webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

unintended consequences

disambigation belated

see amplifying fdbk --> runaway, crash

see cascade domino ripple

SEE CONVERGE INTERACTION

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uber  https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/6950F840-FB80-FCB0-D505-8AB1FA685F08#-4200

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WEATHER CHAOS --> INSURANCE BOOST --> INFLATION HOMELESS

mma 8 24

aha note drives home cost ALSO CAR

Permian Proud ignores climate crisis as Texas faces escalating climate disasters and environmental injustice

Texas recently endured a record-breaking heat wave, with temperatures soaring above 110 F in multiple cities. The Washington Post reported that Abilene shattered its all-time high at 113 F, while other cities set new August records. This extreme heat isn't just uncomfortable, it's potentially deadly — and it’s straining the state's power grid to its limits.

This recent crisis is just the latest example of Texas’ extreme vulnerability to climate change. A stark analysis from Public Citizen reveals that between 1980 and 2022, a staggering 44% of all billion-dollar climate and weather disasters in the country affected Texas. The state faces an onslaught of heat waves, hurricanes, floods, droughts, and wildfires that are increasing in both frequency and intensity.

The climate crisis is also creating significant financial impacts for Texas residents. Erin Douglas of The Texas Tribune reported that insurance rates in Texas have skyrocketed by 22% in 2023, twice the average national increase. Even more troubling, “many areas of the state are likely underpriced relative to their climate risk, according to a model created by the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit group of academics and experts that quantifies climate risks,” suggesting that the financial strain on homeowners is only set to worsen.

Notably, the fossil fuel industry operating in Texas bears outsized responsibility for climate change, amplifying the risks facing communities across the state:

Texas emits more greenhouse gas emissions than any other state, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. It accounts for 14% of the nation’s climate-warming emissions, and produces more than twice the total emissions of California, the next largest greenhouse gas emitter. Texas is also the nation’s largest oil and gas producing state, accounting for more than 40% of the nation’s oil production.

Beyond the climate impacts of the fossil fuel industry, Texas also faces severe environmental justice challenges. Low-income communities and communities of color bear a disproportionate burden of industrial pollution — in Port Arthur and Houston, the concentration of petrochemical facilities and other polluting industries near residential areas is a direct result of historical segregation and discriminatory land-use practices. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's permitting decisions, particularly for facilities like concrete batch plants in Harris County, have further entrenched these disparities, leading to ongoing health risks for vulnerable populations.

The fossil fuel industry deploys multifaceted deception campaigns like Permian Proud to delay climate action

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7 22

neo-con is // neo-libtard [Gt Recession] Bush 43; BOTH MUY MACHO, REDUCTIONISTIC?

aha  GULF WAR 2 POSTER CHILD FOR CASCADE OF FAILS:

JRNLISM FAIL

set off refugee surge --> brexit  [CAMBRIDGE anal ] , alt rt, authoritarian [eu la penn] ; wolfie neo-cons wanted it for decades , cooked the intel, hunted the whistleblowers Plame

SEE WMD BS YELLOWCAKE CHENEY

de-Bathification --? al queda, CNP fail ministry of oil

origin of xian nat'l trumpism?recall his BS about ppl dancing in streets in NJ? birther obama other foreigner secret muslim

televangelist grifters said it was god angry at our sin (loss of white xian am?]

pvtization blackwater halliburton? tigerswan

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aha note gop sez ppl lazy and moral hazard of soc safe net  but at same time quash vax mask Mandate EVEN WHEN LOCAL PPL /REPS VOTE FOR THEM, THEN PPL QUIT CRAPPY  LOW WAGE DANGEROUS JOBS

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/unemployment-2655355131/

The business owners whose blood, sweat, and tears—or at least their fancy, high-priced educations, family connections and access to venture capital—built this country, dammitwere hellbent and determined to show American workers who was boss. This COVID-19 nonsense was not going to interfere with their profits any longer. It was time totake a stand.

So they all had their administrative assistants conference in their favorite state legislators, the same ones who helpfully passed legislation a few years back, keeping pesky unions out of their states. They called in their chits for all those campaign contributions to the governor. They called their Republican House reps and senators. Damn that Fauci, they complained. My business is hurting. No more lockdowns, no more of this "social distancing "crap. This state is going to open for business and I don't want to hear another word about body counts or stressed hospitals. I need workers and I need them now. I paid for your damn campaigns, so do something!

