chaos disruption

belated/ vague?

MERRI OK

see disrupter (agent) instability

see new 2 wEATHER

this is more about the social effects, see global weirding for cause. but also about disruption as concept/ god-term fetish; trump/bannon vowed to blow up the system; aha ~ norms/experts/SOP

instability is more about abstract concept, bannon trump vlad disruption?

mkts do not like, nor does military, nor insurance eg munich re; can we peel off fossil fuel corps that are willing to burn the world down from other corps that will suffer (vs profit eg disaster cap'lism)

aha: pandemics give pharma extortion extraction capability

chaos is multiplier effect in military terms? war over water india? drought led to arab spring aND caravan?

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{{ DISRUPTER 2 34

primary 3 24 on bannon

main chaos disruption is mostly about real stability in physical world, eg ~ global weirding but

this is more about abstraction/ideas social system as of 11/20

see bannon trump admin state

see boom bust oscillation

hype fear/ anger to justify fascism urban migrant biden crime 2 24

tobacco fossil fuel want tosow doubt

putin wants to disrupt faith in elections

inequality --> instability, polarization --> demonization --> violence

gop rw wants to create doubt on ability of gov't to function

===

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omfg guk 6 26 Scientists warn Trump plan to axe US ocean monitoring system will leave world ‘flying blind’ | US news | The Guardian

Scientists warn Trump plan to axe US ocean monitoring system will leave world ‘flying blind’

Experts say dismantling the ocean observation system will ‘severely degrade’ the accuracy of weather predictions

Seascape: the state of our oceans is supported by

[

About this content

Karen McVeigh

Fri 5 Jun 2026

The Trump administration’s plan to dismantle an ocean observation system vital to understanding the climate crisis and marine ecosystems would “severely degrade” the accuracy of weather predictions and El Niño forecasts, with economic consequences for the US, European and American scientists have warned.

Decommissioning the US system, which plays a major part in a global ocean observation network, would lead to a massive increase in error in the annual estimates of ocean heating rates, according to research published last month.

As a result, the forecasts and early warning systems for storms, tropical cyclones and El Niño would degrade, “sometimes dangerously so”, according to Sabrina Speich, an expert in global ocean monitoring at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris and chair of the ocean expert panel of the Global Climate Observing System.

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), run by the US National Science Foundation, is a vast network of seafloor systems, underwater gliders and moored surface platforms that feeds data to researchers, policymakers, educators and mariners worldwide. The initiative, which covers both US coastlines and extends into the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean, has been used to study marine heatwaves, harmful algal blooms, subduction zone earthquakes, ocean acidification and fisheries variability.

Dismantling it would remove a major component of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), a network of robotic floats, moored buoys and research vessels experts describe as the “eyes and ears” of the ocean. The warning systems based on the data, “save lives”, experts say.

Prescient research published in Nature Climate Change last month showed how data losses in GOOS, a UN-coordinated framework for ocean data for weather and climate collected by several countries, could degrade the ocean heat estimates that underpin weather prediction, El Niño forecasting and fisheries management. Losing US observations would be worse than randomly losing 80% of all ocean data worldwide, it found. US-funded platforms span every ocean basin, plugging critical gaps that no other nation currently fills.

Speich, a co-author of the research, said: “Ocean heat content is the most robust indicator of climate change we have – not just of what is happening in the ocean, but of the entire climate system”. Vertical temperature profiles that provide ocean heat content, are “amongst the simplest measurements we can make”, she said.

“Lose them, and you lose your ability to track not just ocean warming but the climate system as a whole – they are a proxy for variables that become unavailable the moment the observations stop.

“Forecasts would continue – but they would degrade, sometimes dangerously so. Atmospheric observations alone are not sufficient” said Speich. “Ocean data [is] fundamental to early warning systems for tropical storms, cyclones and El Niño. And the consequences would not stop at science: the economic costs would be felt within the United States itself, from agriculture to insurance to disaster response.”

The loss of US observations, in a year predicted to be an El Niño year, with “supercharged” weather extremes, could also “lose the ability to see it coming clearly to act in time”, she said.

“The stakes are concrete: farmers in the US and across South America use El Niño forecasts to decide what to plant and when – whether to expect drought or flooding shapes every agricultural decision months in advance.”

The most recent El Niño, which hit in 2023-2024, was one of the five strongest on record and contributed to 2024’s record-breaking increase in global temperature.

Removing US observations alone would produce a 163% increase in error for annual ocean heating rates, the research by Speich and her co-authors found.

On Thursday, the European Union said it would boost its own monitoring of the world’s oceans by investing in a €92m ($107m) initiative called OceanEye, more than half of which will go to GOOS. The announcement, by the European Commission, was long-planned, not a direct response to the US move.

John P Abraham, professor of engineering at the University of St Thomas, in Minnesota, and co-author of the research paper, described the US administration’s move to dismantle the $368m OOI system as “penny-wise, pound foolish”.

“The US government wants to save less than a billion in sensors, which are the eyes and ears of the ocean” said Abraham. “We have hundreds of billions in climate costs per year. The cost of the observation system is a fraction of the climate costs from hurricanes and storms that hit the US. ”

The US suffered more than 400 climate and weather disasters where damages exceeded or reached $1bn,between 1980 and 2024. In 2024 alone, the costs of such disasters amounted to $177bn. This “billion dollar climate and weather product”, managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) will no longer be updated due to “evolving priorities”, according to a note on its website.

The system, is, Abraham said is “quite an inexpensive way to reduce climate-related costs”.

“This is not about saving money, this is about killing climate science research,” Abraham said.

Samantha Burgess, the strategic climate lead at the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the European Union’s Earth observation system which integrates European space data with in-situ measurements to monitor changes and provide forecasts, said ocean observations are “irreplaceable” because “we can’t see the deep ocean from space.” They “save lives” by warning us of severe storms, she said.

Burgess said: “We need international cooperation to get the best available observations to mitigate risks in our changing world. Without ocean observations we are flying blind.”

A statement earlier this week by the National Science Foundation, which funds and oversees the OOI, said the program was not being cancelled entirely and described the plans as a “descope”, or reduction of elements, though it was not clear what data collection capacity would be left.

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an 3 24

according to Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson, former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon will have an outsized influence on a second Trump administration despite no longer being a key architect of his rise.

In a deep dive into Bannon's strong influence on the MAGA movement, Wilson told the Guardian's David Smith that Bannon is a great believer in sowing "chaos" to achieve his goals and his ramping up his rhetoric as the former president makes his third bid for the Oval Office should set off alarms.

With Smith reporting Bannon harped on Trump winning the 2020 presidential election before an enraptured crowd at CPAC recently, he added, "It was a blunt reminder that Bannon, an architect of Trumpism variously compared to Thomas Cromwell, Rasputin and Joseph Goebbels, remains a potent force in American politics as the 2024 US presidential election looms into view and the re-election of Trump looks a clear possibility."

With that in mind, Smith suggested Bannon would cast " a long shadow" over a second Trump administration.

Former GOP strategist Wilson agreed.

“Steve Bannon is a if not the primary spiritual and intellectual force of this nationalist movement that is in control of the Republican party," he explained. "He is a very powerful figure in today’s GOP [Grand Old Party] and it is inescapable in some ways that he will play a central role in whatever Trump administration emerges if Trump wins. He is the architect. As an avowed Leninist, he is a guy who is trying to engineer the revolution in his image.”

Continuing in that vein, he was asked what Bannon likely has in mind for a second Trump go-around.

“Concentration camps," he replied. "This guy keeps saying out loud they’re the enemies of the people, our opponents are deserve what they get, this hyperbolic rhetoric. He believes in power and chaos and will do whatever he can if he gets it. Whatever he could get away with in that circumstance, he will get away with it.”

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no lnx $ ****

Worldwide fascism is being accelerated by the one thing few people want to talk about

Thom Hartmann

August 22, 2023

This article was paid for by AlterNet subscribers.

The government of the Netherlands fell this summer. The issue that tipped it over the edge was immigration driven by climate change. If Putin wanted to destroy democracy in Europe (and he does), back in 2015 he couldn’t have picked a better strategy. Odds are, though, he was just trying to protect his deepwater ports; it wasn’t until the crisis developed that he realized how he could exploit it to overthrow liberal democracies in the EU. The way it’s played out gives us a glimpse into our future — and the future of democratic republics all across the world — as the global climate emergency and the refugee crisis associated with it grows more severe over the next few years.

The current rise-of-rightwing-fascism crisis building in Europe began in 2010 and started with global climate change.

The fall of that year sawunusually severe rainfall across the wheat-growing parts of Canada, cutting that nation’s wheat harvest, along with drought across Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and China. A La Nina caused crop failures in Argentina and Peru. Worldwide prices of staple foods, particularly wheat, exploded.

On December 17 of that year a street vendor inTunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire to protest the high cost of the wheat he needed to make the foods he and his peers sold, and the harassment of police against their protests. It sparked what we referred to then as the Arab Spring, that lasted through most of 2011.

The steady warming and drought in that area, though, never let up and the desert in North Africa relentlessly continued to eat up millions of acres of food-producing land, particularly across Syria. By 2015 it had pushed over a million Syrian subsistence farmers off their land — that had desertified — and into Syria’s cities, particularly Damascus and Aleppo.

Northern Africa became the world’s number one food importer, and the prices kept rising relentlessly.

Newly homeless, hungry, and destitute, these Syrian farmers began demonstrations in the streets demanding food, shelter, and employment or “welfare” payments from the Syrian government.

Bashar Assad, being a psychopathic dictator, ordered his troops to fire live ammunition into the crowds in 2012 and 2013, and soon a full-blown revolt was on: “rebels” seized Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, in early 2013.

Syria was also the base for Russia’s Mediterranean fleet, with multiple deep-water ports that Putin believed were critical to his nation’s military defense. By 2015 he had a dozen battleships there, along with submarines and other warships.

He had to prevent the Assad government from falling or risk an “Arab Spring democracy” emerging — as happened for a short while in Tunisia and Egypt [ALSO DROUGHT]— that might align itself with the West and kick Russia out.

Making a long story short, Putin bombed the crap out of Syria on Assad’s behalf, virtually leveling the city of Aleppo, killing hundreds of civilians.

It was one of the worst war crimes of this century, almost as deadly as George W. Bush’s brutal and criminal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions of climate and war refugees fled the country, joining Bush’s wars’ fugitives making their way into Europe by any means possible.

Thus began Europe’s refugee crisis, which just helped bring down Holland’s government. In two weeks, it may well cause the rightwing fascist-aligned anti-immigrant People’s Party to come to power in the Spanish elections on July 23.

As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) noted in a 2021 report:

“By the end of 2016, nearly5.2 million refugees and migrants reached European shores,undertaking treacherous journeys from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries torn apart by war and persecution.”

This flood of brown-skinned Muslims fleeing African and Middle Eastern climate change and wars into Europe over the past decade is why Italy and Sweden now have rightwing leaders; why Viktor Orbán was able to gain and hold power in Hungary with his promise to “build a wall” along Hungary’s southern border (a promise he kept); and why rightwing parties are today growing so rapidly in Germany, Greece, Norway, Austria, Belgium and France.

The legacy of five centuries of racist imperialism across four continents has been that wealth and safety from the ravages of climate change are concentrated in mostly White-run nations, while vulnerability to desertification and poverty are concentrated in mostly Brown- and Black-run nations.

When Russia intervened in British politics to tear apart the EU, their trolls’ main Facebook pitch for Brexit was that “those [Brown and Black] people” the EU had let in were now making their way to the UK.

While every country in the world can accept refugees in small numbers without crisis, when “other people” begin showing up in large numbers the response by every nation in history typically tends toward rightwing nationalism and xenophobia, an obsession with borders, and demands for racial, cultural, and religious “purity.”

Here in North America we’re seeing a similar dynamic. Reagan so severely destabilized Central America and Venezuela with his sanctions, illegal Iran-Contra program, and support for rightwing death squads that those nations never recovered. In the years since, climate change has bit these weakened governments deep, forcing millions of subsistence farmers — just like in Syria but here mostly from hard-hit Guatemala — off land that once grew crops but is now, just a few years later, scrub desert.

Exploiting the climate refugee crisis on America’s southern border, Republican politicians have spent the years since Obama’s election in 2008 falsely claiming that Democrats had thrown the border “open,” producing thousands of news stories that have been used by coyotes — human traffickers — to draw even more refugees toward the United States.

Compounding that, Trump launched his 2016 campaign on keeping Brown people out of the United States, and today racism and xenophobia form the foundation of most Republican political campaigns (when they aren’t hating on queer people or women).

The result of these trends has been a worldwide shift to the right. As Freedom House noted in a 2022 report, over 60 countries experienced “declines” in democracy the previous year; only about 20 percent of people worldwide now live in “free” nations:

“Global freedom faces a dire threat. … Authoritarian regimes have become more effective at co-opting or circumventing the norms and institutions meant to support basic liberties, and at providing aid to others who wish to do the same. …

“The global order is nearing a tipping point, and if democracy’s defenders do not work together to help guarantee freedom for all people, the authoritarian model will prevail.”

So far, the western world’s refugee crisis has been mostly driven by massive policy errors and outright war crimes: Russia’s response to the Syrian farmers, the US invasion and destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, and American meddling in Central America and Venezuela.

But all have been either triggered or exacerbated by the worldwide climate emergency. And, as we can see from this summer’s weather worldwide, that emergency is building at a rate far more rapid than even alarmist climate scientists were predicting just a decade ago.

Recent projections show that within just the next two decades as many as three billion people could be fleeing areas that will soon only marginally support human life.

As equatorial regions become uninhabitable, the mostly darker-skinned people living there will be migrating north and south into areas controlled by lighter-skinned people in numbers that will make today’s Syrian, Iraq, and Afghan refugee crisis look like a statistical blip.

It will put worldwide white supremacist and Nazi movements into hyperdrive.

In addition to acting immediately to mitigate climate change and green the world’s economy, the free nations of the world must harden our democracies against reactive rightwing violence- and hate-based racist political movements.

That will also require radically reducing the Supreme Court-gifted political power of big money here in America — particularly from the fossil fuel industry and the billionaires it has created — and returning that power and wealth to the hard-hit majority. The Democratic Party in America is increasingly committed to this, but Republicans and the dozens of billionaires in their camp are prepared to spend heretofore unimaginable sums to keep climate deniers and race-baiters in office.

We also must help those nations most hard-hit by the warming — caused largely by our carbon pollution — to deal with their own refugees internally, lest they irrecoverably destabilize first their own governments and then ours.

To paraphrase JFK, we are not helpless before this task.

But it will require western and American media and political systems to take on these three crises — climate change, the refugees it produces, and politicians who demagogue the issue while blocking forward progress — now.

We are quite literally out of time.

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Eco-fascism: White nationalists' extreme solution to the coming environmental apocalypse ›

The Pulse of the Ocean

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, plays an essential role in regulating ocean temperatures. It is composed of a network of currents branching throughout the Atlantic Ocean like veins and arteries — some scientists compare it to the ocean's pulse.

The AMOC works like a perpetually turning conveyor belt. As water warms in the tropics, it "upwells," or rises to the surface, becoming more buoyant and less salty. This warm upwell rushes northward towards the polar regions, where it cools, becoming denser and saltier, before sinking once more. The cold, dense water is then whisked back to the tropics to start the cycle anew.

"The crucial ingredient is a positive feedback loop," says Niklas Boers, a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. Salt water's density keeps the AMOC churning. However, "this also means that when large amounts of freshwater are added to the North Atlantic," Boers says, "the positive feedback might collapse."

Such an event is known as a "tipping point," a kind of ecological threshold that, once crossed, can take centuries or even millennia to stabilize. And evidence suggests that the tipping point is edging closer. In a 2019 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deemed the AMOC "very likely" to continue weakening under climate change.

The AMOC Run Amok

So, what would a world with a collapsed AMOC look like?

Since the AMOC has been "on" for all of recorded human history, it's difficult to say for sure. But Earth's ancient past offers some clues.

The last time the AMOC shut down was during a period known as the Younger Dryas, some 14,500 years ago. The most recent ice age was coming to an end; as temperatures rose, massive glacial melt off the North American landmass flooded into the Atlantic, disrupting the flow of oceanic currents. Then something strange happened: without a current to carry tropical waters to higher latitudes, the north polar warming trend reversed. The Northern Hemisphere was plunged into near-glacial conditions for the next 3,000 years.

