New Internationalist: 10 things you should know about tree ‘offsets’

http://www.newint.org/features/2006/07/01/carbon-cycle/

Active Carbon Pool:

Carbon moves between forests, atmosphere and oceans in a complex natural rhythm of daily/seasonal/annual and multi-annual cycles. The overall amount in all three carbon stores together rarely increases in nature. This is ‘active’ carbon.

Fossil Carbon Pool:

Some carbon is locked away and rarely comes into contact with the atmosphere naturally. This ‘fossil carbon’ is stored permanently in coal, oil and gas deposits and therefore is not part of the active carbon pool. When humans mine and extract these reserves this inactive fossil carbon does not go back in the ground, but is added into the active carbon pool, disrupting a delicate balance.

This is one of the reasons that the concept of ‘offsets’ is flawed. Offsets allow extraction of oil, coal and gas to continue, which in turn increases the amount of fossil carbon that is released into the active carbon pool disrupting the cycle. That is why campaigners argue that genuine solutions to climate change require us to keep fossil carbon (oil, coal and gas) in the ground.

1. Carbon in trees is temporary: Trees provide temporary carbon storage as part of the normal cycle of carbon exchange between forests and the atmosphere. Trees can easily release carbon into the atmosphere through fire, disease, climatic changes, natural decay and timber harvesting.

2. One-way road: The release of fossil carbon in contrast is permanent and, over relevant time scales, will accelerate climate change by increasing the overall amount of carbon in the atmosphere – the very cause of today’s climate change. Fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas are locked away and their carbon is only released when humans dig up and burn them for energy. Once released, they become part of the active carbon pool, disrupting the natural cycle.

3. Fake credit: Carbon credits from tree planting claim that carbon stored temporarily in tree plantations can justify permanent releases of fossil carbon into the atmosphere without any harm to the climate.

4. Big foot: Carbon credits from tree planting increase the ecological debt of the global North. The more fossil fuels a Northern country consumes, the more land it is entitled to use to ‘offset’ its emissions. This is unfair and increases the already high ecological footprint of the North.

5. Subsidies for mega-plantations: Carbon credits from tree planting stand to provide a new subsidy for the plantations industry. Large-scale plantations have a long list of negative impacts on forests and forest peoples and often exacerbate local land disputes and violence.

6. Communities suffer twice: First, climate change affects the livelihoods of forest peoples and rural communities through increased droughts, floods, forest fires and deforestation. Second, carbon credits from tree planting promote the expansion of large-scale tree plantations, which indigenous peoples and forest-dependent communities oppose in many parts of the world.

7. Ticking time bomb: Avoiding climate change requires drastic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. Offsets, however, allow emissions to continue under the false premise that they’ve been ‘neutralized’. This just masks the real crisis and sentences future generations to live with fewer choices and worse conditions.

8. Forest fraud: Forests play a vital role in storing carbon and buffering extreme weather events. But linking forest restoration with carbon credits is a dead-end for forest peoples as well as for the climate. Halting the forest crisis requires action against the underlying causes of deforestation, not more fossil carbon in the atmosphere and more monoculture tree plantations occupying land needed by local communities.

9. Blind guess: Measuring carbon in forests is fraught with uncertainties. Scientists have found that estimates of the carbon balance in Canadian forests could vary by 1,000 per cent if seemingly small factors – such as increased levels of atmospheric CO2 – are taken into account.

10. Carbon credits from tree planting are a phony climate fix!

Prepared by forest campaigner Jutta Kill of European environmental group FERN. For more info, visit: http://www.sinkswatch.org/ and http://www.fern.org/

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"Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal - that there is no human relation between master and slave."
- Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910)

Ignorance Is Bliss When it Comes to Challenging Social Issues

By remaining unaware, people can justify trusting government, study finds

WASHINGTON - The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

And the more urgent the issue, the more people want to remain unaware, according to a paper published online in APA’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology®.

“These studies were designed to help understand the so-called ‘ignorance is bliss’ approach to social issues,” said author Steven Shepherd, a graduate student with the University of Waterloo in Ontario. “The findings can assist educators in addressing significant barriers to getting people involved and engaged in social issues.”

Through a series of five studies conducted in 2010 and 2011 with 511 adults in the United States and Canada, the researchers described “a chain reaction from ignorance about a subject to dependence on and trust in the government to deal with the issue.”

In one study, participants who felt most affected by the economic recession avoided information challenging the government’s ability to manage the economy. However, they did not avoid positive information, the study said. This study comprised 197 Americans with a mean age of 35 (111 women and 89 men), who had received complex information about the economy and had answered a question about how the economy is affecting them directly.

To test the links among dependence, trust and avoidance, researchers provided either a complex or simple description of the economy to a group of 58 Canadians, mean age 42, composed of 20 men and 38 women. The participants who received the complex description indicated higher levels of perceived helplessness in getting through the economic downturn, more dependence on and trust in the government to manage the economy, and less desire to learn more about the issue.

