to change the social norm. This, to me, is part of the role of a university. If we don’t ask the big questions about what is really driving our problems and how to get society to change, who will?"

PhD resource economist, Dr. Julie Gorte, Vice President for Sustainable Investing at Pax World Fund wrote cogently in their September 2013 newsletter, ESG Matters, 

     "Climate change isn’t a wolf at the door, it’s more like termites in the woodwork; it unfolds in episodes named Katrina or Sandy or the long-term drought in the Sahel, it is the foundation for nine western cities’ impending water crises. It is also a crisis in which the perpetrators and the victims are not necessarily the same people, nor even in the same generation. It’s not something that accommodates quick, cheap fixes; to solve it will take millions of people, thousands of government entities, and tens of thousands of companies acting toward more or less the same end for a considerable period of time. "

One's take on this issue, assuming you align with the near consensus that climate change is on and it's human induced, seems to mostly correlate with how urgent one sees the need for response.The most recent study in Nature shows the basic math that scientists are using,

      “Our results suggest that, globally, a third of oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80 per cent of current coal reserves should remain unused from 2010 to 2050 in order to meet the target of 2 °C. We show that development of resources in the Arctic and any increase in unconventional oil production are incommensurate with efforts to limit average global warming to 2 °C.” (Nature 517, 187–190  (08 January 2015)

Professor James Engell of Harvard writes: 
     “The fossil-fuel companies are decent investments only under two assumptions: first, the oil and gas and coal they own in the ground shall be sold and burned. Second, they shall continue to find more oil and gas and coal and shall sell that to be burned, too. Any investor in them must want this to happen, and any investor is putting up money to make this happen with all deliberate speed.”














 

If one needs a reason to reconsider their complacency on this issue I would refer them to the enlightening explanation of growth by the late University of Colorado physics professor, Al Bartlett, who believed that "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."  
 
This three minute video explanation from his classroom should have some who think the push towards divestment is misplaced, understand how some of us feel the urgency that propels us to call for divestment from fossil fuels and to rapidly re-invest in energy conservation, efficiency, and renewable forms of power.

A Race With All Losers

Heading off recently to a small fishing village in Mexico for some quiet R&R with some good fiction and Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars in the backpack was mostly a good thing. No television, internet, no crowds, just surf, sun and breezes.



I say mostly, because Dirty Wars was a troubling read. I have been compelled again to investigate and ponder more thoughtfully issues of war and peace when I joined the board of our local Peace Education Center. More recently as I've become co-chair of the PEC, I feel a responsibility to better inform myself  of the complexities of global conflicts and the violence that surrounds them. Scahill's award winning journalism (two prestigious George Polk awards among others) deluges the reader with the forces driving U.S. military and paramilitary actions.

I'll spare you the details, but my immediate reaction (I'm not quite halfway through the 500+ pages) was how can Rumsfeld, Cheney and others not be forced to face prosecution for what they unleashed and to what Obama and his team have continued,under the cover of the War on Terror. Scahill's book is not a simple read. He relies extensively on interviews with members and past members of the military, intelligence, and political arenas. (I would relish a visual picture of the relationships of all the players he consults in pulling this together). There are some places where the evidence seems clear cut and others where he sees it as murky, if not indiscernible.

 

One area that Scahill emphasizes from the beginning is Rumsfeld's desire to consolidate more control over intelligence and special operations into the hands of the Defense department. This coincided with a further weakening (in part through budget re-allocations) of State Department efforts and diplomacy in general. In a more recently published book, Mission Creep: The Militarization of US Foreign Policy, Gordon Adams, a national security scholar, notes even concerns among the military with this approach:

      In 2012, ore than 80 retired senior military leaders sent a letter to Congress asking them not to cut the International Affairs budget that provides resources to civilian diplomacy and development agencies. In 2013, twenty retired three- and four-star generals admirals went to Congress to petition for an increase in the International Affairs budget. Gen. James martin, then commander of US Central Commad, is reported to have said, "If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition." [p.19, note 1]

As I return to frigid temperatures and a deep blanket of white I was assaulted with the announcement that Obama's budget calls for another significant increase in defense spending - a 7% increase on the base military budget - even as we have ended (?) the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.