If this were to happen again, Boers says, "we'll see much cooler temperatures in northern Europe." Certain regions could cool by as much as 14 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius). Unlike the Younger Dryas period, some of this freezing may be offset by global warming trends; however,AMOC collapse plus a warmer planet would permanently flood some cities along the United States' eastern seaboard.

In contrast, the Southern Hemisphere would experience even more warming, particularly around Antarctica. Many parts of Europe would also experience severe flooding and winter storms. "For Western Africa," Boers says, "it has been suggested that an AMOC collapse could lead to permanent drought conditions."

So, with that in mind, how close are we to "The Day After Tomorrow"?

A Real-life Disaster Movie?

Theoretically, the AMOC could be shut down by another massive influx of freshwater from a melted glacier the size of, say, Greenland. And the accelerated rate of glacial melt in that region does make this possibility alarming, to say the least.

That said, the effects wouldn't be as or as disaster movies portray. Many comprehensive climate models don't predict a total AMOC shut down for another 250-300 years under current emissions, though they predict a bevy of negative consequences as the currents slowly slide toward collapse.

Climate catastrophe is a slow-burn issue — but it's one that has a clear solution. "Avoid emitting greenhouse gases," says Boers. We live at a tipping point in Earth's history, one where our species faces a choice: We can either be the hero of the movie, or the disaster.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/climate-crisis-2653267213/

comm dr

New research by global insurance giant Swiss RE warns that the looming devastation of runaway greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis could result in economic retractions twice as potent as the global recession unleashed by Covid-19—a calamity, unlike the pandemic, which could go on for many years without end.

Analyzing the figures compiled in a research report (pdf) by Zurich-based Swiss RE, Oxfam International said while the world's poorest nations will be hardest hit, even the rich nations—like those of the G7 meeting this week in the United Kingdom—will not be spared from the economic pain that will come if world temperatures rise by 2.6ºC that some scenarios predict.

According to Oxfam, economies of the G7 nations could see an average loss of 8.5 percent annually by the middle of the century―equivalent to $4.8 trillion―if more urgent action to address global warming is not taken immediately.

The international aid and anti-poverty group said this potential drop in GDP is double that of the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in an average 4.2% reduction among G7 nations, recessions that resulted "in staggering job losses and some of the largest economic stimulus packages ever seen." But, Oxfam added, "economies are expected to bounce back from the short-term effects of the pandemic, the effects of climate change will be seen every year."

The devastation for poor nations would be enormous.

"The economic turmoil projected in wealthy G7 countries is only the tip of the iceberg: many poorer parts of the world will see increasing deaths, hunger and poverty as a result of extreme weather," said Max Lawson, head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, in a statement. "This year could be a turning point if governments grasp the challenge to create a safer more liveable planet for all."

As the group's analysis notes:

India could lose 27% from its economy.
Australia, South Africa and South Korea are projected to lose 12.5, 17.8 and 9.7% respectively.
The Philippines is projected to lose 35%
Colombia is projected to lose 16.7%

Jerome Haegeli, a chief economist at Swiss Re involved with the research, told the Guardian that: "Climate change is the long-term number one risk to the global economy, and staying where we are is not an option—we need more progress by the G7. That means not just obligations on cutting CO2 but helping developing countries too, that's super-important."

The research from Swiss RE, as Oxfam details,

modelled the economic impacts of climate change on 48 countries in four different temperature paths and used different impact scenarios to account for the large parameter uncertainty and missing climate impact channels usually present in the climate economics literature. The projections used in this press release assume high stress factors and global warming of 2.6°C by mid-century, which is a level of warming that could be reached based on current policies and climate pledges from all countries. All figures relate to real GDP. The GDP projections compare a warmer world with a world unaffected by climate change.

Ahead of the G7 summit in the U.K., global climate campaigners have continued to urge the world's richest and most powerful nations—also its largest emitters—to not only commit to stronger pledges on reducing fossil fuel pollution, but to increase their financial pledges to the developing world that have contributed far less to the climate crisis but continue to face its most devastating impacts.

From Your Site Articles

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/sea-level-rise/

jake comm dr

A new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature warns that if the world's governments fail to meet warming targets set by the Paris climate accord, sea level rise from the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet will accelerate at a "rapid and unstoppable" rate in the coming decades.

Authored by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the new paper finds that if planetary warming continues at its current rate—which is headed toward 3° Celsius above pre-industrial levels—Antarctic melting will reach a tipping point by 2060, beyond which the consequences would be "irreversible on multi-century timescales."

"If the world warms up at a rate dictated by current policies we will see the Antarctic system start to get away from us around 2060," Robert DeConto, the lead author of the study, told The Guardian. "Once you put enough heat into the climate system, you are going to lose those ice shelves, and once that is set in motion you can't reverse it."

"It's really the next few decades that will determine the sea level rise from Antarctica," DeConto added. "These ice shelves won't be able to just grow back."

The researchers find that if the most optimistic Paris goal of no more than 1.5° Celsius of warming by the end of the century is met, the Antarctic ice sheet would contribute around six centimeters of sea level rise by 2100.

"But if the current course toward 3 degrees is maintained, the model points to a major jump in melting," the study warns."Unless ambitious action to rein in warming begins by 2060, no human intervention, including geoengineering, would be able to stop 17 to 21 centimeters of sea-level rise from Antarctic ice melt alone by 2100."

Under a scenario in which no further action is taken to limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, the research paper finds, Antarctic melting would contribute a "globally catastrophic" 10 meters or more to sea level rise by 2300.

"If we did nothing at all to reduce emissions we could get five meters of sea level rise just from Antarctica by 2200, at which point you'd have to remap the world from space," said DeConto. "It would be unimaginable."

The study comes days after U.S. President Joe Biden hosted a climate summit with 40 world leaders to discuss ways to bring the world into line with Paris warming targets. Biden, for his part, pledged to cut U.S. emissions at least 50% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade—a goal climate activists slammed as nowhere near sufficient.

"Science and justice demand that we reduce emissions by 70% from 2005 levels by 2030 on the road to zero emissions by mid-century," Janet Redman of Greenpeace USA said last month. "The White House can get this done by removing government subsidies to fossil fuel companies, investing in an equitable and sustainable economic recovery, and stopping fishy carbon offset deals."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

trump already ‘laid out the roadmap’ to cheat in the upcoming election: analyst

AlterNet Staff September 23, 2020

John Heilemann, the national affairs analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, explained how President Donald Trump has already laid out his “roadmap” to cheat in plain sight for the upcoming…

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david n

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/how-fascism-ascends-2020-election-may-be-the-crisis-of-democracy-that-opens-the-door-to-a-coup/ ]]]

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/documentary-filmmaker-explains-how-agents-of-chaos-including-donald-trump-are-taking-a-wrecking-ball-to-american-institutions/

r President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin clearly hope to sow discord in the 2020 election — and the FBI has warned that the Russian government will try to interfere in this election just as it interfered in the 2016 election. Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney discussed Russia’s election interference with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota during a September 23 appearance on the morning show, “New Day,” describing some of the things Russian operatives have been doing.

Gibney, creator of the documentary “Agents of Chaos,” explained, “For the 2016 election, past is prologue. I mean, so many things that the Russians did and the way they took advantage of certain flaws in our system in 2016 are now coming back to haunt us in 2020. In 2016, you know, Donald Trump on the stump kept saying: if I lose, the election is going to be rigged. And the Russians were in election systems not to flip votes, but to sow doubt on the legitimacy of what everyone saw as an inevitable Hillary Clinton win.”

The filmmaker added, “Today again, Donald Trump is casting doubt on the legitimacy or the accuracy of results if he were to lose. And so once again, I believe that the Russians, by a cyber means, willamplifyour own president’s attempts to undermine confidence in the system.”

Camerota responded that “Russian trolls” have been echoing Trump’s conspiracy theories and “getting their material” by “lifting President Trump’s Twitter feed.” And Gibney responded that his new documentary is called “Agents of Chaos” because that is exactly what Putin’s allies are trying to encourage in the 2020 election: chaos.

AD REMOVED FOR SUBSCRIBED USER

Putin’s allies, according to Gibney, have been “exasperating [autocorrect vic 2x?] and flaming passions that were already here.”

Gibney told Camerota, “So, in the case of Donald Trump, you know, the film is called ‘Agents of Chaos,’ and I think that one of the key agents of chaos is Donald Trump. Russia never supported his candidacy because of policies — they supported his candidacy because they felt he was an agent of chaos who would do a lot to take a wrecking ball to American institutions.”

Watch the video below:[trialer] hbo

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aha-ish: Bannon promoted djt as disruptor, the system is sick/rigged so he will blow it up and give us something better; he will fight your enemies (the chinese, the godless commies/boomers, drain the swamp, restore American prode/dominance [coal mfg]; relatd to throw the bums out they are all crooks? What do trumpistas think the swamp is? they atre fine with crony capitalism b/c bizmen are tough minded, numbers-based tough realists who will bwe efficient and stop wasting our tax money on losers/POC lazy welfare queens. so we should not be surprised when system crashes, because trump ppl know nothing, and are grifter rent-seekers. all they know about gov't is how to leech off it and dump their messes on it. short term / self-ish thinking: how do I/the books look good for next qtr (or for trump the next news cycle, which is 12 hours?!)

as someone else recently observed (burn dwn hs gingrich?) gop has built in political/rhet advantage b/c willing to crash the system to maintain power. (gives them leverage in negot? BUT lost votes in gov't shutdowns?]

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trump-derangement-syndrome-those-of-us-who-warned-america-that-fascism-was-coming-were-called-hysterical-alarmists-we-were-right-all-along/

Do you remember “Trump Derangement Syndrome?”

It was a cute phrase that likely first appeared in 2015, deployed by prominent voices across the political spectrum to demean, mock, reject, dismiss and deflect the warnings that Donald Trump was a fascist, an authoritarian and a white supremacist, not to mention a vile and dangerous human being with apparent mental pathologies who posed a massive threat to American democracy....

no lnx

Do you remember “Trump Derangement Syndrome?”

Such truth-telling patriots were called “hysterical” and “alarmist,” or told they were “out of touch” and overly “bitter” about Hillary Clinton’s defeat thanks to the antiquated mechanism of the Electoral College and Russian interference. Those who first raised the alarm about Trumpism as a new version of fascism were also assured that ” the institutions were strong” and fascism could never take hold in America — and most certainly not in the form of a proudly ignorant wrestling-heel wannabe and reality-TV huckster.

When Trump won the presidential election in 2016, there were some on the left eager to dance on Hillary Clinton’s grave. A few even gave Trump the totally unearned benefit of the doubt: He claimed to oppose globalization, neoliberalism and “endless war,” and to speak for the “white working class”.

Centrist Democrats and the so-called mainstream American news media also rejected the existential threat to democracy that Trump represented. They convinced themselves, over and over, that the supposed power and gravity of the office would normalize and mature him. He was a “businessman” and a “pragmatist” eager to make deals, not an ideologue — so why worry? Trump was “brash” and “unconventional,” but America’s political institutions were strong.

The stenographers of current events and the other hope-peddlers, with their horse-race journalism, false equivalence “both-sides-ism” and obsession with meaningless controversies would not let themselves see the truth of Trump’s danger or that of his neo-fascist movement. To admit the truth about Trump would mean that the old habits of writing and thinking about American politics are obsolete. Moreover, such an admission would demand speaking truth to power in a way that many members of the mainstream news media, specifically, are too afraid to, for both professional and personal reasons.

Republicans and other members of the Trump movement used “Trump Derangement Syndrome” to bully their critics into silence. The American right celebrated drinking “liberal tears” and loved the way Trump’s victory had made Democrats and so-called progressives go “crazy.”[// to the fed art'l that mollie h etc do not defend djt cos can't but own the libs/ hit bogey[wo]men]

Trump Derangement Syndrome is weaponized language in the same vein as the myth of the “liberal media.” Both lies put Democrats and the mainstream news media on the defense. While the American right and the Republican Party (and now Trump’s neo-fascist movement) drag the issue-space further and further to the right — and have done so for decades — the “liberal media” tries to find an imaginary balance by presenting right-wing extremism as somehow a “reasonable” alternative point of view.

Trump Derangement Syndrome was also a smokescreen for Donald Trump’s wild success in advancing the agenda of the plutocrats, gangster capitalists, Christian nationalists and “Dominionists” — as well as overt white supremacists — in destroying the very idea of government itself as well as American multiracial democracy.

Of course, it was not Donald Trump’s most vocal critics who were “deranged” but his followers, enablers and allies. As I explained in January 2017, shortly before his inauguration:

It is not those who oppose Trump who are deranged, but rather those voters who convinced themselves that a plutocrat authoritarian reality TV star con man and professional wrestler wannabe with no experience in government at any level was qualified to be president of the United States.

This is America’s great national derangement. Those who stand against and oppose Donald Trump are patriots who are trying to return the country to sanity.

Now, some three months away from another Election Day, Donald Trump has finally arrived at the moment which those of us who were slurred as “hysterical” and “alarmist” have warned about for more than five years.

Last Thursday, Trump issued this now-infamous tweet:

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? [// muslim ban "whAT'S GOIng on" = agenda/ deep state]

That same afternoon, when questioned about Trump’s threats to interfere with the 2020 election, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the U.S. Senate: “In the end, the Department of Justice and others will make that legal determination.” This is not true. The Department of Justice and the president possess no legitimate authority to delay or cancel a federal election.

Later in the day, Trump continued to work from the authoritarian’s playbook, attempting to pivot away from his earlier statements. During a White House press event, Trump said:

Do I want to see a date change? No. But I don’t want to see a crooked election. What will happen in November – it’s a mess. I want a result much more than you… I don’t want to be waiting around for weeks and months.

This is a familiar strategy in which the authoritarian challenges norms and boundaries by floating trial balloons and then pretends to change his mind as a way to make the heretofore-unthinkable into something acceptable.

Trump’s most recent threats are but another crescendo in he and his servants’ efforts to subvert and eventually overturn secular multiracial democracy and the rule of law in America.

Only weeks ago Trump began deploying his own personal secret police force, hoping to enforce his will by suppressing dissent and free speech in Democratic-led cities all over the United States. The events in Portland, Oregon, are but a prelude to Trump’s national terrordome.

Trump’s own personal secret police force along with his civilian “watchdogs,” may well be used to intimidate Democratic voters on Election Day and beyond. Trump has repeatedly asked hostile foreign countries to interfere in the 2020 presidential election on his behalf. He was impeached for doing just that with his attempt to blackmail the government of Ukraine to launch a phony investigation of Joe Biden.

Trump continues to threaten senior Democratic leaders, including Biden, Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and others withtreasoncharges, potential imprisonment and perhaps even execution. Former national security adviser John Bolton’s recent book includes details of Trump’s lurid fantasies about having journalists killed. According to Bolton, Trump supports imprisoning his “enemies” in concentration camps — something he is already doing with brown and Black migrants and refugees from Latin America, the Caribbean and other parts of the nonwhite world.

Donald Trump, has repeated his threats, ever since the 2016 campaign, that he will not respect the will of the American people if he loses a presidential election.

In sum, Donald Trump is not pretending. None of this is a game. He is a neo-fascist. Such observations and warnings are not hysterical. They are plain observations based on a consensus of the available facts. [also he can be prosecuted, just today info DA new charges?]

As historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat explained in a 2017 essay at The Washington Post:

The strongman knows that it starts with words. He uses them early on to test out his plans to expand and personalize executive power on political elites, the press and the public, watching their reactions as they arrange into the timeless categories of allies, enemies and those who help him by remaining silent. Some say the strongman is all bluster, but he takes words seriously, including the issue of which ones should be banned.

Now what to do?

In a perfect and just world, the hope peddlers, professional centrists, stenographers of current events and others who maintain the boundaries of approved public discourse in America would go to the public square, prostrate themselves before the world and then beg forgiveness for how they, for years and by various means, empowered Donald Trump.

That will not happen. Instead, such voices will proclaim that they were sounding the alarm about Donald Trump years ago and are the real vanguard defenders of American democracy. In reality, such voices were enablers, far behind the truth if not actively running away it. They are now trying to position themselves on the correct side of history because their shame and failure to protect America from Donald Trump and his neo-fascist movement are so great.

In the weeks remaining before Election Day — which will certainly not be “free and fair” and when Trump’s machinations will be at their most extreme — the mainstream news media and theAmerican people must internalize the fact that the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution mean little for Trump and his regime.