Related
On the Perpetuation of Ignorance (PDF, 263KB)

“This is despite the fact that, all else equal, one should have less trust in someone to effectively manage something that is more complex,” said co-author Aaron C. Kay, PhD, of Duke University. “Instead, people tend to respond by psychologically ‘outsourcing’ the issue to the government, which in turn causes them to trust and feel more dependent on the government. Ultimately, they avoid learning about the issue because that could shatter their faith in the government.”

Participants who felt unknowledgeable about oil supplies not only avoided negative information about the issue, they became even more reluctant to know more when the issue was urgent, as in an imminent oil shortage in the United States, according the authors. For this study, 163 Americans, with a mean age of 32 (70 men and 93 women), provided their opinion about the complexity of natural resource management and then read a statement declaring the United States has less than 40 years’ worth of oil supplies. Afterward, they answered questions to assess their reluctance to learn more.

“Beyond just downplaying the catastrophic, doomsday aspects to their messages, educators may want to consider explaining issues in ways that make them easily digestible and understandable, with a clear emphasis on local, individual-level causes,” the authors said.

Another two studies found that participants who received complex information about energy sources trusted the government more than those who received simple information. For these studies, researchers questioned 93 (49 men and 44 women) Canadian undergraduate students in two separate groups.

The authors recommended further research to determine how people would react when faced with other important issues such as food safety, national security, health, social inequality, poverty and moral and ethical conflict, as well as under what conditions people tend to respond with increased rather than decreased engagement.

Article: “On the Perpetuation of Ignorance: System Dependence, System Justification, and the Motivated Avoidance of Sociopolitical Information,” Steven Shepherd, University of Waterloo, and Aaron C. Kay, PhD, Duke University, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 120, No. 2.

Steven Shepherd can be contacted by email

Dr. Aaron Kay can be contacted by phone at (919) 660-3737 or by email

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 154,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare.

 

Source: http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2011/11/ignorance.aspx

"I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace."
- Helen Keller

100 year old political cartoon - still as accurate as ever

http://www.uniquescoop.com/2012/01/100-year-old-political-cartoon-still-as.html

 "Pyramid of Capitalist System", issued by Nedeljkovich, Brashick and Kuharich, Cleveland: The International Publishing Co., 1911.

The Pyramid of Capitalist System is a provocative illustration of the hierarchical system of capitalist rule in America. In this beautifully colored portrait, the artist depicts the multiple tiers of working class oppression. At the top of the pyramid sits the state, which serves the interests of the ruling class and functions under capitalism as the protector of private wealth and property. Below the state stand the religious leaders, clergymen, and preachers of false consciousness who encourage obedience to and acceptance of the status quo, entreating the working masses to accept their ordained fate and seek their just rewards not on earth but in that glorious hereafter.

If obedience cannot be encouraged it will surely be enforced by the members of the next tier. As events in Homestead and Pullman clearly testified, the police and militia had as their objective not the protection of "the people," but rather the protection of capital from "the people." Beneath the military sit the parasite class, the bourgeoisie, who exploit the toilers of the world and profit by their labor power.

Beneath it all, bearing the weight of the entire system, are the workers who produce all things fundamental to the perpetuation of life and the continuation of this system. Thus, in addition to illustrating the multi-layered oppression and exploitation of workers, this image also begs the question, "what would happen to capitalism if the workers simply withdrew their support?"

"Ninguém é tão ignorante que não tenha algo a ensinar. Ninguém é tão sábio
que não tenha algo a aprender."
- Blaise Pascal
Fonte: http://repositorio.ul.pt/bitstream/10451/3892/17/ulfl068174_tm_citacoes.pdf

Un mouvement social oublié: Chili, 1907, Santa María de Iquique

http://www.fotolog.com/proletasiii/34685479/

par Sergio Grez Toso, décembre 2007

Le 21 décembre 1907, à Iquique, port de l’extrême nord du Chili, des centaines de travailleurs chiliens, péruviens et boliviens furent massacrés par l’armée et la marine chilienne devant les portes de l’école Santa María. C’est ainsi qu’un gouvernement oligarchique noya dans le sang la « grande grève » de la province de Tarapacá, un mouvement social spontané mais qui s’appuyait sur des organisations ouvrières en formation. Quelques mois plus tard, en 1908, à Valparaíso, naissait un certain Salvador Allende.

En ce début de XXe siècle, à la veille du premier centenaire de l’indépendance nationale, la « question sociale » est brûlante au Chili. Dans les mines de salpêtre, d’argent, de charbon et de cuivre, dans les entreprises portuaires, dans les usines de Santiago, de Valparaíso, de Viña del Mar, de Concepción et d’autres villes, une classe ouvrière qui commence à adhérer aux idéaux du socialisme et de l’anarchisme est en voie de constitution. Dès 1903, face à la prolifération des grèves et des mouvements de protestation, l’Etat, préoccupé par le maintien de l’ordre social, répond aux revendications prolétaires par des massacres successifs.