 In the current issue of The Atlantic James Fallows writes in "The Tragedy of the American Military",

     "By the fullest accounting, which is different from usual budget figures, the United Stated will spend more than $1 trillion on national security this year. That includes about $580 billion for the Pentagon's baseline budget plus "overseas contingency" funds, $20 billion in the Department of Energy budget for nuclear weapons, nearly $200 billion for military pensions and Department of Veterans Affairs costs and other expenses. But it doesn't count the $80 billion a year of interest on the military related national debt. After adjustments for inflation, the United States will spend about 50 percent more on the military this year than its average through the Cold War and Vietnam War. It will spend as much as the next 10 nations combined - three to five times as much as China, depending upon how you count, and seven to nine times as much as Russia. The world as whole spends about 2 percent of its total income on its militaries; the United States, about 4 percent." [ January/February 2015, p.80]

Top this off with a February 1, 2015 piece by retired  Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William Astore, "War is the New Normal" in which he revisits the "seven reasons why never-ending war is the new normal in America." Once again, this is the military voice speaking, not some chicken hawks like Rumsfeld and Cheney. Read it and get angry!

Seems like President Eisenhower's departing warning has come true -
      


        In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether  sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. [It is useful to read the entire farewell speech here.]

A day after returning from surf and sun my path came across a potentially powerful tonic to the endless war and violence that Scahill, Fallows, Adams, and the President have made more visible.


A new tome by Randall Amster, JD, PhD and director of the Program on Justice and Peace at Georgetown has just penned a book I was hoping to write myself, Peace Ecology. I've just scoured the 20 page introduction and believe I have found another soul interested in the links between peace and ecology. Amster is eager to make visible connections that we often miss. Whether he leaves me off the hook to write a tome on the same topic remains to be seen. But his introduction framed by a few quotations worth sharing give me a serious doze of hope.

     "War is a social, economic and ecological disaster. It is totally unsustainable and must be opposed by all who are concerned about meeting the real needs of all people and future generations. The effect of war is most immediate for those who are killed or maimed or made homeless, but the social and ecological consequences reverberate for generations. Among the children who survive, we still don't know the full extent of the psychic damage they have suffered or the degree to which their problems are transmitted to successive generations. War is the ultimate atrocity that dehumanizes victor and vanquished alike; divorcing children from parents, separating families, smashing communities, it deprives its victims of their basic need for love and security in the company of their fellow beings." [David Suzuki, quoted on page 4].

For so many reasons it's long past time to stop the arms race that we run assuming its winnable. Clearly we should have learned by now that it sows perpetual war. We can begin by controlling the expenditures for war and arms. A recent Nation article notes the Obama administration's interest in upgrading our nuclear arsenal, which one "one federal study estimated the cost of this enterprise at $1 trillion." Is there anyone sane enough to think that this money would buy more security if invested in providing access to clean water and energy for the world's disenfranchised?

Apathy is consent!

Reinvigorating Democracy - The Next Idea

This was originally written for Michigan Radio's "The Next Idea" which included an interview with Zoe Clark that aired yesterday on their program "Stateside" and that can be listened to here. (scroll to the bottom of the page to see the audio link)

 
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The Next Idea
In the recent elections last November, Michigan had the lowest turnout, percentage-wise, since 1990. Recent national polls show more citizens lack trust in elected officials to serve the public good over private interests than ever before. Elections across the country are now more driven by the excessive wealth of a few, mostly white males, who also help shape the issues discussed, and when they are discussed. What’s happening here?

One might deduce from these discouraging facts that the majority of Michigan voters, like those across the country, have given up on our democracy. I would go one step further and ask:
Are we truly aware of what it’s like to even live in a “real" democracy?

(Credit Flickr/CityGypsy11)

 

Participatory budgeting could improve public trust in our government and offer ways to engage more directly with the political process, says Terry Link.

 

That’s exactly the question posed by Canadian scholars James Cairns and Allan Sears in their eye-opening 2012 book The Democratic Imagination. They are not simply satisfied with the conception of democracy only as a form of government like the versions practiced in the U.S., Canada, and other nation-states, which they refer to as “official democracy.” They push us to imagine the democratic ideal, one they describe as “democracy from below.” What might that look like for us? What might possibly get citizens engaged with directly governing ourselves again?