Hopeful claims — or delusions — that the Constitution and state laws dictate the rules of Election Day must be viewed with extreme cynicism. Trump and his enforcers are not restrained by such arcane conventions.

If there is indeed an election on Nov. 3, Americans mUst vote against Trump in overwhelming numbers in order to force him to step down. Unless Donald Trump is convincingly vanquished at the polls, he will find some way to stay in office.

If Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr try to cancel the presidential election or interfere with it in any other way, Americans must take to the streets and engage in corporeal politics — including a national strike and other plans to disrupt day-to-day life and “business as usual” — on a scale so large that they make the George Floyd people’s uprising look like a PTA meeting.

Ultimately, those of us who warned the American people for years, sometimes on a daily basis, about this Mad King and would-be tyrant take no joy from saying, We told you so. There is no satisfaction in being correct about such a horrible thing.

On this point,Jared Yates Sexton, author of “American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World But Failed Its People,” wrote last Thursday on Twitter:

Those of us warning that Trump is an authoritarian capable of destroying democracy haven’t been doing it for profit or attention or out of unwarranted alarmism. None of this is hard to predict. They don’t hide it at all. Stop expecting everything to be fine because “America.”

To watch American democracy, fall so ill so fast, and now to be on the verge of collapse — when such a thing could have been so easily prevented — is a world historical tragedy. SYSTEM CRASH economy, health care sys?!

===

aha riot strike uprising is often result of inequality

https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/indigenous-peoples-ecuador-declare-support-national-mobilizations-exercise-self-determination

Quito, Ecuador—October 8, 2019 – Indigenous Peoples across Ecuador have mobilized against the central government’s neoliberal policies and extractive practices, as have workers unions, student unions and a diverse group of civil society. Our civil disobedience has included marches, road blocks, and the detention of military and police personnel accused of violence and aggression within Indigenous territories. Currently, over 20,000 Indigenous Peoples from the Andes to the Amazon are marching to the capital city of Quito in indefinite protest.

Our movement aims to reverse the Ecuadorian government’s closed-door agreement with the International Monetary Fund and protect our territories from the social, economic and environmental fallout of the accelerated extractive agenda that will follow. This is not simply about gasoline subsidies. The austerity measures of President Lenin Moreno will widen inequality and marginalization of Indigenous Peoples. Paired with the recent announcement of Ecuador to leave OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), they are clear indicators that the government will ramp up devastating oil, mining and hydroelectric projects in Indigenous territories. For centuries we have protected our lands in the mountains and the Amazon, and we will not allow Indigenous Peoples, indigenous territories and our global climate to pay the cost for the government’s mounting debt to China and international lenders.

These political decisions and policies were made in the capital without our consent or input, yet they affect our rights and our ability to survive. We have shown throughout Ecuador’s history that Indigenous Peoples have the power to shut down the country when our rights are put at risk and power is abused. Once again, we are putting our bodies and our lives on the line to protect our families, rights, cultures and territories, this time from the central government’s neoliberal assault.

We denounce the campaigns of misinformation promoted by the central government and by both national and international media outlets. Opportunists, both politicians and looters, are attempting to co-opt the Indigenous movement and distort our message. This inflames violence and division. We repudiate the violence, vandalism and looting by external actors who are not affiliated with our movement or goals. The government must reverse its declaration of a State of Emergency, which facilitates widespread police and military violence, arbitrary detentions and the suspension of fundamental rights.

We call on the Ecuadorian government to repeal the recently announced austerity measures, cancel the agreement with the International Monetary Fund and respect Indigenous Peoples’ decision to keep our territories free of extractive industries.

Read CONAIE and CONFENIAE’s statement in Spanish here.

For further information and interviews please contact via WhatsApp:

Andrés Tapía, CONFENIAE Communications, +593 98 446 5175

Apawki Castro, CONAIE Communications, +593 98 385 6491

Jaime Vargas, President of CONAIE, +593 96 092 1242

Marlon Vargas, President of CONFENIAE, +593 98 903 4035

===

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-uses-coronavirus-fears-to-advance-bannons-far-right-agenda/

When President Donald J. Trump delivered his latest market-rattling remarks on the coronavirus pandemic from the Oval Office on Wednesday night, political reporters collectively scratched their heads over the president’s announcement of a ban on travelers from Europe and cargo coming from the continent. (The cargo ban was later walked back.)

But anyone paying attention to the rise of the global right knew what Trump was up to: using well-founded fears of the virus’s spread in the U.S. to strengthen the hand of Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s erstwhile chief White House strategist, in the former’s quest to weaken the European Union.

In his remarks, Trump blamed European travelers for “seeding” the “foreign virus”—first identified in China—on American shores, and blamed Europe for the spread of the new coronavirus, because, he said, the E.U. had not banned travel from China as the U.S. has. “And taking early intense action, we have seen dramatically fewer cases of the virus in the United States than are now present in Europe,” Trump said, conveniently omitting the fact that Europe has a viable testing regimen, while it’s still impossible for most people in the U.S. to obtain a test for COVID-19, as the new coronavirus is formally known. Consequently, no one knows just how many people in the land of the free are freely walking around, spreading the virus. Nor do we know how many deaths from respiratory failure are due to the new virus.

While a number of claims made by Trump in the remarks he delivered from the Resolute Desk have since been walked back by various government agencies, it is notable that a clarification from the Department of Homeland Security says that the European countries affected by the executive order signed by Trump include only those in the Schengen area, which means those that are party to a multi-nation agreement to maintain open borders among them. Most of those 22 nations are members of the E.U.

In other words, this is an ideological and punitive action against those nations for daring to act in coalition—and for having demonstrated, since 1985, the value of such a compact.

Since before his ouster from the White House (for saying mean things about Trump’s son, Don Jr., daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner that were reported in the Michael Wolff book, “Fire and Fury”), Bannon has been working on growing the right-wing nationalist parties in Europe, Brazil and elsewhere, with a foremost goal of busting up the E.U. While he served as an executive at Cambridge Analytica, Bannon helped fuel the Brexit referendum that has led to the United Kingdom’s departure from the E.U.

In his Wednesday-night remarks, Trump said that the U.K. would be exempt from his European travel ban—never mind that confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.K. leapt by more than 20 percent since Trump spoke to the American people yesterday from the Oval Office, now standing at 596, with 20 deaths reported. “However,” according to the BBC, “the actual number of people infected could be between 5,000 and 10,000, the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said.”

Politico notes that the parameters of his European travel ban functionally exempt travelers from Trump’s own properties in Scotland and Ireland.

In addition, Trump’s framing of COVID-19 as a “foreign virus” fits neatly into one of Bannon’s newer projects, a group he calls Committee on the Present Danger: China, whose major donor, Guo Wengui, appears to be Bannon’s latest sugar daddy, now that he’s said to have been abandoned by his former patrons, Robert and Rebekah Mercer.

While Trump and Bannon may have their personal differences, it is clear that they’re working in tandem. The constellation of right-wing actors that forms the alliance colloquially known as Bannon World are firmly on team Trump, as was obvious at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which has become, for all intents and purposes, an arm of the Trump campaign. (The conference is run by Matt Schlapp, whose wife Mercedes works for the Trump campaign. Matt Schlapp and his roster of speakers at the four-day conference almost all effusively praised the president, with many urging his reelection.) Bannon World speakers at CPAC included former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka, Brexit Party Chairman Nigel Farage, Brazilian politician Eduardo Bolsonaro and China critic Gordon Chang.

The American Conservative Union, which stages CPAC, reported last week that one this year’s CPAC attendees—revealed today to be the Republican donor Alan Berger—tested positive for the virus after attending the conference.

Tags: Donald J. Trump Donald Trump Jr.Eduardo Bolsonaro Gordon Chang Guo Wengui Ivanka Trump Jared Kushner Matt Schlapp Mercedes Schlapp Michael Wolff Miles Kwok Nigel Farage Rebekah Mercer Robert Mercer Sebastian Gorka Steve Bannon Bannon World Coronavirus European travel ban global far-right American Conservative Union BBC Committee on the Present Danger: China Department of Homeland Security European Union Politico

320 bktv

charlie Kirk, "The MAGA Doctrine"Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk offered his thoughts on what he calls…:{

}:harpercollins broadside bk:{

}:djt hug flag cover:{

}:: the only idea that will win the future":{

}:---https://www.axios.com/charlie-kirk-trump-book-maga-doctrine-d33d1dad-9047-4421-b062-57e45e833b4b.html

}::{

Charlie Kirk, 26, a favorite of President Trump's, is out today with "The MAGA Doctrine," a manifesto for the young "Make America Great Again" crowd.

Why it matters: Kirk is founder and president of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth activist group on over 2,000 high school and college campuses.

The book became an Amazon #1 bestseller after Trump tweeted Sunday night that a Kirk interview on Fox News was "Amazing!!! ... This is a really GREAT book. Support Charlie Kirk!"

What they're saying: Kirk said his favorite page is Page 8: "Trump has swept aside an astonishing number of conservative taboos, once-dominant institutions, and once-unbreakable rules ..."

"[T]heRepublican Party is in some sense no longer a conservative party, no longer the party of Reagan, but instead a Trump-remade populist party."

320

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/29/cronyism-and-conflicts-of-interest-in-trumps-coronavirus-task-force/

alex AZAR, the secretary of health and human services, admitted Wednesday that a vaccine for a new coronavirus might not be affordable for all Americans. “We can’t control that price,” Azar told Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., during a congressional hearing about the novel strain, which has been spreading throughout the world and is widely expected to become a serious public health issue in the United States.

After a wave of criticism from Democrats, Azar walked the comment back the next day, saying that he would ensure public access to a vaccine for Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, if one should be developed.But Azar, who served as the top lobbyist for Eli Lillybefore becoming president of the drug company’s U.S. operations in 2012 and the secretary of health and human Services in 2018, knows of what he unthinkingly speaks. Exorbitant drug pricing often leaves life-saving treatment out of reach for the poorest Americans. And to the extent that Azar and the other businessmen who make up the majority of the president’s coronavirus task force have any experience with pharmaceuticals, one of the most profitable sectors of the economy, it’s been making money off the system that keeps them out of reach.

In the case of Azar, who earned nearly $2 million during his last year at Lilly, that profit came at the expense of the people who needed the drugs, according to a lawsuit filed in 2017. While Azar was leading the pharmaceutical giant, the cost of its drugs went up significantly. In particular, insulin sold by the company more than doubled in price. According to the suit, which also names Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, Eli Lilly engaged in a scheme to artificially inflate the price of its drug, leaving some diabetic people unable to pay the cost and forced to use expired insulin or none at all. Eli Lilly did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company has told other publications that the suit has no merit and that it follows the “highest ethical standards.”

For another task force member, the profits could come from the coronavirus itself. Joseph Grogan was a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciencesbefore he joined the Trump administration as director of the Domestic Policy Council and led the Drug Pricing and Innovation Work Group. On Wednesday, after Gilead announced that it would be starting two clinical trials of an antiviral drug that could be used to treat Covid-19, the company’s stock price surged.

As a former lobbyist for a company that stands to gain big from a possible treatment for the respiratory disease, Grogan’s participation on the task force poses a host of ethical problems, according to Robert Klitzman, professor of psychiatry and director of the bioethics master’s program at Columbia University. “Does he have a conflict of interest? Yes!” said Klitzman, who points out that the government is likely to spend money on both the research and purchase of treatments for the virus. “Gilead could help shape a government request for proposals so that they could have an unfair advantage.”

While Grogan appears to have sold his Gilead stock and, according to the Office of Management and Budget, has severed all financial relationships and taken “the Trump pledge,” the situation is still problematic, according to Klitzman. “When he gets out of office, they could give him a gift for doing a good job or just hire him again. And what about his buddies? I’m sure he is still close to people who work for Gilead who will benefit. These are all major ethical concerns.”

Although Grogan and his friends may have a lot to gain from his participation on the task force, it is not clear what expertise he and most of the others serving on the group bring to it. Of the task force’s 16 members — 17, if you include Vice President Mike Pence, who is heading the effort — only four have any training in science or medicine. The others mostly hail from the business world, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, an investment banker who was sued for asset stripping; Ken Cuccinelli, a lawyer and self-described “opponent of homosexuality” now serving as acting deputy secretary of homeland security; and Christopher Liddell, a former executive at Microsoft and General Motors, who worked with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on the modernization of federal IT systems before directing the country’s response to what may be the biggest public health crisis in over a century.

Pence also named Larry Kudlow to the task force on Thursday. Kudlow, a top economic adviser to Trump who used to work for Bear Stearns, went on Fox Business to reassure the American public that reports of increasing coronavirus infections around the world don’t necessarily mean “that this thing is going to skyrocket in North America.” Kudlow then encouraged everyone to keep investing, saying, “Stocks look pretty cheap to me.”

Trump has fired many of the people who actually know how to coordinate government responses to epidemics. As Laurie Garrett reported in January, the president shut down the National Security Council’s global health security unit and cut $15 billion in national health spending, including funding for the management of infectious global diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Homeland Security, and HHS. At the CDC, the funding cuts to the global health section were so severe, Garrett wrote, that “the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10.”

While four doctors are on the task force, it’s not clear how much they will be allowed to direct the response to the virus. The White House reportedly told Anthony Fauci, an immunologist who directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and has extensive experience combating infectious diseases, not to speak publicly without clearance after he said at a meeting that the virus “has adapted extremely well to human species.”

On Thursday, Deborah Birx, a physician who has served as the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator since 2014, was named as the White House coronavirus response coordinator, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams was added to the task force. Their appointments came after Sen. Bernie Sanders slammed Trump for putting “political cronies, not scientists” in charge of the government response to the virus.

===

Fringe religious party gains power in :{crisis-stricken:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;white-space:nowrap"):}: Peru

Matthew Peter Casey, Arizona State University

After a bribery scandal that took down four presidents and led Congress to dissolve, some Peruvians are putting their faith in an austere religion called the Israelites of the New Universal Pact.

===

omg risk asses not doing job?!

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/extreme-weather-could-spark-an-economic-recession-the-likes-of-which-weve-never-seen-before/

no lnx

Extreme weather could spark an economic crisis the ‘likes of which we’ve never seen before’

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams February 18, 2020

New research published Monday warns that extreme weather driven by the climate crisis could bring about an economic recession “the likes of which we’ve never seen before” if markets don’t do a better job assessing climate risks.

Paul Griffin, an accounting professor at the University of California, Davis Graduate School of Management, wrote in a paper for Nature Energy that financial markets have not sufficiently accounted for the major economic risks posed by the global climate crisis, even as extreme weather—from destructive hurricanes to prolonged drought—wreaks havoc across the globe.

“Unpriced risk was the main cause of the Great Recession in 2007-2008,” Griffin wrote. “Right now, energy companies shoulder much of that risk. The market needs to better assess risk, and factor a risk of extreme weather into securities prices… Without better knowledge of this risk, the average energy investor can only hope that the next extreme event will not trigger a sudden correction to the market values of energy firms.”

Griffin continued:

This past summer, the United States and Europe experienced record-breaking heat. Now linked reliably to climate change, excessive high temperature is among the deadliest of weather extremes. Not only can it disrupt agriculture, harm human health, and stunt economic growth, it can also overwhelm—and temporarily shut down—large parts of a state’s or a nation’s energy system, as in the case of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) in California.

Extreme heat events can create uncertain and longer duration power outages, threaten critical infrastructure, exacerbate energy supply and demand imbalances, and trigger significant legal liability for energy firms. Newer reports of an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, moreover, amplify those risks for energy firms.

Despite these obvious risks, investors and asset managers have been conspicuously slow to connect physical climate risk from extreme weather events to company market valuations.

Griffin is not the first financial expert to raise alarm about the potentially calamitous economic impacts of the climate crisis—which would come in addition to the emergency’s incalculable effects on humans, animals, plants, insects, and the planet as a whole.

The Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements warned in a 115-page report (pdf) last month that the “increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events could trigger non-linear and irreversible financial losses.”

“Climate change poses unprecedented challenges to human societies,” the report stated, “and our community of central banks and supervisors cannot consider itself immune to the risks ahead of us.”