Tant la classe dirigeante que l’Etat baignent alors dans un contexte global de grande prospérité. Mais la dévaluation monétaire a fait chuter le taux de change du peso chilien de 18 à 7 centimes de livre sterling, entraînant une forte hausse du prix des aliments. Malgré la dégradation de leur niveau de vie et les dures conditions de travail, les revendications des ouvriers du salpêtre de la province de Tarapacá, à la fin de 1907, sont plutôt modérées. Ils demandent à être payés en monnaie légale et non pas en bons. Emis par les entreprises, ces derniers ne peuvent être échangés que contre des produits disponibles dans les commerces (pulperías) de ces mêmes entreprises, à des prix plus élevés que sur le marché libre.

D’autres revendications s’y ajoutent : liberté de commerce pour éviter ce genre d’abus ; stabilité des salaires en utilisant comme norme l’équivalent de 18 centimes (peniques) de livre sterling pour 1 peso ; protection pour les métiers les plus dangereux afin d’éviter les nombreux accidents mortels ; établissement d’écoles du soir financées par les employeurs pour les ouvriers. Dans les entreprises portuaires, ferroviaires et manufacturières, les travailleurs d’Iquique – l’un des ports les plus importants pour l’exportation du salpêtre – exigent pour leur part que leurs maigres salaires soient augmentés afin de compenser la diminution de pouvoir d’achat entraînée par la (...)

Source: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2007/12/GREZ_TOSO/15386

Nature's Matrix: Linking Agriculture, Conservation and Food Sovereignty

http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9781844077823-1

Landscapes are frequently seen as fragments of natural habitat surrounded by a 'sea' of agriculture. But recent ecological theory shows that the nature of these fragments is not nearly as important for conservation as is the nature of the matrix of agriculture that surrounds them. Local extinctions from conservation fragments are inevitable and must be balanced by migrations if massive extinction is to be avoided. High migration rates only occur in what the authors refer to as 'high quality' matrices, which are created by alternative agroecological techniques, as opposed to the industrial monocultural model of agriculture. The authors argue that the only way to promote such high quality matrices is to work with rural social movements. Their ideas are at odds with the major trends of some of the large conservation organizations that emphasize targeted land purchases of protected areas. They argue that recent advances in ecological research make such a general approach anachronistic and call, rather, for solidarity with the small farmers around the world who are currently struggling to attain food sovereignty. Nature's Matrix proposes a radically new approach to the conservation of biodiversity based on recent advances in the science of ecology plus political realities, particularly in the world's tropical regions.

Authors:
Ivette Perfecto is Professor of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan.
John Vandermeer is Asa Gray University Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan.
Angus Wright is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Studies at California State University Sacramento.

Richard Murphy - The Courageous State: Rethinking Economics, Society and the Role of Government

http://courageousstate.com/about/

In The Courageous State, Richard Murphy argues that neoliberalism has bred weak governments led by weak politicians who believe implicitly in the supremacy of the market. It has created a cowardly state: a state that sees responsibility and then runs away from it. Worse, the weak politicians who run our cowardly state want power solely to ensure that as much tax revenue as possible is used to benefit the private sector that they idolise. But neoliberal theory is wrong – it has created the crises we’re suffering. And it has no solution to them.

The Courageous State argues powerfully for a new economic model. That model is based on a very different idea of what the role of the state is. The Courageous State is driven by its desire to work on behalf of the people of this country. And that means a Courageous State is populated by politicians who believe in government and in the power of the office they hold. They believe that office exists for the sake of the public good. They know what that public good is. They think it is their job to help each and every person in their country to achieve their potential, sustainably, in a strong mixed economy. And they believe they can command the resources to fulfil this task – whether through tax or other means.

A Courageous State offers hope; our existing, cowardly, state does not. Which is why building a Courageous State is essential if we want to both solve our current problems and build a sustainable future.

The question is, are you willing to be that Courageous?

Tax Havens: How Globalization Really Works

http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100541250

Ronen Palan, Richard Murphy, Christian Chavagneux

 

From the Cayman Islands and the Isle of Man to the Principality of Liechtenstein and the state of Delaware, tax havens offer lower tax rates, less stringent regulations and enforcement, and promises of strict secrecy to individuals and corporations alike. In recent years government regulators, hoping to remedy economic crisis by diverting capital from hidden channels back into taxable view, have undertaken sustained and serious efforts to force tax havens into compliance.

In Tax Havens, Ronen Palan, Richard Murphy, and Christian Chavagneux provide an up-to-date evaluation of the role and function of tax havens in the global financial system—their history, inner workings, impact, extent, and enforcement. They make clear that while, individually, tax havens may appear insignificant, together they have a major impact on the global economy. Holding up to $13 trillion of personal wealth—the equivalent of the annual U.S. Gross National Product—and serving as the legal home of two million corporate entities and half of all international lending banks, tax havens also skew the distribution of globalization's costs and benefits to the detriment of developing economies.