Official Democracy

When I became a Clinton County commissioner in 2006, I found that our budget-setting process was set in stone. Once the county administrator compiled the draft budget and gave it to the Board of Commissioners for discussion and adjustments, there was a public meeting held at the county courthouse to share the revised budget plan with citizens and answer any questions. Never did I see more than a handful show up, and rarer still were there questions posed. The board then voted to approve the budget, having done the minimum to get citizen input. I suggested the following year that we take the budget on the road to get feedback from citizens closer to their backyards. My colleagues were not quite ready for this democratic innovation. The system had been working fine for years the way it was.

Yet I believed then, and still do, that bringing more people into the budgeting process could have a profoundly positive impact on our democratic system in Michigan.Given the growing frustration and distrust of partisan politics in Michigan, perhaps we're approaching the very crisis that could provide the opportunity to build a better democratic governing system for the citizens of Michigan. 

In 2011, the American Political Science Association Task Force on Democracy, Economic Security and Social Justice in a Volatile World produced a report entitled, Democratic Imperatives: Innovations in Rights, Participation, and Economic Citizenship. It examined the decline of democratic engagement, economic security, and social justice, and offered a number potential pathways out of this malaise.
In the introduction to their report, the authors note: 

“Crises are moments of great intellectual opportunity: They unsettle conventional wisdom, disrupt political complacency, offer unexpected insights and pose difficult and uncomfortable questions in urgent ways. The present crisis provides an opening for scholars, activists, practitioners, and citizens to question and challenge some of the dominant narratives that have shaped the recent thinking and debate about politics.”

Given the growing frustration and distrust of partisan politics in Michigan, perhaps we’re approaching the very crisis that could provide the opportunity to build a better democratic governing system for the citizens of Michigan.

So what’s the Next Idea?

One of the innovative ideas that emerged from the report was the concept of participatory budgeting. Participatory budgeting allows citizens to set priorities and deliberate over the allocation of the budget for their community. This is a much closer version of what Cairns and Sears call “democracy from below.” The origin of the concept is credited to Porto Alegre, Brazil, where, since 1989, up to 50,000 residents have turned out each year to decide how to spend as much as 20% of the city’s annual budget.

When I was teaching at Michigan State University, I would invite our campus budget officer to come in to discuss the university’s budget. He would lay out the revenue streams and expenditures and then used visual software that allowed students to see how the numbers would play out if you adjusted tuition up or down a percent, or increased financial aid, or cut energy use by 10%. Students consistently remarked on how eye-opening this was. For someone teaching concepts of sustainability, it offered me a way to help students see the relationships between two seemingly unrelated items. More importantly, perhaps, it demonstrated how the decisions made to allocate resources affect both what we do and what we don’t do.

The Participatory Budgeting Project notes that there are 1,500 communities and institutions, including states, counties, school systems, colleges, and public agencies around the world that have instituted some level of participatory budgeting. There are many approaches that can be used for implementation, but most follow a similar process:

1. Residents brainstorm spending ideas.
2. Volunteer budget delegates develop proposals based on these ideas.
3. Residents then vote on these proposals.
4. The government implements the top projects.

For example, if community members identify alternative transportation as a priority, their delegates might develop a proposal, say, for more bicycle lanes or a bicycle-borrowing system. The residents would then vote on this and other proposals, and if they are approved, the city pays to see them completed.

Participatory budgeting has multiple benefits. As citizens become more engaged in the budget process, they see more clearly the complexities that budget officers and elected representatives wrestle with in figuring out how to expend taxpayers’ money. This can add trust -- or at least some measure of respect -- towards the bureaucracy. The city or other budgeting entity also receives fresh ideas and a new mix of possibilities they may otherwise have missed out on. Finally, when the community votes on the budget, there is more buy-in to the outcome, because the process has been more open and democratic.

This change will not repair all that is broken in our democracy, but it will shift the tone in the right direction. Given our state’s recent financial hardships and the many efforts to diversify the economy and rethink the way we do things here in Michigan, we have a window of opportunity to disrupt our growing political complacency. That window, however, won’t remain open forever.