===

aha-let: trump says usa is broken and the system is rigged (ripped off bernie?) then offers hims self as the only strong man who can fix it (to those who feel economically and politically dis-em POWERED, this might seem like a ood bet, esp if BS braINWASHED by govt is bad, free mkt will fix all bs? he then breaks system more, undermines norms/moderation, makes a mess tha makes ppl more desperate and disillusined? death spiral?

https://theconversation.com/trump-the-transgressor-the-psychological-appeal-of-leaders-who-break-the-rules-130247

Many of today’s politicians appear to appeal to the basic human need for safety, presenting their versions of strong leadership as the best hope for order and safety in a fearful world of growing instability and risk. Much evidence confirms that this appeal is certainly an important factor in the political landscape.

But alongside this, other psychological dynamics are currently influential in a number of Western democracies – particularly in attracting people to support populist leaders and their agendas.

One of these – which is of particular relevance to the impeachment trial of the US president, Donald Trump – concerns the pleasure and excitement that some citizens appear to find in a leader who breaks rules and ignores taboos. These transgressions can come in various forms, such as controversial statements, unconventional lifestyles or disrespectful approaches to the political process. But they can also extend to improper activities and abuse of power – such as those detailed in the impeachment charges against Trump – or anti-democratic activity and violence.

Rule breakers

I suggest that support for this kind of leader can be understood as “identification with the transgressor”. This is an idea modelled on the concept of “identification with the aggressor”, a term coined by the psychoanalyst Anna Freud in 1936. Since then, psychologists have used the concept to understand a range of behaviours, including our tolerance of or collusion with bullies.

Different types of transgressive leader can appeal to transgressive parts of ourselves. Like others before him, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, Anna’s father, observed that some measure of resentment towards authority and of a longing to cast aside the rules, is a universal feature of the human psyche. In its development since Freud, the psychoanalytic tradition has examined how this longing is a legacy of the painful process of emotional development we each undergo very early in life as we come to accept the limits placed on us as requirements for membership of human society.

Where there are good reasons to think that normal political processes are failing, many people can feel a surge of gratitude towards a leader who breaks with some conventions with the aim of bringing more integrity and legitimacy to political life.Lech Wałęsa in Poland and Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia, and others who led the way out of totalitarianism for countries in the Communist bloc, were certainly transgressors within the political worlds they confronted. They could be identified as a force for good in a corrupt or sclerotic system.

But given our built-in ambivalence towards authority and rules, we can also identify with political leaders whose transgressions are driven at least in part by more destructive impulses. While promising their supporters a better world, these leaders use rhetoric that focuses on the urgent need to attack existing authorities and destroy existing arrangements, with little real attention paid to how to replace them.

One example is a coup leader who, once in power, has little plan for bettering their country. At worst is the leader free of most if not all moral constraint, who is contemptuous of international standards of conduct, and unconcerned by the human costs of his or her own conduct.

Impact on voters

Therefore, one psychological question hanging over the US impeachment proceedings is the extent to which Trump’s support base will judge him negatively over the events at the centre of the impeachment trial. When Americans head to the polls in November 2020, how many will be inclined to enjoy Trump’s truculent dismissal of any criticism, and his capacity to brazen it out?

Remember, evidence of Trump’s questionable moral conduct was available to the US electorate in 2016. Following the release before the election of a videotape in which he boasted about groping women without their consent, 91% of those likely to vote for Trump said in a CBS/YouGov poll that the tape didn’t change their view of him. And Trump was elected.

The refusal by many voters to censure Trump for his transgressions has a powerful psychological basis to it in the wish to break free of authority. This can also be enjoyed without the guilt that would, for most people, usually accompany an assault on widely held values.

That’s because a leader like Trump offers an opportunity to combine transgressive pleasure with the moral high ground.This emotional package is offered to those who identify with Trump’s (somewhat erratic) self-presentation as a fusion of pleasure-seeking rebel and visionary saviour, leading an insurrection against the corrupt authorities – “the swamp”.

The eulogistic book on Trump by Conservative commentator Ann Coulter is one of many demonstrations of how much his supporters are energised by the wish to attack the “establishment” for their own alleged transgressions. Of course, not all Trump supporters feel this way, or support him for the same reasons.

This populist attack on the established elite can enable the supporters of the transgressive leader to feel that they are on a moral crusade, as well there for a pleasure kick. This could be a powerful aid to Trump in the coming election. We should expect such a transgressor figure to continue attracting strong identification and support, unless challenged by a leader who can somehow disrupt the transgressor’s psychological relationship with their support base

aha omg agw increase inequality --> decrease ability poor to cope w/ climate chaos, increase migration, political instability, increase xenophpbia/ militarism ....

robt r davos

Popular anger is boiling over against elites seen as irredeemably greedy, corrupt and indifferent to the plight of most people struggling to get by. The anger has fueled uprisings in Chile, Spain, Ecuador, Lebanon, Egypt and Bolivia; environmental protests in the UK, Germany, Austria, France and New Zealand; and xenophobic politics in the US, the UK, Brazil and Hungary.

The Top 7 digital transformation trends shaping 2020 report by MuleSoft(a Salesforce company) is quite comprehensive, with numerous customer use cases and technology adoption forecasts for 2020 and beyond. The findings in this report strongly suggests that in order to deliver a connected customer experience, companies must focus on cultivating a data-driven culture and use game-changing and disruptive technologies like machine learning and AI, in multi-cloud environments, to accelerate and amplify co-creation of value within their ecosystems by strongly partnering with IT to better leverage the awesome power of applications networks.

military DoD

https://kpfa.org/episode/talkies-january-2-2020/

[talkies 1/2/20 2010 drought russia lost 1/3 wht crop --> arab spring?! food scarce africa and ME, food #1 expense in poor ppl budget --> anger at elites, libya, syria WAR, threat multiplier] desertification push nomadic into sub-s different ethnic and religion, jihadis exploit; nigeria boko; mali niger

ctr for naval CNA report 2007

migrants tend to be rural ppl: carrib, centr am ...got to city for jobs (gangs)

causes: loss of ice, water moves heat:

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27122019/climate-science-decade-2019-year-review-tipping-points-jet-stream-ocean-circulation

===

aha: expert // to norms (eg civ servent amb maie yovanovich masha

trump /bannon calls himself a disruptor (like the clint e rogue cop who does not play by rulebook and gets his own brand of justice);

some talk early on that we need to codify into law;

in part djt prolly broke them b/c he simply was to dumb or inexperienced to know they exist, or to understand they exist for a legit reason; another possibility is that they do not fit (we have never had a full on bizman prez before?)

aha: djt/bannon present as disruptor, but basically used elim or norms, experts and SOP for self0ish graft/power grab

===

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/the-rise-and-fall-of-rudy-giuliani-how-americas-mayor-became-trumps-grifter/

no lnx

The rise and fall of Rudy Giuliani: How ‘America’s mayor’ became Trump’s grifter

Written by The Washington Monthly November 18, 2019

Rudy Giuliani was a shoo-in for attorney general or secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in a nascent Trump administration. Not only was Giuliani “America’s Mayor” following his command of the situation on 9/11, he was a former federal prosecutor, presidential candidate, and an early validator—if late endorser—of Donald J. Trump.

Life looked pretty rosy for the ambitious pol, with a clear path to power and privilege, given his expertise.

He didn’t want the jobs proffered, however. He wanted something bigger.

Whether he was done with the law or just wanted something that approximated the power and prestige of the presidency, he postured and heavily lobbied to be Trump’s secretary of state. As the former mayor of America’s most important city, he was regularly in the company of foreign dignitaries and, of course, 9/11 gave him a global stage from which to show off his leadership skills.

But translating international experience and foreign hobnobbing into policy focused on America’s global role required diplomatic skill not often associated with New York moxie. It would have been a hard sell—even to a pliant Republican-dominated U.S. Senate. After all, John McCain—and even Lindsey Graham 1.0—were actively looking out for America’s national security interests back then.

Giuliani’s jones-ing to become America’s lead diplomat seemed to have more to do with a desire for his own publicly financed jet and private traveling press corps than any real interest or ability to negotiate long, hard hours toward solutions that required uncomfortable trade-offs. He wanted the position’s perks and platform more than the work—or the extraordinarily demanding work schedule that comes with the job.

Fast forward to 2019, and the Giuliani scorned by Jared Kushner has become the roiling Rudy who plays Donald Trump’s personal attorney on TV. Giuliani has never met a Sunday news show he doesn’t like. Trump has turned to this anti-matinee idol and put personal business and state policy in the hands of a freewheeling, out-of-control—and sometimes crazed—Giuliani. His uncanny ability to stay simultaneously both on message and off—yet claim to be reliably consistent and coherent—has allowed him to play rough in all positions of Trump’s political defense and remain untouched.

Until now.

Now he’s all lawyered up, as investigators in the U.S. House release State Department officials’ closed-door testimony implicating Giuliani in Trump’s move to withhold military aid from Ukraine unless it agreed to investigate Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Giuliani so desperately needed to play the globetrotting role of secretary of State that he got to become Trump’s “Shadow Secretary.” In that role, he used presidential proximity to guide America’s foreign activities, fire its diplomats, bully its allies, and bank on the nation’s sheer power to leverage lethal aid into forced foreign state-sponsored oppo research on 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

Biden became the target of the externally run, illicitly operated Giuliani Shadow State Department, doing the Trump-Kushner-Pompeo trio’s dirty work while operating with Oval Office assurances that his free hand and opaque operation was guarded by attorney-client privilege. This questionable privilege was also supposed to protect Michael Cohen, Trump’s previous personal attorney. Cohen is now serving a prison sentence for doing Trump’s shadowy business.

A one-man, oversight-free, power-drenched Shadow State Department is a heady thing. Giuliani recognized that he no longer had to play by the same rules as a government agency. He could operate the way Betsy DeVos’s brother, Erik Prince, did with his paramilitary organization, Blackwater. Renamed Xe, Blackwater was a private entity conducting a contracted war, freed from the constraints of treaty obligations, multilateral engagement, long-standing bilateral relations, protocol, congressional oversight, budgetary limits, press access, or full transparency.

Giuliani was as free to disregard established foreign policy and practice as Prince’s locked-and-loaded organization was to end-run military rules of engagement.Bonus points: Giuliani also was able to profit as a free agent. Who was going to question his private authority when the imperial presidency, with its seemingly unchecked privilege, had his back and could dangle a potential blanket pardon?...

===

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/were-headed-for-a-world-where-all-hell-is-breaking-loose/

no lnx

We’re headed for a world where all hell is breaking loose

Written by Michael T. Klare / TomDispatch November 15, 2019

The Situation Room, October 2039: the president and vice president, senior generals and admirals, key cabinet members, and other top national security officers huddle around computer screens as aides speak tokey officials across the country. Some screens are focused on Hurricane Monica, continuing its catastrophic path through the Carolinas and Virginia; others are following Hurricane Nicholas, now pummeling Florida and Georgia, while Hurricane Ophelia lurks behind it in the eastern Caribbean.

On another bank of screens, officials are watching horrifying scenes from Los Angeles and San Diego, where millions of people are under mandatory evacuation orders with essentially nowhere to go because of a maelstrom of raging wildfires. Other large blazes are burning out of control in Northern California and Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington State. The National Guard has been called out across much of the West, while hundreds of thousands of active-duty troops are being deployed in the disaster zones to assist in relief operations and firefighting

With governors and lawmakers from the affected states begging for help, the president has instructed the senior military leadership to provide still more soldiers and sailors for yet more disaster relief. Unfortunately, the generals and admirals are having a hard time complying, since most of their key bases on the East and West Coasts are also under assault from storms, floods, and wildfires. Many have already been evacuated. Naval Station Norfolk, the nation’s largest naval base, for example, took a devastating hit from Monica and lies under several feet of water, rendering it inoperable. Camp Pendleton in California, a major Marine Corps facility, is once again in flames, its personnel either being evacuated or fully engaged in firefighting. Other key bases have been similarly disabled, their personnel scattered to relocation sites in the interior of the country.

Foreign threats, while not ignored in this time of domestic crisis, have lost the overriding concern they enjoyed throughout the 2020s when China and Russia were still considered major foes. By the mid-2030s, however, both of those countries were similarly preoccupied with multiple climate-related perils of their own — recurring wildfires and crop failures in Russia, severe water scarcity, staggering heat waves, and perpetually flooded coastal citiesin China — and so were far less inclined to spend vast sums on sophisticated weapons systems or to engage in provocative adventures abroad. Like the United States, these countries are committing their military forces ever more frequently to disaster relief at home.

As for America’s allies in Europe: well, the days of trans-Atlantic cooperation have long since disappeared as extreme climate effects have become the main concern of most European states. To the extent that they still possess military forces, these, too, are now almost entirely devoted to flood relief, firefighting, and keeping out the masses of climate refugees fleeing perpetual heat and famine in Asia and Africa.

And so, in the Situation Room, the overriding question for U.S. security officials in 2039 boils down to this: How can we best defend the nation against the mounting threat of climate catastrophe?

The Unacknowledged Peril

Read through the formal Pentagon literature on the threats to American security today and you won’t even see the words “climate change” mentioned. This is largely because of the nation’s commander-in-chief who once claimed that global warming was a “hoax” and that we’re better off burning ever more coal and oil than protecting the nation against severe storm events or an onslaught of wildfires. Climate change has also become a hotly partisan issue in Washington and military officers are instinctively disinclined to become embroiled in partisan political fights. In addition, senior officers have come to view Russia and China as vital threats to U.S. security — far more dangerous than, say, the zealots of ISIS or al-Qaeda — and so are focused on beefing up America’s already overpowering defense capabilities yet more.

“Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security,” the Department of Defense (DoD) affirmed in its National Defense Strategy of February 2018. “Without sustained and predictable investment to restore readiness and modernize our military to make it fit for our time, we will rapidly lose our military advantage.”

Everything in the 2018 National Defense Strategy and the DoD budget documents that have been submitted to Congress since its release proceed from this premise. To better compete with China and Russia, we are told, it’s essential to spend yet more trillions of dollars over the coming decade to replace America’s supposedly aging weapons inventory — including its nuclear arsenal — with a whole new suite of ships, planes, tanks, and missiles (many incorporating advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and hypersonic warheads).

For some senior officers, especially those responsible for training and equipping America’s armed forces for combat on future battlefields, weapons modernization is now the military’s overriding priority. But for a surprising number of their compatriots, other considerations have begun to intrude into long-term strategic calculations. For those whose job it is to house all those forces and sustain them in combat, climate change has become an inescapable and growing concern. This is especially true for the commanders of facilities that would play a critical role in any future confrontation with China or Russia.

Many of the bases that would prove essential in a war with China, for example, are located on islands or in coastal areas highly exposed to sea-level rise and increasingly powerful typhoons. Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, a major logistical and submarine base in the Indian Ocean, for example, is situated on a low-lying atoll that suffers periodic storm flooding and is likely to be submerged entirely well before the end of the century. The Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, focused on preparing American defenses against the future use of nuclear missiles by either North Korea or China, is located on Kwajalein Atoll in the midst of the Pacific Ocean and is also destined to disappear. Similarly, the country’s major naval base in Asia, at Yokosuka, Japan, and its major air facility, at Kadena on the Japanese island of Okinawa, are located along the coast and are periodically assaulted by severe typhoons.

No less at risk are radar facilities and bases in Alaska intended for defense against Russian Arctic air and naval attacks. Many of the early-warning radars overseen by the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canadian operation, are located on the Alaskan and Canadian shores of the Arctic Ocean and so are being threatened by sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and the thawing of the permafrost on which many of them rest.

Equally vulnerable are stateside bases considered essential to the defense of this country, as well as its ability to sustain military operations abroad. Just how severe this risk has become was made painfully clear in late 2018 and early 2019, when two of the country’s most important domestic installations, Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, were largely immobilized by extreme storm events — Hurricane Michael in one case and a prolonged rainfall in the other.

Tyndall, located on a narrow strip of land projecting into the Gulf of Mexico, housed a large fraction of America’s F-22 “Raptor” stealth fighter jets along with the 601st Air and Space Operations Center (601st AOC), the main command and control unit for aerial defense of the continental United States. In anticipation of Michael’s assault, the Air Force was able to relocate key elements of the 601st AOC and most of those F-22s to other facilities out of the hurricane’s path, but some Raptors could not be moved and were damaged by the storm. According to the Air Force, 484 buildings on the base were also destroyed or damaged beyond repair and the cost of repairing the rest of the facilities was estimated at $648 million. It is, in fact, unclear if Tyndall will ever again serve as a major F-22 base or house all the key military organizations it once contained.