The first comprehensive account of these entities, this book challenges much of the conventional wisdom about tax havens. The authors reveal that, rather than operating at the margins of the world economy, tax havens are integral to it. More than simple conduits for tax avoidance and evasion, tax havens actually belong to the broad world of finance, to the business of managing the monetary resources of individuals, organizations, and countries. They have become among the most powerful instruments of globalization, one of the principal causes of global financial instability, and one of the large political issues of our times.

Mary Mellor: The Future of Money - From Financial Crisis to Public Resource

http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745329949

As the recent financial crisis has revealed, the state is central to the stability of the money system, while the chaotic privately-owned banks reap the benefits without shouldering the risks. This book argues that money is a public resource that has been hijacked by capitalism.

Mary Mellor explores the history of money and modern banking, showing how finance capital has captured bank-created money to enhance speculative ‘leveraged’ profits as well as destroying collective approaches to economic life. Meanwhile, most individuals, and the public economy, have been mired in debt. To correct this obvious injustice, Mellor proposes a public and democratic future for money. Ways are put forward for structuring the money and banking system to provision societies on an equitable, ecologically sustainable ‘sufficiency’ basis.

This fascinating study of money should be read by all economics students looking for an original analysis of the economy during the current crisis.

About The Author
Mary Mellor is Emeritus Professor at Northumbria University in Newcastle, where she was founding Chair of the University’s Sustainable Cities Research Institute. She has published extensively on alternative economics integrating socialist, feminist and green perspectives. Her books include The Politics of Money: Towards Sustainability And Economic Democracy (Pluto, 2002).

Edgardo Lander: Is the Green Economy a new Washington Consensus?

The current environmental and climate crisis is not simply a market failure because nature is not simply a form of capital. Putting a price on nature under the label of the "Green Economy" is an attempt to expand the reach of finance capital and privatise our planet.

Today we are facing great risks -- even a civilisation crisis – manifest in many dimensions and exacerbated by unprecedented inequalities. Systems and institutions that sustain life and societies – such as food and energy production, climate and biodiversity, even economic and democratic institutions – are under attack or in a state of collapse.

In the 1980s, faced with a crisis of profitability, capitalism launched a massive offensive against workers and peoples, seeking to increase profits by expanding markets and reducing costs through trade and financial liberalisation, flexibilisation of labour and privatisation of the state sector. This massive structural adjustment became known as the Washington Consensus.

Today, faced with an even more complex and deeper crisis, capitalism is launching a new attack that combines the old austerity measures of the Washington Consensus -- as we are witnessing in Europe – with an offensive to create new sources of profit and growth through the Green Economy. Although capitalism has always been based on the exploitation of labour and nature, this new phase of capitalist expansion seeks to exploit and profit by giving a price value to the essential life-giving capacities of nature.

The Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit of 1992 institutionalised important bases for international cooperation on sustainable development, such as polluter pays, common but differentiated responsibilities and the precautionary principle. But Rio also institutionalised the concept of “sustainable development” based on “sustainable growth”. In 1992 the Rio Conventions acknowledged for the first time the rights of indigenous communities and their central contributions to the preservation of biodiversity. But, in the same documents, the industrialised countries and corporations received the guarantee that the seeds and genetic resources that they gained though centuries of colonial domination would be protected through intellectual property rights.

In 2012, the plunder continues. The Green Economy is an attempt to expand the reach of finance capital and integrate into the market all that remains of nature. The Green Economy aims to do this by giving a “value” or a “price” to biomass, biodiversity and the functions of the ecosystems – such as storing carbon, pollinating crops, or filtering water -- in order to integrate these “services” as tradeable units in the financial market.

What and who is behind the Zero Draft?

The zero draft outcome document for the Rio +20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development is called “The future we want.” [1] At the heart of this short text is the section “The green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.”

The Green Economy is an ambitious global project that seeks to disassociate economic growth from environmental deterioration through a three-dimensional capitalism that includes physical capital, human capital, and natural capital (rivers, wetlands, forests, coral reefs, biological diversity and other elements). For the Green Economy, the food crisis, the climate crisis and the energy crisis share a common characteristic: the failed allocation of capital. As a result, the Green Economy treats nature as capital – “natural capital.” The Green Economy considers it essential to put a price on the free services that plants, animals and ecosystems offer to humanity in order to “sustainably manage” biodiversity, water purification, pollination of plants, the protection of coral reefs and regulation of the climate. For the Green Economy, it is necessary to identify the specific functions of ecosystems and biodiversity and assign them a monetary value, evaluate their current status, set a limit after which they will cease to provide services, and concretize in economic terms the cost of their conservation in order to develop a market for each particular environmental service. For the Green Economy, the instruments of the market are powerful tools for managing the “economic invisibility of nature.”

The zero draft – as with all the vicious attacks of capitalism – is full of generalities to hide the real intentions. Behind the zero draft is the 2011 UNEP report Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication that shows clearly the ultimate goal of achieving “green capitalism”. [2]

The main targets of the Green Economy are the developing countries, where there is the richest biodiversity. The zero draft even acknowledges that a new round of “structural adjustments” will be necessary: “developing countries are facing great challenges in eradicating poverty and sustaining growth, and a transition to a green economy will require structural adjustments which may involve additional costs to their economies…”.