Offutt Air Force Base plays a similarly critical role in America’s defense operations, housing the headquarters of the Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), which is responsible for oversight of all U.S. nuclear strike forces, including its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Also located at Offutt is the 55th Wing, the nation’s premier assemblage of reconnaissance and electronic-warfare aircraft. In March 2019, after a severe low-pressure system (often called a “bomb cyclone”) formed over the western plains, the upper Missouri River basin was inundated with torrential rains for several days, swelling the river and causing widespread flooding. Much of Offutt, including its vital runways, was submerged under several feet of water and some 130 buildings were damaged or destroyed. USSTRATCOM continued to operate, but many key personnel were unable to gain access to the base, causing staffing problems. As with Tyndall, immediate repairs are expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars and full restoration of the base’s facilities many millions more.

Wildfires in California have also imperiled key bases. In May 2014, for example, Camp Pendleton was scorched by the Tomahawk Fire, one of several conflagrations to strike the San Diego area at the time. More than 6,000 acres were burned by the blaze and children at two on-base schools had to be evacuated. At one point, a major munitions depot was threatened by flames, but firefighters managed to keep them far enough away to prevent a catastrophic explosion.

An even more dangerous fire swept through Vandenberg Air Force Base, 50 miles north of Santa Barbara, in September 2016. Vandenberg is used to launch satellite-bearing missiles into space and houses some of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense missile interceptors that are meant to shoot down any North Korean (or possibly Chinese) ICBMs fired at this country. The 2016 blaze, called the Canyon Fire, burned more than 12,000 acres and forced the Air Force to cancel the launch of an Atlas V rocket carrying an earth-imaging satellite. Had winds not shifted at the last moment, the fire might have engulfed several of Vandenberg’s major launch sites.

Such perils have not (yet) been addressed in Pentagon documents like the National Defense Strategy and senior officers are normally reluctant to discuss them with members of the public. Nonetheless, it’s not hard to find evidence of deep anxiety among those who face the already evident ravages of climate change on a regular basis. In 2014 and 2017, analysts from the U.S. Government Accountability Office visited numerous U.S. bases at home and abroad to assess their exposure to extreme climate effects and came back with startling reports about their encounters.

“At 7 out of 15 locations we visited or contacted,” the survey team reported in 2014, “officials stated that they had observed rising sea levels and associated storm surge and associated potential impacts, or mission vulnerabilities.” Likewise, “at 9 out of 15 locations we visited or contacted, officials stated that they had observed changes in precipitation patterns and associated potential impacts,” such as severe flooding or wildfires.

Look through the congressional testimony of top Pentagon officials and you’ll find that similar indications of unease abound. “The Air Force recognizes that our installations and infrastructure are vulnerable to a wide variety of threats, including those from weather, climate, and natural events,” said John Henderson, assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, environment and energy, at a recent hearing on installation resiliency. “Changing climate and severe weather effects have the potential to catastrophically damage or degrade the Air Force’s war-fighting readiness.”

Threats to the Home Front

At a time when U.S. bases are experiencing the ever more severe effects of climate change, the armed forces are coming under mounting pressure to assist domestic authorities in coping with increasingly damaging storms, floods, and fires from those same climate forces. A prelude to what can be expected in the future was provided by the events of August and September 2017, when the military was called upon to provide disaster relief in the wake of three particularly powerful hurricanes — Harvey, Irma, and Maria — at the very moment California and the state of Washington were being ravaged by powerful wildfires.

This unprecedented chain of disasters began on August 26th, when Harvey — then a Category 4 hurricane — made landfall near Houston, Texas, and lingered there for five agonizing days, sucking up water from the Gulf of Mexico and dumping it on that area in what proved to be the heaviest continuous rainfall in American history. With much of Houston engulfed in flood waters, the DoD mobilized 12,000 National Guard and 16,000 active-duty Army troops to assist in relief operations.

Such cleanup operations were still under way there when Irma — a Category 5 storm and one of the most powerful hurricanes ever detected in the Atlantic Ocean — struck the eastern Caribbean, Puerto Rico, and southern Florida. Guard units sent by Florida’s governor to assist in Texas were hastily recalled and the Pentagon mobilized an additional 4,500 active-duty troops for emergency operations. To bolster these forces, the Navy deployed one of its aircraft carriers, the USS Abraham Lincoln, along with a slew of support vessels.

With some Guard contingents still involved in Texas and cleanup operations just getting under way in Florida, another Category 5 storm, Maria, emerged in the Atlantic and began its fateful course toward Puerto Rico, making landfall on that island on September 20th. It severed most of that island’s electrical power lines, bringing normal life to a halt. With food and potable water in short supply, the DoD commenced yet another mobilization of more than 12,000 active-duty and Guard units. Some of them would still be there a year later, seeking to restore power and repair roads in remote, harshly affected areas.

If finding enough troops and supply systems to assist in these relief operations was a tough task — akin to mobilizing for a major war — the Pentagon faced a no less severe challenge in addressing the threats to its own forces and facilities from those very storms.

When Hurricane Irma approached Florida and the Keys, it became evident that many of the Pentagon’s crucial southern installations were likely to suffer severe damage. Notable among them was Naval Air Station (NAS) Key West, a major hub for U.S. operations in the Caribbean region. Fearing the worst, its commander ordered a mandatory evacuation for all but a handful of critical personnel. Commanders at other bases in the storm’s path also ordered evacuations, including at NAS Jacksonville in Florida and Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia. Aircraft at these installations were flown to secure locations further inland while Kings Bay’s missile-carrying submarines were sent to sea where they could better ride out the storm. At least a dozen other installations were forced to relocate at least some personnel, planes, and ships.

Clusters of Extreme Events

While the extremity of each of these individual climate disasters can’t be attributed with absolute certainty to climate change, that they occurred at such strength over such a short time period is almost impossible to explain without reference to it. As scientists have indicated, the extremely warm waters of the Atlantic and Caribbean contributed to the fury of the three hurricanes and extreme dryness in California and the American West has resulted in severe recurring wildfires. All of these are predictable consequences of a warming planet.

That means, of course, that we can expect recurring replays of summer 2017, with multiple disasters (of ever-increasing magnitude) occurring more or less simultaneously. These, in turn, will produce ever more demands on the military for relief services, even as it is being forced to cope with the impact of such severe climate events on its own facilities. Indeed, the National Research Council (NRC), in a report commissioned by the U.S. Intelligence Community, has warned of just such a future. Speaking of what it termed “clusters of extreme events,” it noted that warming temperatures are likely to generate not just more destructive storms, but also a greater concentration of such events at the same time.

“Given the available scientific knowledge of the climate system,” the report notes, “it is prudent for security analysts to expect climate surprises in the coming decade, including… conjunctions of events occurring simultaneously or in sequence, and for them to become progressively more serious and frequent thereafter, and most likely at an accelerating rate.”

Combine the ravages of Harvey, Irma, Maria, Katrina, and Sandy with the wildfires recently blasting across California and you get some sense of what our true “national security” landscape might look like. While the Pentagon, the National Guard, and local authorities should be able to cope with any combination of two or three such events, as they did in 2017 (although, according to critics, the damage to Puerto Rico has never been fully repaired), there will come a time when the climate assault is so severe and multifaceted that U.S. leaders will be unable to address all the major disasters simultaneously and will have to pick and choose where to deploy their precious assets.

At that moment, the notion of focusing all our attention on managing military rivalries with China and Russia (or other potential adversaries) will appear dangerously distracting. Count on this: U.S. forces sent to foreign bases and conflicts (as with the never-ending wars of this century in the Greater Middle East and Africa) will undoubtedly be redeployed homeward to help overcome domestic dangers. This may seem improbable today, with China and Russia building up their arsenals to counter American forces, but scientific analyses like those conducted by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the NRC, suggest that those two countries are then no less likely to be facing multiple catastrophes of their own and will be in no position to engage in conflicts with the United States.

And so there will come a time when a presidential visit to the Situation Room involves not a nuclear crisis or the next major terrorist attack, but rather a conjunction of severe climate events, threatening the very heartbeat of the nation.

Michael T. Klare is the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. His newest book, The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources, has just recently been published. His other books include: Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum. A documentary version of Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation.

===

this week grain down 1/3? plus

Climate Change Threatens the World’s Fisheries, Food Billions of People Rely On

BY GEORGINA GUSTIN

ICN 919

ew 919

another sign of the climate crisis, a record seven million people were displaced from their homes by extreme weather events during the first half of 2019, The New York Times reported Thursday.

===

819

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/analysis-of-25-worlds-wealthiest-families-a-reminder-of-inequalitys-economic-drain/

no lnx

Analysis of 25 world’s wealthiest families a reminder of inequality’s economic drain

Written by Common Dreams August 11, 2019

If the world needed yet another example of just how unequal the global economy has become, a new analysis of the top 25 wealthiest family dynasties published Saturday revealed that while one out of ten people in the world live on less than $2.00 per day, these super rich families now control a total of $1.4 trillion in assets and are making as much as$4 million every single hour.

According to Bloomberg, the numbers are “mind-boggling” and include a look at—just to name a few—the fabulous riches of the Walton family, which controls the Walmart fortune, the Mars family, descendants of the candy empire, the Saudi Royal family, and the infamous Koch brothers, the right-wing libertarians who inherited their father’s oil, gas, and other holdings.

Notable in the new analysis is not just the size of the massive wealth these families now have, but just how exponentially it has grown, especially compared to others in the economy—both in the last several decades and over the last 12 months.

As Bloomberg points out:

Even in this era of extreme wealth and brutal inequality, the contrast is jarring. The heirs of Sam Walton, Walmart’s notoriously frugal founder, are amassing wealth on a near-unprecedented scale—and they’re hardly alone.

The Walton fortune has swelled by $39 billion, to $191 billion, since topping the June 2018 ranking of the world’s richest families.

Other American dynasties are close behind in terms of the assets they’ve accrued. The Mars family, of candy fame, added $37 billion, bringing its fortune to $127 billion. The Kochs, the industrialists-cum-political-power-players, tacked on $26 billion, to $125 billion.

So it goes around the globe. America’s richest 0.1% today control more wealth than at any time since 1929, but their counterparts in Asia and Europe are gaining too. Worldwide, the 25 richest families now control almost $1.4 trillion in wealth, up 24% from last year.

In 2014, the United Nations issued a scathing report which warned that escalating income and wealth disparities across the world was creating economic and political instability. The report, put forth by the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), cautioned leaders that if unaddressed the trend of inequality would “undermine the very foundations of development and social and domestic peace.”

Earlier this year, Oxfam International also warned that global wealth inequality was “out of control” and urged immediate far-reaching action. “Our economy is broken,” the group said at the time. “Hundreds of millions of people living in extreme poverty while huge rewards go to those at the very top. There are more billionaires than ever before, and their fortunes have grown to record levels. Meanwhile, the world’s poorest got even poorer.”

So while the Trump administration in the United States and other right-wing forces advocating on behalf of the global oligarchy continue to tell workers and struggling families around the world that the threat to them is “immigrants taking their jobs” or “socialists trying to provide better wages and more universal protections”—others pointed to the new Bloomberg analysis as an alternative explanation for why there seems to be less and less for some people in the economy while the ultra-rich continue to amass fortunes at breakneck speed.

As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, an analysis by Dallas Morning News finance columnist Scott Burns found that if current trends continue, the wealthiest Americans “will truly ‘have it all’ just 33 years from now”as they gobble up a larger and larger share of the overall economic pie.

“However you slice it, the rich have been getting richer. Lots richer,” Burns wrote.

aha

cf lakoff strict FATHER, the fasciststrong man alone can save us from the chaos: the invasion of brown other foreigners, the theft of our mfg jobs by china and 3rd world...

no lnx

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/democratic-2020-strategy-must-be-gloves-off-and-abandon-all-subtletytrump-will-kill-your-dog/

Democratic 2020 strategy must be gloves off and abandon all subtlety: ‘Trump will kill your dog!’

sounds like a joke, but it's sort of jiu jitsu, using trump strength (here literally) against him: the Dems will take care of you (health care, school student debt etc)

winners take all bk?

silicon valley / VC fetishize a disruptive technology: define? scales fast. colonizes/hijacks some buffer/asset?

poster boy: uber takes out archaic taxi model.

ebay (as social entre?)

Craigslist? extraxct value from your stuff, but also recycle to make useful and prevent dumb duplication.

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https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-end-of-civilization-2638676434.html

619

A new report warns that climate change could displace more than a billion people, leave two billion without regular water access and lead to a breakdown in international order by 2050 if nations do not increase their commitments under the Paris agreement.

"Climate change now represents a near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilization," the report authors conclude.

The new assessment comes from the Melbourne, Australia-based think tank Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration and was written by Breakthrough's research director David Spratt and former Royal Dutch Shell senior executive Ian Dunlop. The authors use the dire scenario outlined in the report to call for a massive international mobilization towards a zero-emissions economy on the scale of efforts seen during World War II.

"A high-end 2050 scenario finds a world in social breakdown and outright chaos," Spratt told Vice. "But a short window of opportunity exists for an emergency, global mobilization of resources, in which the logistical and planning experiences of the national security sector could play a valuable role."

The report authors have a major endorsement from that sector in the figure of retired Admiral and former Chief of the Australian Defence Force Chris Barrie, who wrote the paper's foreword.

"David Spratt and Ian Dunlop have laid bare the unvarnished truth about the desperate situation humans, and our planet, are in, painting a disturbing picture of the real possibility that human life on earth may be on the way to extinction, in the most horrible way," Barrie wrote.

Spratt and Dunlop based their scenario on findings that current Paris commitments would lock in three degrees Celsius of warming by 2100. However, since those findings do not account for feedback loops set in motion by future warming, Spratt and Dunlop predict three degrees of warming by mid-century.

"It should be noted that this is far from an extreme scenario: the low-probability, high-impact warming (five percent probability) can exceed 3.5–4°C by 2050 in the Xu and Ramanathan scheme," they write.

The impacts of three degrees of warming by 2050 would include:

The collapse of ecosystems like coral reefs, the Amazon and the Arctic
Unlivable temperatures for more than 100 days a year in West Africa, tropical South America, the Middle East and South-East Asia
Aone-fifth decline in agricultural yields
The flooding of coastal cities, small islands and low-lying regions including Chennai, Mumbai, Jakarta, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Shanghai, Lagos, Bangkok, Manila and ten percent of Bangladesh
Likely armed conflict over resources, with the possibility of nuclear war

Spratt and Dunlop offer what they call a "scenario planning" approach to climate risk assessment, because they argue that current risk-assessment strategies aren't adequate in the face of the existential threat posed to human civilization by the worst-case climate change predictions.

"What is needed now is an approach to risk management which is fundamentally different from conventional practice. It would focus on the high-end, unprecedented possibilities, instead of assessing middle-of-the-road probabilities on the basis of historic experience," they write.

The point is ultimately to avoid the scenario outlined in the report.

"A doomsday future is not inevitable!" Barrie wrote in the foreword. "But without immediate drastic action our prospects are poor. We must act collectively. We need strong, determined leadership in government, in business and in our communities to ensure a sustainable future for humankind."

Global Warming Is Messing with the Jet Stream. That Means More Extreme Weather.

BY BOB BERWYN

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AGW //INEQUALITY (and increases?)

reverse matthew: poor get poorer/ EJ 1st and worst, tho did not cause

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22042019/climate-change-inequality-gdp-equator-africa-russia-norway-canada

A few countries in cold climates, including Canada, Norway and Russia, likely benefited economically from global warming in past decades, while poorer countries closer to the equator suffered economic losses, a new study says.

The findings suggest that climate change exacerbated global inequality, causing the most economic harm to those who did the least to cause it.

But what the future will look like is less clear. Research has shown that over the long term, just about every part of the world will suffer as global temperatures rise.

The study looked at each country's per capita GDP—the per-person value of the country's economic activity—over several decades from as early as 1961 to 2010, and then used climate models to estimate what each country's GDP would have been without the influence of global warming.

"India, for example, has approximately 30 percent lower per capita GDP today than if global warming had not occurred," said Noah Diffenbaugh, the study's lead author and an earth sciences professor at Stanford University. "In India there are hundreds of millions of people living below $2 a day. A 30 percent reduction in per capita GDP is substantial. That is the order of magnitude of the economic impacts during the Great Depression here in the United States."

When the authors compared their findings across countries, they found the greatest harm to GDP in poorer countries closer to the equator, while a few northern countries showed a GDP gain compared to the model of a world without global warming. The study looked at changes from 1961 to 2010 for those countries with available data, and also from 1991 to 2010 when more national data was available. The United States showed a loss of less than 1 percent, according to the study. [map graf]....

36 Die in India Heat Wave, Delhi Records Its Highest All-Time Temperature

EXTREME WEATHER

619 dailly kos

Rare and strange’: Clash over water kills 15 monkeys in India during brutal heatwave

In India, WhatsApp is a weapon of antisocial hatred

Rohit Chopra, Santa Clara University

India's parliamentary elections, now underway, will show how social media is affecting Indian society and government.

india and paki fight for water in Kashmir? Dar Jamal ice bk

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Are India and Pakistan on the Verge of a Water War?

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/02/25/are-india-and-pakistan-on-the-verge-of-a-water-war-pulwama-kasmir-ravi-indus/

Interview Are India and Pakistan on the Verge of a Water War? In reprisal for a deadly terrorist attack in Kashmir, the Indian government says it will divert river waters that downstream Pakistan ...

India to cut water to Pakistan as Kashmir conflict escalates ...

https://www.dw.com/en/india-to-cut-water-to-pakistan-as-kashmir-conflict-escalates/a-47622188

News India to cut water to Pakistan as Kashmir conflict escalates. The move has come amid rising tensions in Kashmir after an attack on an Indian military post.

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https://www.projectcensored.org/climate-change-and-national-security-through-the-lens-of-key-federal-publications

Susan Maret for Project Censored

As I write, the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the :{United Nations Convention on Climate Change:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:(UNFCCC) has concluded. COP24 was :{held at Katowice:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, Poland from December 3-17, 2018 and brought together representatives from 200 governments :{to adopt guidelines for the Paris Agreemen:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:t. The foundational document for COP24 was IPCC’s (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) *Global Warming of 1.5°C,* with 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7F) as a goal set by :{Paris:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:. The IPCC report :{was approved:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: by representatives from 195 nations, including the U.S.; during COP24, the U.S., Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, however, failed to endorse the report arguing that IPCC’s study should be :{“noted” not “welcomed.”:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:

:{Rising temperatures, extreme heat, drought, wildfire on rangelands and heavy downpours are expected to increasingly challenge the quality and quantity of U.S. crop yields, livestock health, price stability and rural livelihoods.

:{Continued changes to Earth’s climate will cause major disruptions in some ecosystems. Some coral reef and sea ice ecosystems are already experiencing transformational changes, affecting communities and economies that rely upon them.

:{Changes in the quality and quantity of fresh water available for people and the environment are increasing risks and costs to agriculture, energy production, industry and recreation.

:{Climate change will transform coastal regions by the latter part of this century, with ripple effects on other regions and sectors. Many communities should expect higher costs and lower property values from sea level rise.

Climate change threatens the health and well-being of the American people by causing increasing extreme weather, changes to air quality, the spread of new diseases by insects and pests, and changes to the availability of food and water.

Post COP24, the World Health Organization’s report, :{*Health and Climate Change*:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, recommends that the effects of “health-damaging” air pollution and greenhouse gases be integrated into fiscal and economic policies (p.17, 63). An additional recommendation made by the Organization is monitoring mitigation efforts by way of the Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs), :{especially Goal 13}:.Goal 13 is linked to the right to health as recognized by the Paris Agreement and numerous :{human rights instruments}:.}:

National Security (Re)Visioned

In 1977, scientist and founder of the Worldwatch Institute, Lester Brown, wrote the prescient Redefining National Security. In his essay, Brown suggests that the “overwhelmingly military character” of national security ignores natural threats to human societies and ecosystems. Brown observed these “:{new threats to national security:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: will challenge the information-gathering and analytical skills of government” (p. 36). More importantly, Brown notes

the purpose of national security deliberations should not be to maximize military strength but to maximize national security.If this latter approach were used, public resources would be distributed more widely among the many threats to national security – both the traditional military one and the newer, less precisely measured ones. (:{p.37:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:)

To place Brown’s comments in context, a :{Joint Chiefs of Staff publication:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: titled Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States(JP 1, March 25, 2013) describes national security historically as a

Collective term encompassing both national defense and foreign relations of the United States with the purpose of gaining: a. military or defense advantage over any foreign nation or group of nations; b. A favorable foreign relations position; or c. A defense posture capable of successfully resisting hostile or destructive action from within or without, overt or covert. (GL-9)

On the tail end of COP24, I find myself pondering Brown’s ideas, especially in terms of how climate change is portrayed in major defense and intelligence publications over the past decade. Even though the current U.S. response to COP24 favors a type of denial rooted in vested interest, I was curious to learn how certain agencies, bodies, and presidential administrations viewed climate change in their public communiques. To this end, I reviewed a number of official federal publications to discover how these entities came to designate climate change as a social problem in its own right – that is, “what people decide what is and is not a social problem by the way they react to things.” [1]

The Publications: Glacial Thinking & Hashing Out A Problem

The U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD)Quadrennial Defense Review(QDR), the

:{the Intelligence Community’s (IC) Global Trends (compiled by National Intelligence Council, or NIC) *Global Trends* and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) annually published *Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community*, and the quasi-annual National Security Strategy of the United States, published by the Office of the President, are but a few official publications where the deep connections between climate change and national security are inconsistently identified and analyzed. Below I report on how connections between climate change and national security are reported these publications.

Defense

The *Quadrennial Defense Review* was first published in 1997 and :{ceased:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: in 2017. It is indeed a puzzlement that discussion of climate change wasn’t included in the early iterations of the QDR,for as :{Michael Fincham reports}: in October 2003, “a little known think tank in the Department of Defense quietly released a report warning that climate change could happen suddenly – so suddenly it could pose a major threat to our country’s national security.” In response to the lack of climate discussion in the QDR, John T. Ackerman, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, argued for DOD to include the influence of :{climate change}: on the armed forces. It isn’t until the 2010 version of the QDR that climate change is identified as an “accelerant of instability and conflict” and that “extreme weather events may lead to increased demands for defense support” (p. 85). [2]

In the final volume of QDRpublished in 2014,climate change, food, water, energy security, and the search for new technologies are examined in an interconnected manner – in fact, this volume of the :{*QDR*:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: distinguished climate change as a “:{threat multiplier:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:,” a concept used by CNA in 2007 in its report National Security and the Threat of Climate Change. The QDRobserves that climate-related change is a security threat to countries worldwide:

The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will

aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions – conditions that can enable

terrorist activity and other forms of violence. (p. 8)

Lastly, DoD published its :{*Report on National Security Implications of Climate-Related Risks and a Changing Climate*:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: as part of the H.R. 4870, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act (July 23, 2015). DoD writes that this report

reinforces the fact that global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for U.S. national security interests over the foreseeable future because it will aggravate existing problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions that threaten domestic stability in a number of countries. (p. 3)

:{:{This report singled out }::{“four general areas of climate-related security risks” as targeted by Geographic Combatant Commands (the various “COMs,” such as USCENTCOM, USNORTHCOM, etc.) are outlined as::{ }:

}:}:

Persistently recurring conditions such as flooding, drought, and higher temperatures
Extreme weather events
Sea level rise and temperature changes
Decreases in Arctic ice cover, type, and thickness (p.3-5)

The IC / National Intelligence Council

The National Intelligence Council’s *Global Trends* is issued every four years since 1997 and details “how key trends and uncertainties might shape the world over the next 20 years to help senior US leaders think and plan for the longer term.”

NIC’s *Global Trends 2015* (published December, 2000), barely mentions global warming and greenhouse gases in terms of a challenge to the U.S. and international community; *Global Trends 2020: Mapping the Global Future* widely discusses climate change as a problem through to the year 2020. However, by the 2008 publication of*Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World*, climate change presents center stage, characterized as a “security issue” (p. xi). *Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds* (2012) and *Global Trends: Paradox of Progress* (2017) connects civil unrest to food and :{water (in)security:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: caused by climate change, and hence as critical factors in maintaining national and international security. [3]

In September 2016, NIC released :{*Implications for US National Security of Anticipated Climate Change*:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:.In this report, the Council identified that climate change “and its resulting effects are likely to pose wide-ranging national security challenges for the United States and other countries over the next 20 years” (p.3). NIC outlined the following “pathways” where national security may be compromised by theeffects of climate related-change:

Threats to the stability of countries
Heightened social and political tensions
Adverse effects on food prices and availability
Increased risks to human health
Negative impacts on investments and economic competitiveness
Potential climate discontinuities and secondary surprises.

:{:{The IC /

Office of the Director of National Intelligence}:}:

The first Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community was published with a “statement for the record” by ODNI John Negroponte; the 2006 and 2007 volumes center on the contemporary problem of terrorism (ODNI Negroponte), with much the same commentary in the 2008 edition (ODNI J. Michael McConnell). However, beginning with the 2009 volume (ODNI Dennis C. Blair), climate change increasingly becomes a priority security issue alongside terrorism, cybersecurity, resource depletion, energy security, WMDs, pandemics, and mass atrocities; in the :{2014 volume:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: (ODNI Clapper), the Assessment recognizes that “extreme weather events” and a “general warming trend is probably affecting weather and ecosystems…in recent years, local food, water, energy, health, and economic security have been episodically degraded worldwide by severe weather conditions” (p.11). By the :{2015 edition:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, climate change is singled out as a factor “in the distribution of vectors for diseases” and extreme weather events (p.11).

With the :{2016 annual:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: volume (ODNI Clapper), the Assessment dramatically shifts in its discussion in connecting

extreme weather, climate change, environmental degradation, related rising demands for food and water, poor policy responses, and inadequate critical infrastructure will probably exacerbate and – and potentially spark – political instability, adverse health conditions, and humanitarian crises in 2016. (p.13-14)

The :{2017 report:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: (ODNI Coats) is noteworthy for the IC’s statement on the record that they “assess national security implications of climate change but do not adjudicate the science of climate change.” In its report, the ODNI/IC defers tosciencein the form of

US government-coordinated scientific reports, peer reviewed literature, and reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is the leading international body responsible for assessing the science related to climate change. (p.14)

:{The :{2018 *Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community*}: (ODNI Coats) again stresses extreme weather events, a “warming climate,” and other “drivers” that

raise the risk of humanitarian disasters, conflict, water, food shortages, population migration, labor shortfalls, price shocks, and power outages. Research has not identified indicators of tipping points in climate-linked earth systems, suggesting the possibility of abrupt climate change. (p.16)

:{:{The President /

The National Security Strategy of the United States}:}:

It is the National Security Strategy of the United States (NSS) that represents the official face of U.S. national security priorities. [4] The NSS is submitted in classified and unclassified versions as directed by the :{Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Department :(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:Reorganization Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-433, October 1, 1986), which states that a sitting president “shall transmit to Congress each year a comprehensive report on the national security strategy of the United States.” Per the Act, the NSS is distributed “on the date on which the President submits to Congress the budget for the next fiscal year.”

Among the information included in the annual NSS volume is “a comprehensive description and discussion of the following: (1) The worldwide interests, goals, and objectives of the United States that are vital to the national security of the United States.” NSS editions are variously titled; for instance, the Clinton administration’s NSS are creatively titled National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement(1994) and National Security Strategy for a New Century(1997).

It is important to note that even though mandated by Goldwater-Nichols, historically the NSS has not been annually published. Case in point, the NSS was unevenly published from the Reagan through Obama administrations; in particular, the George W. Bush and Barack Obama presidential administrations are notable for not publishing the annual NSS as required by Goldwater-Nichols.

:{:{A quick read of *NSS* volumes indicate that climate change was not historically a priority issue. However, certain NSS volumes compiled by presidential administrations that do include discussion of this security challenge are:}:

:{The 1991 *NSS*:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: (GHW Bush administration) briefly mentions climate change;
:{The 1994 *NSS*:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: (Clinton) is ambitious in its discussion of a National (Action) Climate Plan and compliance with the Montreal Protocol on ozone depleting chemicals. The idea of environmental security – that is, environmental degradation has a resulting impact on national security – has its genesis in this NSS [5];
:{The 1997 *NSS*:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: (Clinton) suggests that climate change, associated environmental challenges, and sustainable development require global partnerships;
:{The 2002 *NSS*:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: (GW Bush) notes that “economic growth should be accompanied by global efforts to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions associated with this growth, containing them at a level that prevents dangerous human interference with the global climate.” The Bush NSSalso recommends increased spending on “research and conservation technologies”;
:{The 2010 *NSS*:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: (Obama) suggests that a “global effort to combat climate change must draw on national actions,” but these efforts must be “incentivized, so nations that choose to do so their part see the benefits of responsible actions”;
:{The 2015 *NSS*:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}::{ (Obama) perhaps goes deeper than any other NSS published during previous administrations in thinking of climate change in a ecosystems way. That is, this NSS not only notes the “accelerating impact of climate change,” but plainly states “climate change is an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources like food and water. The present-day effects of climate change are being felt from the Arctic to the Midwest.”

This NSSalso marks international progress and U.S. contributions to the global community in targeting emissions through the Climate Action Plan, Copenhagen Accord (:{UN Conference on Climate Change:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, 2009), the :{Green Climate Fund}:, and the Montreal Protocol.

The sole *NSS* issued by the Trump administration in 2017 characterizes climate in terms of “America’s business climate” (p.21), an “investor-friendly climate” (p.22), and “energy dominance” within the context of an “anti-growth energy agenda” (p.22).In what can only be characterized as a deliberate lack of vision – not ignorance – climate change, global warming, greenhouse gases, extreme weather events, water security and scarcity, and their effects on U.S. domestic and national security are noticeably absent – all factors that press on human security. [6] This is not only a glaring error, it is disturbingly contradictory, as Congress and the Trump administration seemingly “affirm that climate change threatens security” and requested the U.S. military to plan for the effects of climate change.}:

Also absent from the Trump administration’ NSS and 2017-2018 defense and IC publications is Obama Presidential Memorandum (September 21, 2016), *Climate Change and National Security*. The Memorandum

establishes a framework and directs Federal departments and agencies (agencies) to perform certain functions to ensure that climate change-related impacts are fully considered in the development of national security doctrine, policies, and plans.

Conclusion

Climate change is now almost universally recognized as a grave challenge to the national security of the U.S. and its global counterparts. As illustrated in this essay, it took decades for climate change and its association with national security to capture the imagination of certain federal bodies. [6] The particular publications discussed here exemplify how challenges are characterized in the federal universe and elevated to the status of an “official” or recognized social problem; on another level, these publications stand as forecasting tools andindicators of warning and uncertainty. [7] In effect, the documents produced by DoD, the Intelligence Community, and presidential administrations are fodder for policymaking and sustainable action if political will prevails.

Susan Maret, Ph.D. teaches information secrecy and other courses at the iSchool, San Jose State University. In addition to research and writing on various aspects of secrecy, she is also the managing editor of the open access, peer-reviewed journal :{*Secrecy and Society*:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:. Maret has published two previous chapters in Project Censored’s annual books by :{Seven Stories Press:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, “Contested Visions, Imperfect Information, and the Persistence of Conspiracy Theories” for Censored 2017,and “The Public and its Problems: ‘Fake News’ and the Battle for Hearts and Minds” for Censored 2019, and has shared her Information Integrity Checklist online with their partnering organization, the Global Critical Media Literacy Project :{here:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:.

Notes

===

'Scary': Warming of Oceans Is Equivalent to 1.5 Atomic Bombs Every Second Over Past 150 Years

By Julia Conley

Carbon emissions are affecting life in all of Earth's ecosystems—contributing to drought, flooding and the melting of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. But a new study by researchers at Oxford University details how the planet's oceans are by far the climate crisis's biggest victim, with implications for the global population.

Keep reading...

...

The Guardian made that calculation after examining the report, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—and alarmed the study's lead author, who confirmed it was accurate.

"I try not to make this type of calculation, simply because I find it worrisome," Prof. Laure Zannat told the Guardian. "We usually try to compare the heating to [human] energy use, to make it less scary."

But Zannat's preferred calculation was hardly less troubling, with the study finding that the heating of the oceans from 1871 to the present day is also equivalent to 1,000 times the energy used by the entire global population every year.

With carbon emissions rising in recent decades, up 60 percentsince 1990, the warming oceans can be compared to the effects of three atomic bombs, like the ones that decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, per second since that year.

As researchers have reported in recent years, the world's oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the carbon emissions caused by oil and gas drilling, agriculture, and other human activity.