But the Green Economy is not a fiction of the future: it is already here. As the zero draft states, “We support policy frameworks and market instruments that effectively slow, halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation”. This is referring to REDD (Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Forest Degradation), an initiative of the UNFCCC which consists of isolating and measuring the capacity of forests to capture and store carbon dioxide in order to issue certificates for greenhouse gas emissions reductions that can be commercialized and acquired by companies in developed countries that cannot meet their emission reduction commitments. We have already seen that the market for carbon credits based on forests will lead to: a) noncompliance with effective emission reduction commitments by developed countries; b) the bulk of resources being appropriated by intermediaries and financial entities and rarely benefitting countries, indigenous peoples and forests themselves; c) the generation of speculative bubbles based on the sale and purchase of said certificates; and d) the establishment of new property rights over the capacity of forests to capture carbon dioxide, which will clash with the sovereign rights of States and the indigenous peoples that live in forests.

The postulates promoted under the Green Economy are wrong. The current environmental and climate crisis is not a simple market failure. The solution is not to put a price on nature. Nature is not a form of capital. It is wrong to say that we only value that which has a price, an owner, and brings profits. The market mechanisms that permit exchange among human beings and nations have proven incapable of contributing to an equitable distribution of wealth. The main challenge for the eradication of poverty is not to grow forever, but to achieve an equitable distribution of the wealth that is possible under the limits of the Earth system. In a world in which 1% of the population controls 50% of the wealth of the planet, it will not be possible to eradicate poverty or restore harmony with nature.

The Green Economy is a cynical and opportunistic manipulation of the ecological and social crises. Rather than addressing the real structural causes of inequality and injustices, capital is using “green” language to launch a new round of expansion. Corporations and the financial sector need governments to institutionalise the new rules of the Green Economy to guarantee them against risks and to create the institutional framework for the financialisation of nature. Many governments are willing partners in this project as they believe it will stimulate a new phase of growth and accumulation.

The Green Economy is not the future that WE want.

[1] http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/index.php?page=view&type=12&nr=324&menu=23

[2] UNEP, 2011, Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication, www.unep.org/greeneconomy

Edgardo Lander

Professor of Social Sciences at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas.

Lander is one of the leading thinkers and writers on the left in Venezuela, both supportive and constructively critical of the Venezuelan revolution under Chavez. He is actively involved in social movements in the Americas that defeated the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA).
He is a member of the Latin American Social Science Council’s (CLACSO) research group on Hegemonies and Emancipations and on the editorial board of the academic journal Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales. He is currently
part of the steering committee of the Hemispheric Council of the Social
Forum of the Americas.
Among other publications, Lander has written and edited: Contribución a la crítica del marxismo realmente existente: Verdad, ciencia y tecnología; La ciencia y la tecnología como asuntos políticos; Límites de la democracia en la sociedad tecnológica; Neoliberalismo, sociedad civil y democracia.

Source: http://www.tni.org/article/green-economy-new-washington-consensus

Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance

https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=271

Global Slump analyzes the global financial meltdown as the first systemic crisis of the neoliberal stage of capitalism. It argues that – far from having ended – the crisis has ushered in a whole period of worldwide economic and political turbulence. In developing an account of the crisis as rooted in fundamental features of capitalism, Global Slump challenges the view that its source lies in financial deregulation.

The book locates the recent meltdown in the intense economic restructuring that marked the recessions of the mid-1970s and early 1980s. Through this lens, it highlights the emergence of new patterns of world inequality and new centers of accumulation, particularly in East Asia, and the profound economic instabilities these produced. Global Slump offers an original account of the “financialization” of the world economy during this period, and explores the intricate connections between international financial markets and new forms of debt and dispossession, particularly in the Global South.

Analyzing the massive intervention of the world’s central banks to stave off another Great Depression, Global Slump shows that, while averting a complete meltdown, this intervention also laid the basis for recurring crises for poor and working class people: job loss, increased poverty and inequality, and deep cuts to social programs. The book takes a global view of these processes, exposing the damage inflicted on countries in the Global South, as well as the intensification of racism and attacks on migrant workers. At the same time, Global Slump also traces new patterns of social and political resistance – from housing activism and education struggles, to mass strikes and protests in Martinique, Guadeloupe, France and Puerto Rico – as indicators of the potential for building anti-capitalist opposition to the damage that neoliberal capitalism is inflicting on the lives of millions.

David McNally is professor of political science at York University, Toronto. He is the author of five previous books: Political Economy and the Rise of Capitalism (1988); Against the Market: Political Economy Market Socialism and the Marxist Critique (2003); Bodies of Meaning: Studies on Language, Labor and Liberation (2001); Another World is Possible: Globalization and Anti-Capitalism (2002; second revised edition 2006); and Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires, and Global Capitalism (2011). His articles have appeared in many journals, including Historical Materialism, Capital and Class, New Politics, and Review of Radical Political Economics. David McNally is also a long-time activist in socialist, anti-poverty and migrant justice movements.  

World as Laboratory: Experiments with Mice, Mazes, and Men

http://www.powells.com/biblio/95-9780374707293-0

Deeply researched, World as Laboratory tells a secret history that's not really a secret. The fruits of human engineering are all around us: advertising, polls, focus groups, the ubiquitous habit of "spin" practiced by marketers and politicians. What Rebecca Lemov cleverly traces for the first time is how the absurd, the practical, and the dangerous experiments of the human engineers of the first half of the twentieth century left their laboratories to become our day-to-day reality.

Iain McGilchrist: The Master and His Emissary - The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300148787

Why is the brain divided? The difference between right and left hemispheres has been puzzled over for centuries. In a book of unprecedented scope, Iain McGilchrist draws on a vast body of recent brain research, illustrated with case histories, to reveal that the difference is profound—not just this or that function, but two whole, coherent, but incompatible ways of experiencing the world. The left hemisphere is detail oriented, prefers mechanisms to living things, and is inclined to self-interest, where the right hemisphere has greater breadth, flexibility, and generosity. This division helps explain the origins of music and language, and casts new light on the history of philosophy, as well as on some mental illnesses.

In the second part of the book, McGilchrist takes the reader on a journey through the history of Western culture, illustrating the tension between these two worlds as revealed in the thought and belief of thinkers and artists, from Aeschylus to Magritte. He argues that, despite its inferior grasp of reality, the left hemisphere is increasingly taking precedence in the modern world, with potentially disastrous consequences. This is truly a tour de force that should excite interest in a wide readership.

Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where he taught literature before training in medicine. He was Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospital, London, and has researched in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He now works privately in London and otherwise lives on the Isle of Skye.

Darian Leader: What is Madness?

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141955780,00.html

Madness, in our culture, is defined by visibility. From the popular press to TV soaps and films, the depiction of madness always borders on the extreme: violent outbursts, fits, hallucinations.

But what if madness is not exactly what we think it to be? What if it is the rule rather than the exception? And what if its defining features are not visible and dramatic but, on the contrary, highly discreet, shared by average citizens who will never come to psychiatric attention? What if, in other words, there is a difference between being mad and going mad?

Beginning and ending with the case of Harold Shipman - a mass-murderer so apparently 'normal' that some of his patients said they would still be treated by him even after his conviction - psychoanalyst Darian Leader explores the idea of discreet madness, and argues that it is only through revising our concept of what madness is that we will have the tools to help those who have gone mad to rebuild their lives.

Where Does Money Come From?

http://neweconomics.org/publications/where-does-money-come-from

What is money? How is it created? How does it enter into circulation? These are simple and vital questions it might seem, but the answers remain contested and often muddled.

There is widespread misunderstanding of how new money is created. Where Does Money Come From? examines the workings of the UK monetary system and concludes that the most useful description is that new money is created by commercial banks when they extend or create credit, either through making loans or buying existing assets. In creating credit, banks simultaneously create deposits in our bank accounts, which, to all intents and purposes, is money.

Many people would be surprised to learn that even among bankers, economists, and policymakers, there is no common understanding of how new money is created. This is a problem for two main reasons. First, in the absence of this understanding, attempts at banking reform are more likely to fail. Second, the creation of new money and the allocation of purchasing power are a vital economic function and highly profitable. This is therefore a matter of significant public interest and not an obscure technocratic debate. Greater clarity and transparency about this could improve both the democratic legitimacy of the banking system and our economic prospects.

Defining money is surprisingly difficult. We cut through the tangled historical and theoretical debate to identify that anything widely accepted as payment, particularly by the government as payment of tax, is, to all intents and purpose, money. This includes bank credit because although an IOU from a friend is not acceptable at the tax office or in the local shop, an IOU from a bank most definitely is.

We identify that the UK’s national currency exists in three main forms, the second two of which exist in electronic form:

1. Cash – banknotes and coins.
2. Central bank reserves – reserves held by commercial banks at the Bank of England.
3. Commercial bank money – bank deposits created either when commercial banks lend money, thereby crediting credit borrowers’ deposit accounts, make payments on behalf of customers using their overdraft facilities, or when they purchase assets from the private sector and make payments on their own account (such as salary or bonus payments).  

Only the Bank of England or the government can create the first two forms of money, which is referred to in this book as ‘central bank money’. Since central bank reserves do not actually circulate in the economy, we can further narrow down the money supply that is actually circulating as consisting of cash and commercial bank money.

Physical cash accounts for less than 3 per cent of the total stock of money in the economy. Commercial bank money – credit and coexistent deposits – makes up the remaining 97 per cent of the money supply.

There are several conflicting ways of describing what banks do. The simplest version is that banks take in money from savers, and lend this money out to borrowers. This is not at all how the process works. Banks do not need to wait for a customer to deposit money before they can make a new loan to someone else. In fact, it is exactly the opposite; the making of a loan creates a new deposit in the customer’s account.