Most of the heat the Oxford University researchers studied is being stored deep in the world's oceans, causing sea level rise and making hurricanes and tsunamis stronger and more destructive.

"Obviously, we are putting a lot of excess energy into the climate system and a lot of that ends up in the ocean. There is no doubt," Zanna told the Guardian.

icn series:

https://insideclimatenews.org/content/danger-without-borders

Droughts, extreme heat, wildfires, rising seas, flooding have started to threaten military bases and infrastructure. Destabilizing weather worsens tensions abroad that could draw in U.S. forces.

In this ongoing series InsideClimate News examines how threats to national security are being multiplied by climate change.

The Pentagon has pointed to the Syrian civil war as an example of how global warming can aggravate the fragility of a nation riddled with tensions and poor governance. But where is the next Syria? And will the U.S. military, if called upon, be able to respond to international crises if climate change has hammered its ships, planes and training grounds?

===

World Health Leaders: Climate Change Is Putting Lives, Health Systems at Risk

BY: PHIL MCKENNA

Doctors today are seeing early warnings of the "overwhelming impact" on public health as global temperatures rise. Read more

In the Mount Everest Region, World's Highest Glaciers Are Melting, Receding

BY: KUNDA DIXIT

In this photo essay, the editor of the Nepali Times describes dramatic changes underway in the ice and snow of the Himalayan Mountains. Read more

===

*Farmers, Don't Count on Technology to Protect Agriculture from Climate Change

:{BY: GEORGINA GUSTIN

The worsening impact of heat, drought and extreme weather will overtake tech and science advances within decades at the current pace, the new U.S. climate report warns.}: Read more*

*:{

}:*

also FISHERIES ACIDIFICATION

see gw2 for links and infographics

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23112018/infographic-national-climate-assessment-us-economy-extreme-weather-global-warming-cost-lives-wildfires-agriculture-federal-report

The U.S. government's climate scientists issued a blunt warning on Friday, writing that global warming is a growing threat to human life, property and ecosystems across the country, and that the economic damage—from worsening heat waves, extreme weather, sea level rise, droughts and wildfires—will spiral in the coming decades.

The country can reduce those costs if the U.S. and the rest of the world cut their greenhouse gas emissions, particularly the burning of fossil fuels. Capping global greenhouse gas emissions to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6°F) or less would avoid hundreds of billions of dollars of future damages, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, written by a science panel representing 13 federal agencies.

The report, like a recent comprehensive assessment issued by the United Nations, signaled the mounting urgency for governments to act quickly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before locking in high risks. And it underscored, without saying so directly, how the Trump administration is moving in the opposite direction.

The agencies write that global warming is:

Intensifying and increasing the frequency of extreme rainstorms that cause devastating flooding and crop losses.

Putting people and economies at risk as temperatures rise: Increases in extreme heat waves could kill up to 2,000 more people per year in the Midwest alone by 2090, and Chicago's climate could be more like Phoenix, with temperatures reaching 100°F on 50 to 60 days in summer.

Increasing the drying of land and vegetation, which puts crops at risk and contributes to deadly wildfires.

Harming U.S. forests, making them more vulnerable to fire and insects, disrupting their watersheds and wildlife habitat, and also reducing their ability to store carbon.

Putting water supplies and water quality at risk, with "significant changes already evident across the country," including more pollution runoff from extreme rainfall that, along with warmer water, fuels and toxic algae blooms.

Creating multiple threats for coastal communities, including significant shifts in fish populations, ocean acidification, direct flooding damage from rising sea level and tropical storms. Along the coasts, $1 trillion in public infrastructure and private property are threatened by flooding, rising sea level and storm surges.

Threatening indigenous peoples' livelihoods and economies by affecting fishing, agriculture and forestry.

The report looks at the damage already happening and what's ahead in each region, describing damage from wildfires and the impact of ocean acidification on shellfish in the Northwest; rising temperatures thawing permafrost in Alaska; coral reef damage in Hawaii; hurricanes, coastal flooding and mosquito-borne diseases in the Southeast; extreme rainfall destroying crops and eroding farm soil in the Midwest; flash droughts in the Northern Plains; and the dwindling of the snowpack and the Colorado River that the Southwest relies on.

U.S. temperatures have already risen about 1.8°F (1°C) since the start of the Industrial era, and that warming has been accelerating in recent decades. "Recent record-setting hot years are projected to become common in the near future for the United States," the report says.

"It drives home the fact that climate change isn't a far off threat," said Pennsylvania State University Climate researcher Michael Mann.

Chart: What's Driving Climate Change?

The report also shows how global warming impacts will be multiplied by disruptions to energy, transportation and other infrastructure that cascade across economic sectors, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist David Easterling, a lead author for the climate science section.

For example, heat waves and droughts can cut energy production if there is not enough water to cool power plants, which can limit manufacturing and even affect health care in hospitals. Hurricane Harvey's damage to power infrastructure affected water treatment plants and refineries, shutting down 11 percent of U.S. oil refining capacities and causing a temporary spike in gas prices.

Industries that rely on natural resources are especially vulnerable.

"Without significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, extinctions and transformative impacts on some ecosystems cannot be avoided, with varying impacts on the economic, recreational, and subsistence activities they support," Easterling said.

Huge Economic Costs, and They're Rising

With detailed projections for geographic regions, scientists can now also project the multibillion-dollar costs of global warming impacts based on robust data, said Philip Mote, a climate researcher at Oregon State University who worked on the report.

"We're finally seeing a lot more economic data. In the past, we could talk about, well this is going to happen, there will be lower streamflow(s), there will be more invasive species, this might happen, that might happen," he said. Now, more economic studies show the rising costs. In the worst-case scenario, global warming costs could total 10 percent of U.S. GDP by the end of the century, according to research cited in the report.

Chart: Climate Change's Economic Impact in the U.S.

How much those costs can be reduced will depend on how fast emissions of both carbon dioxide and short-lived climate pollutants like methane and HFCs are reduced and land-based carbon storage is ramped up.

"Decisions that decrease or increase emissions over the next few decades will set into motion the degree of impacts that will likely last throughout the rest of this century, with some impacts (such as sea level rise) lasting for thousands of years or even longer," the report says. "Early mitigation can reduce climate impacts in the nearer term (such as reducing the loss of perennial sea ice and effects on ice-dwelling species) and, in the longer term, prevent critical thresholds from being crossed (such as marine ice sheet instability and the resulting consequences for global sea level change)."

The release of the report suggests federal science has fared better then expected in the past two years, "due in part to some degree of bipartisan resolve that still remains when it comes to governmental support for science," Mann said.

But that doesn't offset the harm caused by the dismantling of environmental protections and green-lighting of climate-unfriendly energy policies at the Departments of Energy and Interior and elsewhere, he said.

Chart: Rising Emissions, Rising U.S. Costs

The severe damage caused by recent record floods from Hurricanes Harvey and Florence, as well as the catastrophic California wildfires, also suggest that "models aren't completely capturing the physics relevant to understanding and projecting these unprecedented weather extremes," Mann said.

Atmospheric scientist Kevin Trenberth, with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, also said that climate impact assessments in general tend to under-emphasize the effect of global warming on climate extremes.

"A lot more is attributable than is generally accepted," Trenberth said, citing recent research he worked on showing links between deep ocean heat content and the damaging floods from Hurricane Harvey. In the Pacific, global warming is likely to intensify El Niños, with "bigger and with stronger droughts and floods around the world."

And the U.S. is still behind the curve when it comes to responding to the growing threat.

Up to now, "neither global efforts to mitigate the causes of climate change nor regional efforts to adapt to the impacts currently approach the scales needed to avoid substantial damages to the U.S. economy, environment, and human health and well-being over the coming decades," the report concludes.

Farms and Food System at Higher Risk

The report stressed that American farmers and ranchers are already feeling the effects of climate change, and that those effects will worsen dramatically, with more extreme rainfall, flooding and drought.

"The farm and food system as we know it is transforming before our eyes, and the productivity we've benefited from is in jeopardy," explained Marcia DeLonge, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "We're going to lose commodity crops—due to different growing seasons, droughts, floods, and the costs to farmers and ranchers—and taxpayers—will be huge. And we're likely underestimating them."

Climate change will hit the Corn Belt particularly hard. Under a high-emissions scenario, the Midwest will see greater increases in warm-season temperatures than anywhere else in the country, with the frost-free season projected to increase by an average of 10 days from 2016 to 2045.

A rise in temperatures in the Midwest is "projected to be the largest contributing factor to declines in the productivity of U.S. agriculture," the report says. Agricultural productivity could drop to 1980s levels by 2050, the report said, essentially wiping out gains made in recent decades from improved technologies.

Millions of People Become More Vulnerable

World Resources Institute scientist Andrew Light, an author of the mitigation chapter, said it's clear the report is at odds with the administration's policy and with what President Trump says about climate change.

But that doesn't change the fact that millions of people are becoming more vulnerable to global warming impacts.

"We need to be reaching a point in this country where we are arguing about the best solutions, not over whether a problem exists. This report creates very clear terrain around which one could have this discussion," Light said.

He said some of the regional findings make it clear what's at stake for people. In New England, under a high emissions scenario, the distinctive seasons of New England could disappear, altering the region's fundamental character.

"It's hard to imagine there won't be distinct seasons. That indelibly changes the place," he said.

And in his native state of Georgia, the report identifies a growing risk of wildfires.

"That's incredibly distressing. It's not part of our annual cycle, we don't have a forest fire season in the Southeast, so it's horrible to imagine those kinds of impacts if you think about what we're seeing in California right now."

The 2016 wildfire that burned through Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is a prime example of how communities can be caught unaware of the risks.

"The people were not ready at all, and the changes that create this type of risk could happen quickly," Light said.

Was Trump Trying to Bury the Warnings?

The report is based on thousands of climate studies and is written by the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program, which includes scientists and policy experts from 13 federal agencies. A 1990 law created the program and mandates regular climate assessments.

The release of the report was originally scheduled for early December, but the date was moved up to the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, sometime during the past week, leading to concerns that the Trump administration meant to bury the report by publishing it during a holiday weekend. That drew scorn from some politicians.

"No matter how hard they try, the Trump administration can't bury the effects of climate change in a Black Friday news dump – effects their own federal government scientists have uncovered," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island.

"This report shows how climate change will affect every single one of our communities," he said. "The president says outrageous things like climate change is a hoax engineered by the Chinese and raking forests will prevent catastrophic wildfires, but serious consequences like collapsing coastal housing prices and trillions of dollars in stranded fossil fuel assets await us if we don't act."

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https://www.alternet.org/center-not-holding-and-trump-our-proof

As the world’s pre-eminent heads of state gather in Buenos Aires, Argentina, this weekend for the annual G-20 summit, the postwar order has never looked more fragile. War threatens to break out at any moment between Russia and Ukraine, Britain is staring into the abyss of a failed Brexit negotiation and the U.S. faces a rising tide of ethno-nationalism, reinforced in no small part by Donald Trump’s presidency. Compounding this larger crisis, new research indicates we have just 12 years to radically reduce carbon emissions or risk climate catastrophe.

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The center is not holding, and if a devastating new report from The New York Times is to be believed, the falconer’s falcon is but one of the innumerable creatures wiped off the planet just in the past 50 years. As Jonathan Aronson argues in his new book, “Digital DNA: Disruption and the Challenges for Global Governance,” we are living through a period of profound social and economic upheaval—one that threatens the very foundations of our political system.

“Last week,ast week, Sears declared bankruptcy,” Aronson tells Robert Scheer in the latest installment of “Scheer Intelligence.” “Sears, in many ways, was the Amazon of another age. They were the ones who distributed everything; they changed everything. So what has happened is the world has changed; the economies have changed; the companies have changed; but as usual, the rules have lagged behind.”

A professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Aronson examines what he refers to as a “hollowing out” of the working class and our elected officials. While the former has seen its jobs shipped overseas, the latter has grown increasingly beholden to multinationals, many of which now underwrite their campaigns. This, in turn, Aronson says, “pushes people left, it pushes people right. And at the same time you have an economic dearth in the middle. … The people who were in the middle in politics are also gone.”

That the United States and the West at large have arrived at an inflection point seems undeniable. Rather than give in to pessimism, however, Aronson argues we must view this historical moment as one of tremendous possibility.

“If we don’t get our act together and improve things for everybody—including your workers, your middle class, your poor, and not just the 1 percent—we could really descend into chaos,” he says. “But there is an opportunity, if we can get things right, which can only be done through bringing diverse groups with different interests together, and sort of finding ways to build a coalition among them, not against them—that there is still some hope.”

Listen to Aronson’s interview with Scheer or read a transcript of their conversation below:

Robert Scheer:Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of “Scheer Intelligence,” where the intelligence comes from my guests. In this case, it’s Jonathan Aronson, who has written a book with Peter Cowhey called “Digital DNA: Disruption and the Challenges for Global Governance.” The interesting idea of this book is–it’s a contradictory idea; on the one hand, clearly, digital communication, the digital age, the age of the internet, has changed everything. On the other hand, we have a set of problems that have been with us forever–problems of accountability, truth-telling, democracy, representation, bias. Our politics seem to be as much of an irrational mishmash as ever. And the public seems to be, well, more divided and more confused than ever. So what is the great wonder of the digital age?

Jonathan Aronson:It’s two things. You’re right; it’s contradictory. On the one hand, what has changed a great deal is the internet changes everything. Now, that’s both true and meaningless, because what it means is that you have to break it down and look piece-by-piece at what’s going on. In the case of this book, what we’re saying is communication, information technology, has forced the change of supply [chains] and business models of every kind of business. From agriculture to mining, from manufacturing to high-tech. All of those are changing, and all of those companies are scrambling to figure out how to continue to make money. This week, Sears declared bankruptcy. Sears, in many ways, was the Amazon of another age. They were the ones who distributed everything; they changed everything. So what has happened is the world has changed; the economies have changed; the companies have changed; but as usual, the rules have lagged behind.

RS:So let me ask you a question about this, because you’re a professor here at the University of Southern California Annenberg School in communications, but you also have a joint appointment in international relations. And when I look at this whole international situation, you know, at first we thought, as you say, the internet changes everything–we thought we’d get smarter, we’d have more information, our lives would be more meaningful. But there was a lurking fear that our work models may be broken, robotics may change everything. It seems to me the unexpected consequence of the internet is that capitalism, in a fundamental way, may be at risk. And an old concern of social well-being, of social welfare, is asserting itself: if people are going to lose their jobs, or the jobs are going to go abroad, or if some, a number of people are going to become billionaires and the others are going to have stagnant wages. You have a great fear that life as we know it no longer exists. And here we’re teaching at a university, where people are going to graduate; they have to go out and work, and they’re probably as set up for the internet world as any group of students; our school is very good at that. But on the other hand, the good-paying jobs may not be there. Their parents already know that; they’ve gone through a housing crisis, a recession. So let me ask you, in terms of your book–and I read it very carefully–I actually found it quite depressing. Not because of your writing or anything, but because of its vision of the world: that the brave new world of the internet might not sustain meaningful, productive, and stable life.

JA:We are in a period of dynamic change. I’m more optimistic about this. On the one hand, I see that the top-end students, people who are coming from here, people who know something about coding, people who are entrepreneurial, are probably going to do just fine. Even in an age of robots, I haven’t seen a student here in forty years who said, “I want to be on a manufacturing line.” We don’t produce students who will be displaced by robots. They may be involved with it. In addition, you have AI, artificial intelligence; you have 3-D printing, sometimes called advanced manufacturing. All of those are changing things, and it’s dynamically shifting very quickly. The other end of the scale, people who don’t have very much education at all–there are still going to be jobs there. The big problem is in the middle: what do we do with people who were making good money in steel factories, at automobile manufacturers, and those jobs are rapidly going away? Even in a place like a coal mine–President Trump is fond of saying “I’m going to bring back the coal mine.” Well, if that happens to be true, the miners are much more likely to be whizzing around–non-humans, robots of some sort that don’t get black lung disease, don’t unionize, and don’t demand pay. You’re never going to get the return of miners, and nobody much wants it.