More sophisticated versions bring in the concept of ‘fractional reserve banking’. This description recognises that banks can lend out many times more than the amount of cash and reserves they hold at the Bank of England. This is a more accurate picture, but is still incomplete and misleading. It implies a strong link between the amount of money that banks create and the amount that they hold at the central bank. It is also commonly assumed by this approach that the central bank has significant control over the amount of reserves banks hold with it.

We find that the most accurate description is that banks create new money whenever they extend credit, buy existing assets or make payments on their own account, which mostly involves expanding their assets, and that their ability to do this is only very weakly linked to the amount of reserves they hold at the central bank. At the time of the financial crisis, for example, banks held just £1.25 in reserves for every £100 issued as credit. Banks operate within an electronic clearing system that nets out multilateral payments at the end of each day, requiring them to hold only a tiny proportion of central bank money to meet their payment requirements.

The power of commercial banks to create new money has many important implications for economic prosperity and financial stability. We highlight four that are relevant to the reforms of the banking system under discussion at the time of writing:

1. Although useful in other ways, capital adequacy requirements have not and do not constrain money creation, and therefore do not necessarily serve to restrict the expansion of banks’ balance sheets in aggregate. In other words, they are mainly ineffective in preventing credit booms and their associated asset price bubbles.
2. Credit is rationed by banks, and the primary determinant of how much they lend is not interest rates, but confidence that the loan will be repaid and confidence in the liquidity and solvency of other banks and the system as a whole.
3. Banks decide where to allocate credit in the economy. The incentives that they face often lead them to favour lending against collateral, or assets, rather than lending for investment in production. As a result, new money is often more likely to be channelled into property and financial speculation than to small businesses and manufacturing, with profound economic consequences for society.
4. Fiscal policy does not in itself result in an expansion of the money supply. Indeed, the government has in practice no direct involvement in the money creation and allocation process. This is little known, but has an important impact on the effectiveness of fiscal policy and the role of the government in the economy.

The basic analysis of Where Does Money Come From? is neither radical nor new. In fact, central banks around the world support the same description of where new money comes from. And yet many naturally resist the notion that private banks can really create money by simply making an entry in a ledger. Economist J. K. Galbraith suggested why this might be:

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. When something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent.

This book aims to firmly establish a common understanding that commercial banks create new money. There is no deeper mystery, and we must not allow our mind to be repelled. Only then can we properly address the much more significant question: Of all the possible alternative ways in which we could create new money and allocate purchasing power, is this really the best?
Download the Where Does Money Come From? Foreword and Overview for free

The nine planetary boundaries

Stratospheric ozone layer

The stratospheric ozone layer filters out ultraviolet radiation from the sun. If this layer decreases, increasing amounts of ultraviolet (UV) radiation will reach ground level and can cause a higher incidence of skin cancer in humans as well as damage to terrestrial and marine biological systems. The appearance of the Antarctic ozone hole was proof that increased concentrations of anthropogenic ozone depleting substances, combined with polar stratospheric clouds, had moved the Antarctic stratosphere into a new regime. Fortunately, because of the actions taken as a result of the Montreal Protocol, we appear to be on the path that will allow us to stay within this boundary.

Biodiversity

In the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005, it was concluded that changes in biodiversity due to human activities were more rapid in the past 50 years than at any time in human history, and the drivers of change that cause biodiversity loss and lead to changes in ecosystem services are either steady, show no evidence of declining over time, or are increasing in intensity. These large rates of extinction can be slowed by judicious projects to enhance habitat and build appropriate connectivity while maintaining high agricultural productivity. Further research is needed to determine whether a boundary based on extinction rates is sufficient, and whether there are reliable data to support it.

Chemicals dispersion

Emissions of persistent toxic compounds such as metals, various organic compounds and radionuclides, represent some of the key human-driven changes to the planetary environment. There are a number of examples of additive and synergic effects from these compounds. These effects are potentially irreversible. Of most concern are the effects of reduced fertility and especially the potential of permanent genetic damage. As an example, organism uptake and accumulation to sub-lethal levels increasingly cause a dramatic reduction of marine mammal and bird populations. At present, we are unable to quantify this boundary; however, it is nonetheless considered sufficiently well defined to be on the list.

Climate Change

We have reached a point at which the loss of summer polar ice is almost certainly irreversible. From the perspective of the Earth as a complex system, this is one example of the sharp threshold above which large feedback mechanisms could drive the Earth system into a much warmer, greenhouse gas-rich state with sea levels metres higher than present. The weakening or reversal of terrestrial carbon sinks, for example through the ongoing destruction of the world´s rainforests, is another such interdependent tipping point. Recent evidence suggests that the Earth System, now passing 387 ppmv CO2, has already transgressed this Planetary Boundary. A major question is how long we can remain over this boundary before large, irreversible changes become unavoidable.

Ocean acidification

Around a quarter of the CO2 humanity produces is dissolved in the oceans. Here it forms carbonic acid, altering ocean chemistry and decreasing the pH of the surface water. Increased acidity reduces the amount of available carbonate ions, an essential building block used for shell and skeleton formation in organisms such as corals, and some shellfish and plankton species. This will seriously change ocean ecology and potentially lead to drastic reductions in fish stocks. Compared to pre-industrial times, surface ocean acidity has increased by 30%.

The ocean acidification boundary is a clear example of a boundary which, if transgressed, will involve very large change in marine ecosystems, with ramifications for the whole planet. It is also a good example of how tightly connected the boundaries are, since atmospheric CO2 concentration is the underlying controlling variable for both the climate and the ocean acidification boundary.

Freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle

The freshwater cycle is both a major prerequisite for staying within the climate boundary, and is strongly affected by climate change. Human pressure is now the dominating driving force determining the function and distribution of global freshwater systems. The effects are dramatic, including both global-scale river flow change and shifts in vapour flows from land use change. Water is becoming increasingly scarce and by 2050 about half a billion people are likely to have moved into the water-stressed category. A water boundary related to consumptive freshwater use has been proposed to maintain the overall resilience of the Earth system and avoid crossing local and regional thresholds ‘downstream´.

Land system change

Land is converted to human use all over the planet. Forests, wetlands and other vegetation types are converted primarily to agricultural land. This land-use change is one driving force behind reduced biodiversity and has impacts on water flows as well as carbon and other cycles. Land cover change occurs on local and regional scales but when aggregated appears to impact the Earth System on a global scale. A major challenge with setting a land use-related boundary is to reflect not only the needed quantity of unconverted and converted land but also its function, quality and spatial distribution.

Nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans

Human modification of the nitrogen cycle has been even greater than our modification of the carbon cycle. Human activities now convert more N2 from the atmosphere into reactive forms than all of the Earth´s terrestrial processes combined. Much of this new reactive nitrogen pollutes waterways and coastal zones, is emitted to the atmosphere in various forms, or accumulates in the terrestrial biosphere. A relatively small proportion of the fertilizers applied to food production systems is taken up by plants. A significant fraction of the applied nitrogen and phosphorus makes its way to the sea, and can push marine and aquatic systems across thresholds of their own. A concrete example of this effect is the decline in the shrimp catch in the Gulf of Mexico due to hypoxia caused by fertilizer transported in rivers from the US Midwest.

Atmospheric aerosol loading

This is considered a planetary boundary for two main reasons: (i) the influence of aerosols on the climate system and (ii) their adverse effects on human health at a regional and global scale. Without aerosol particles in the atmosphere, we would not have clouds. Most clouds and aerosol particles act to cool the planet by reflecting incoming sunlight back to space. Some particles (such as soot) or thin high clouds act like greenhouse gases to warm the planet. In addition, aerosols have been shown to affect monsoon circulations and global-scale circulation systems. Particles also have adverse effects on human health, causing roughly 800,000 premature deaths worldwide each year. While all of these relationships have been well established, all the causal links (especially regarding health effects) are yet to be determined. It has not yet been possible specific threshold value at which global-scale effects will occur; but aerosol loading is so central to climate and human health that it is included among the boundaries.

Source: Stockholm Resilience Centre

Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520256996

Dignity and Defiance is a powerful, eyewitness account of Bolivia's decade-long rebellion against globalization imposed from abroad. Based on extensive interviews, this story comes alive with first-person accounts of a massive Enron/Shell oil spill from an elderly woman whose livelihood it threatens, of the young people who stood down a former dictator to take back control of their water, and of Bolivia's dramatic and successful challenge to the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Featuring a substantial introduction, a conclusion, and introductions to each of the chapters, this well-crafted mix of storytelling and analysis is a rich portrait of people calling for global integration to be different than it has been: more fair and more just.

Escaping the Matrix: How we the people can change the world

http://escapingthematrix.org/

Richard Moore has distilled decades of participatory thought and dialog into a delightfully readable volume by exploring a compelling metaphor: The Matrix is our present manufactured reality, carefully managed for the benefit of elite interests and rarely questioned by those who live within its structures. Escaping the Matrix catalogs the persistent historical patterns of 'civilized' hierarchy that keep wealthy elites in control of governments and economies. But Moore does not simply tally historical injustices or enumerate the many discrepancies between Matrix and real-world realities. Instead, he challenges us all to action by courageously linking the apparently bleak situation of a dominated world directly to a hopeful vision for achieving new sustainable societies. He urges us to bridge artificially divisive ideological boundaries through a process of community-centered dialog known as harmonization. Escaping the Matrix contains worldview-altering insights and profoundly optimistic conclusions that will leave readers of every political persuasion with real hope that there are practical ways for ordinary individuals to escape The Matrix by taking personal responsibility for changing the world through local action.

"We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy - from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses - that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high."
- Frances Moore Lappé, Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Source: http://p2pfoundation.net/Citations_on_Social_Change

"Com o tempo, uma imprensa cínica, mercenária, demagógica e corrupta formará um público tão vil como ela mesma."
- Joseph Pulitzer - 1847/1911