RS:Well, let me tell you who wants it. When you’re a miner and you belong to the United Mine Workers union, or you’re an auto worker and you belong to the United Auto Workers, we had a mechanism for social justice in this society. We had a way of people getting decent wages, decent health care, decent opportunities, a prospect of sending their kids to the state university or somewhere else, where they would get ahead in life, and so forth. So we had the, for once, a modern economic component of equality, of opportunity, of a growing middle class. However, the internet has destroyed a model of sharing wealth. You see it with Amazon that doesn’t have unionized workers. You see it with the end of the journalism industry. We’re a school of communication and journalism; we now have more PR students than we have journalism students. So the business model of the internet begs for a new kind of socialism–or, on the right-wing side, a new kind of fascism.

JA:It’s a real serious problem. The book does not address employment directly, but what it acknowledges and what is embedded in it is that there is an extreme hollowing out in the middle. That the middle class are the ones who have not made the gains. It’s not just for themselves, because the coal miners may not have wanted to raise kids who were coal miners; they wanted to raise kids who could do well, and they’re losing that opportunity. So that’s where they are pushing it. At the same time, we have had the polarization and hollowing out of our elected officials. So it pushes people left, it pushes people right, and at the same time you have an economic dearth in the middle. You have–the people who were in the middle in politics are also gone.

RS:Well, but let’s take this disappearing middle class, or hollowing out of the middle class. Because the middle class was the great hope of democracy, economic democracy and stability. De Tocqueville, as a foreign observer, made a very important point: the saving grace of the American experiment was this ever-expanding middle class–of opportunity, of increasing skills, education, and so forth. If that has been hollowed out, what comes in its place? Maybe what comes in its place–and this is why I bring up Sanders and Trump–is either a regimented society, which rewards people who go along and march in lock-step, which is the neofascist model, and you keep your nose clean and OK, we’ll take care of you. Or a society which empowers people, aside from whether they have wealth or not, where you have meaningful elections without–with real campaign finance. Where you have guaranteed health care, so your job is not the ticket to your actual survival, right? Where you have guaranteed minimum wage, so people can live off their work. And it really seems to me a battle between a vision of fascism and a vision of social democracy.

JA:Or at least of authoritarianism. Doesn’t have to be a completely fascist state.

RS:Well, let me explain, because you’re a professor of international relations, I just want to defend the fascist label. Because the key to fascism really is an alliance between corporations, and a chauvinistic, jingoistic political message. And what I fear, and the reason I use the fascist element, it seems to me that one way you get stability is through this law-and-order, jingoistic, chauvinistic model. The other is by empowering–through unions, or through public education, or social services, or guaranteed health care–you empower, as maybe the Swedish model, the ordinary person to have a decent life, with or without wealth.

JA:Democratic socialism is the term that is sometimes being used. The problem is quite simple, which is those on that side, at this stage, are still losing, and losing consistently. So you take Sweden, for example; a right-wing party came in third, and has increasing power in Sweden in the election that happened last month. What you’re seeing over and over again is that those forces may win small pieces–individual elections–but they’re not winning the big elections. And the people who are afraid of immigrants, on the one hand, losing their own prosperity, are in the ascendant right now. I asked my students today what was the difference between strategy and tactics, and nobody knew. That catches us into the political side of this, because we have a president who doesn’t understand strategy, but who is a master tactician. He has a tactic, which he applies over and over and over again. And it works often enough that it attracts a stable base of supporters. But there’s no perception of where he wants to go with that.

RS:Tell us about the tactic.

JA:The tactic is pretty simple. And pretty well understood. One, President Trump believes that anything that he didn’t do, was wrong. So NAFTA was terrible, but the NAFTA revision, which was really an update, and quite incremental, was wonderful. Anything Obama did was terrible, by definition. Often anything a fellow republican did. So if it wasn’t his idea, it was a terrible thing. That’s part one. Part two, we all know he’s transactional. So that he is dealing in the moment, he is trying to think in terms of a zero-sum game; he plays what game theorists would call “chicken.” So he goes full-throttle ahead and hopes very much that the other side, being more rational than he, turns aside. Fourth, he is shameless. So it has been documented over and over and over again that he simply doesn’t tell the truth. He may not understand the difference between truth and lies, and he doesn’t care. And then fifth, he never apologizes.

RS:OK. So I got that, and I think that’s a pretty accurate description. But let me throw in another element, because this is true of any demagogue, effective demagogue. There has to be something they’re feeding on. There has to be angst, fear, a desperation–

JA:Anger.

RS:–anger, in the society. And we make a mistake if we minimize the significance of that. And I want to just throw in–and this does go to your book. And what we are seeing is a resurgence of a kind of nationalism, a jingoism. And Trump personifies that, but we’re seeing that in other countries. It seems to me we underestimate the Trump strategy and appeal if we don’t recognize that there is a big problem. And the big problem is that globalization doesn’t deliver back to the citizens of the nation-state. It actually begs the question, why do you need a nation-state? OK? When I look out at our students, the first thing I see are these open computers–every one of which, by the way, has been made in communist China. You know, now, if [Laughs] 20 years ago, when I first arrived here, or 25 years ago, if somebody had told me that communist China would represent the most successful capitalist model in this new economy, I would have thought they were crazy. But the fact of the matter is, an authoritarian state–China, still run by a communist party–has developed a model of catering to consumerism, of using this new technology, and so forth. OK. The big question for China or the United States really is, do you distribute the wealth? Really, your book begs the question, in the internet age, what is the significance of the nation-state?

JA:Let me both agree and disagree with you. Agreeing that business models are now global, and not going to be turned around. If you look at why the NAFTA is at some level trying to chase something that’s already happened, if you look at an auto engine right now, we are worrying about whether it’s 70 percent American, what part of it, what do we do with Mexico, what do we do with Canada. And in fact, an auto engine, the average number of times it moves across one border or another in North America is eight. From the time they begin it to the time it is delivered to wherever it is. It is impossible to figure out, is this an American, Canadian, Mexican, or something else in terms of that. So the model is global, and that runs in stark contradiction to the nation-state. In that, you’re absolutely right. The book is trying to do something else. First, we are believers in patience. That the reason we think there’s going to be a need for some global agreements, is that the system will be much less efficient, it will be much less robust and productive, if you don’t get some principles and norms agreed among nations. Do we expect this in the next two years? No, we do not.

RS:Right. And the book is “Digital DNA: Disruption and Challenges for Global Governance.” I am talking to Jonathan Aronson, a professor at the University of Southern California in international relations and in communication. [omission for station break] And I want to pick up on the point you were just making about where cars are produced, and NAFTA. And I think you kind of minimized–dare I say it, I hope I don’t get fired over this–Trump’s achievement with NAFTA 2.0.

JA:Well, let me make a couple of quick notes. OK, first, I want to note for the audience that the book is written with Peter Cowhey, who is a professor at the University of California, San Diego. Two, the data on NAFTA is very mixed. What we know is that the extremes are wrong. It did not help people in any country as much as those who proclaimed that it would had promised. Two, it did not hurt people inordinately. The best data that has come out seems to suggest that what you got was–it’s marginally better overall; it caused some real job growth, but the jobs that were lost tended to be much more union jobs. So the unions were hurt, but not the overall employment, in terms of this.

RS:By the way, NAFTA 2.0, I don’t want to give Trump too much credit, there was a serious cave-in on pharmaceuticals, which undermines Canada’s example of being able to control the prices of pharmaceuticals. This was a surprisingly good improvement over NAFTA, coming as it did from Trump. The bottom line is that no one of significance speaks for ordinary people. That’s why they turn to outliers–a good one like Bernie Sanders, a bad one like Trump. The reality is–and I was at the Democratic [National] Convention, and this TPP for instance, the trade agreement, and NAFTA, were attacked by the union people there, and many of the delegates felt the party had betrayed them on this issue, OK. So the significance–and this is why I’m bringing it up in context to this globalization–is that the average person in this country, including many democrats, feels they’ve been betrayed by this shift in the economy. And I want to spend a little time on this view of the new tech world. Because, yes, there are people in Silicon Valley who make good wages. But the fact is that most of the jobs connected with those computers and everything else in the high-tech world are either done abroad, you know, where profits for Apple and others are basically earned, and from low-wage workers; or they’re created here. I mean, a company like Amazon is a national scandal. Think about it! I mean, here’s a company where people are running around warehouses, and they are low paid, have not had basic rights to organize, unions have been busted. So all of the progress–but the fact is, in all of these trade agreements, no one cared about the tenure for ordinary workers. They got screwed. OK? I know I’m bringing some anger to the thing–

JA:That’s good!

RS:–but I don’t want to lose the issue. And the reason I think we can’t lose it is we can’t understand this election. We can’t understand this dynamic in the world. And yes, you get a rise of the right-wing when you don’t have a rise of the progressive left. But the fact of the matter is, the status quo cannot hold if trade and financial decisions and deregulation are all made for the one percent. That’s the bottom line.

JA:I agree with that. My problem is, I don’t have a good answer of how to get from here to there, to where you’re talking about. And I don’t know anybody who really does. Should the taxes on the one percent be higher? Absolutely. Where should you go with this? How do you manage to do that? I don’t have a good answer. I don’t know very many people who even have the beginning of an answer. So what I try to do, in my modest but not too modest way, along with Professor Cowhey, is plot a path to help improve the overall situation, and hope to hell that people smarter than I am can figure out how to solve, or how to begin to solve, the kinds of problems you’re describing. How do you set the, reset the equilibrium so that you can begin to focus on issues like this? The one that’s gotten a lot more attention is climate; how do you reset this when we have people who deny science running the country? There is a climate problem right now. It should be obvious to pretty much everybody; it isn’t. There is an employment problem. How do you deal with it? It should be obvious that we have the problem, but then where do you go? I’m reasonably certain, in terms of the areas that I deal with; I’m not a labor economist.

RS:I think we can find common ground. And that’s why I wanted to talk to you about your book. I think the book is very powerful, very interesting, in that you grasp the significance of what the title of the book is, “Digital DNA: Disruption and Challenges for Global Governance.” It’s worth reading–let me just be on the record here–it’s worth reading this book to get the scope of the change. I agree that there’s disruption and challenges for global governance. What I’m trying to say is, your book is a launching pad–I’m trying to take you to the next stage. And so I would like to move this discussion to this area of what do we do. And I’m going to give you some answers that I think lie in our history, OK. And this is why I brought up these old-fashioned labels of social democracy–and I’m not the first one; we finally do have people in our political process now who call themselves social democrats and so forth. And that’s a very good rubric for people who say, government has to care about the least among us and about working people and ordinary people, and the wealth has to be shared, to a degree that we have stakeholders and people can live a good life–OK. There’s a program connected with that–meaningful public education that is free, and Bernie Sanders was not being a wild-eyed guy when he said you could go through college, and should. When I went to City College in New York, you know, it was a free university. So we had a model of meaningful, free education: the state universities, the land-grant colleges, here in California the community colleges; we dropped that. We went for elite education, we went for a meritocracy, and you know, what does industry want, and we’ll be a service, we’ll feed industry what it wants. OK. So, ah, raising the minimum wage to something significant goes a long way to giving people a sense of safety–OK, do what you want with the economy, do trade, make all the deals, but make sure that people working here can make a living wage so they can support their family, and they will not be responsible for their children’s education, and they will not be responsible for their health care. That in fact, this is a human right, OK? So we extend human rights, and we extend it in these trade agreements, and here’s my beef with your book. These trade agreements did not include environmental protections in any significant way; they certainly did not include labor protections; but most important, they didn’t contain guarantees of democratic decision-making. The problem with NAFTA, these courts–if you have a legal issue, you go into basically a private court controlled by the corporations, who then bring in their own lawyers, and the judges are their lawyers from their thing. And there was no–they didn’t even let people, in the latest trade agreements, they didn’t even let people in Congress share it with the media. They had to go into secret rooms to read these things. So what you really have lost is the most fundamental human right, which is the democratic right of individuals to know what’s going on and what’s supposedly being done in their name. Unfortunately, if you don’t have that, you end up with this fascistic model of–that it seems to me Donald Trump is pushing to–where you disenfranchise ordinary people, by appealing to jingoism, by scapegoating immigrants and others, by buying them off with trinkets like the Volkswagen. And you give them jobs working in a militarized economy, and that’s the alternative model. That’s the dilemma that this new DNA of technology has presented us with.

JA:Let me answer in three parts. First, what I absolutely agree with is that what we created was a launching platform. But it is a multi-use launching platform. By describing the way the world economy exists today, it gives and opportunity for people to–and nations, and corporations, and civil society–to negotiate on a number of issues, from climate to environment to trade agreements. Second, something that hasn’t been mentioned here, but it’s gotten really messy and more complicated. To throw in three specific issues that have complicated matters, but make this really hard: one, we have the cloud; your data may be floating around anywhere. It’s not national anymore; you have no idea where it is. Two, and better known, we have all of the cybersecurity issues that have been raised. Trade people never dealt with those; they haven’t a clue how to deal with those, though they are trying hard to deal with it. And third, privacy issues are increasingly on the front page, are extremely important, from Facebook to Amazon. But in terms of what should be private–what do you think of “the right to be forgotten,” a European phrase? So those three things aren’t there. And finally, we haven’t talked about the way we suggest organizing the movement forward. And we are very strongly in favor of what are called multi-stakeholder organizations. We do not think that in this complicated, messy world, it is any longer possible for you to have states, to state, a big international institution, maybe a bank or two, do the negotiations. If civil society, if unions, if interested groups are not at the table, you’re not going to create the kinds of agreements that are going to hold going forward. So that in your sense of seeking a more democratic and transparent perspective, we’re all in.

RS:We’re in a total agreement on this. I think the–what we’re seeing with Trump is the center is not holding. The agreements don’t hold, whether it’s Iran or whether it’s NAFTA, or whatever. You can make agreements; if the public feels disenfranchised and left out and not attended to, these things are not going to hold. You’re going to have disruption, you’re going to have chaos; Donald Trump is a chaotic president.So we’re in agreement on that. Now, I want to end by taking the three points that you raised: the cloud–that it’s not national, it’s multinational–cybersecurity, and privacy. They’re all three interrelated, and the significance of the cloud not being national is, they’re basically talking about the collection of data worldwide, the commingling of data, the mining of data. And the reality is that you can think you’re giving your data over to a democratic society in England or the United States, but that data is circulating in Egypt, it’s circulating in Brazil, anywhere else–China, Russia, and so forth. And one of the ironies here is that Jeff Bezos, who now owns, personally owns the Washington Post–their main money that Amazon has made is not by selling you books or selling you articles of clothing–

JA:TWS, the cloud.

RS:Yes. The cloud. Amazon is, this money is coming–and they are a defense contractor. They are building the cloud for our intelligence agencies, right? They’re getting all the data that NSA has, CIA; they get to mine it, they get to work with it. So they are defense contractors. The contradiction for the people doing the cloud are the same as that go into cybersecurity, and the same that go into privacy. And this is the fundamental point I wanted to bring up with you: is nationalism dead? Because–and this is where Google and Apple and Facebook are all in trouble–you can cater to the CIA or the NSA or your own government’s congress, or what have you. But how are you going to enter the Chinese market, the Indian market? How are you going to be in Europe, the European Union and so forth? And it goes to the privacy question; you’re absolutely right, the European Union has pushed back on this invasion of privacy. But the dirty secret of the internet is that without invading privacy, you don’t have a profit model. For most of these companies. Their money-making model is by destroying your privacy. It is also opening up to cybersecurity questions, and it also has to do with the cloud; these three are joined. And they’re basically, the dirty secret of the new internet world is your private data, your most sacred, who you are, the definition of who you are, the thing that can be used to imprison you, to con you, to betray you–that is the stuff that is the source of profit, exploiting that. So I’m going to give you the last word on this: is this the brave new world that you’ve described in your book?

JA:I think very much that we are at an inflection point. If we don’t get our act together and improve things for everybody–including your workers, your middle class, your poor, and not just the one percent–we could really descend into chaos. But there is an opportunity, if we can get things right, which can only be done through bringing diverse groups with different interests together, and sort of finding ways to build a coalition among them, not against them–that there is still some hope. So I have spent a career trying to be an optimist. Sometimes it’s hard, but I prefer that way than to, trying to duck things that are falling from the sky.

RS:The book is “Digital DNA: Disruption and Challenges for Global Governance,” Oxford University Press. Came out last year. And I’ve been talking to Jonathan Aronson, who is a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, as well as a professor in this school of international studies, here at USC. And we are grateful that they made this studio available. Our engineers at KCRW are Kat Yore and Mario Diaz. Our producers are Joshua Scheer and Isabel Carreon. And we’ll see you next week with another edition of Scheer Intelligence.

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