And those state representatives and senators leapt into action. In a matter of a few weeks we saw state after state brimming with self-appointed medical experts in their legislatures, railing about the tyrannical mask mandates and business lockdowns. CEOs and white-collar professionals cracked their whips—many still from the comfort of their fine second homes and pools. And thus the support staff, the retail clerks and the service workers, many of whom who had once been adoringly lionized as "essential" at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, were told it was time to return to work. And for added good measure, Republican governors in those statescut offtheir unemployment aid. That'll show them, they thought ...

But strangely enough, not all of those workers heeded the call. In fact, a good many of them quit.

As reported by Alyssa Fowers and Eli Rosenberg, writing for The Washington Post:

Kentucky, Idaho, South Dakota and Iowa reported the highest increases in the rates of workers who quit their jobs in August, according to a new glimpse of quit rates in the labor market released Friday.

The largest increase in the number of quitters happened in Georgia, with 35,000 more people leaving their jobs. Overall, the states with the highest rates of workers quitting their jobs were Georgia, Kentucky and Idaho.

As The Post points out, the interesting thing about this data is that service-sector jobs are most highly concentrated in urban areas. So why would people be quitting their jobs at such astronomical rates in such relatively rural states as Kentucky, South Dakota, Iowa and Idaho?

Fowers and Rosenberg offer a clue:

Employees quit or were hired at rates matching or exceeding the national average in the ten states with the highest rates of new infections that month: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee.

So the highest rate of turnover in August—employees quitting or getting hired—was found in the states which had the highest rate of COVID-19 infection for that month. Logically, that seems to make sense. Workers who live in one of those states were also likely to have a governor or, in the case of Kentucky, a Republican-dominated legislaturewho opposed business closures, even while the delta variant ravaged the state's population. Such workers were essentially forced by these states policies to return to work if they could not work from home.

Those people forced back to work in an unsafe environment simply decided to quit—many of them likely before ever venturing back into their workspace. After all, they saw a job the other day that was offering more money. Or their next-door neighbor's cousin got a job that pays more and allows them to work from home. The Post article quotes Nick Bunker, an economist for the job search portal Indeed, who notes that the high quit rate in these red and rural states "may be a sign there's more competition in those parts of the country than other parts."

The other interesting point aboutallof the states having both the highest level of turnover and the highest infection rates? They are all so-called"right to work" states,where legislatures passed legislation to disincentivize and discourage unions.So these workers have essentially no protection, no one to turn to for help remedying unsafe conditions, and no collective bargaining power; they can, for the most part, be terminated at will. That's what "right-to work"has always been about.

As one commenter to The Post story points out:

So, when you have a crappy job, for crappy wages, and a crappy employer who doesn't value you at all, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a labor market situation that actually encourages you to look for work elsewhere--what do you think is going to happen? The 'Great Resignation' is largely about working class people attempting to use what little leverage they have in order to make a moderately better wage for themselves in a mostly hostile, oppressive national work environment.

For employers, the downside of "right to work"— one they never saw coming—was the fact that workers in those states had little, if any, incentive to stay, especially when once-in-a lifetime opportunities arose for them to leave, while competition for higher wages and better working conditions further drove that exodus.

Some employers are responding by antagonizing would-be applicants.

In Missouri, a group of businesses, still frustrated by labor shortages more than three months after the state cut off the $300-a-week federal jobless checks, paid for billboards in Springfield that said: "Get Off Your Butt!" and "Get. To. Work."

The state has seen no growth in its workforce since ending emergency benefits.

"We don't know where people are," said Brad Parke, general manager of Greek Corner Screen Printing and Embroidery, who helped pay for the billboards. "Obviously, they're not at work. Apparently, they're at home."

The attempt to force workers back to dangerous, unsafe pandemic working conditions—brought on by short-sighted Republican policymakers for political ends—has collided with a culture where workplace protections and the ability to bargain have been completely devalued (also by Republican politicians), leaving workers as essentially dispensable commodities.

No wonder they're quitting for greener pastures in those states. Republican elected officials and their business donors in those same states have no one to blame but themselves. They created this environment, and now they're going to have to cope and adjust with workers who want more out of their jobs … and know they can get it. They have to keep up and do better, or see their businesses go under.

Funny how that worked out.

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unclear if this is UCons or cruelty is the pt/sadism

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/president-trump-is-the-child-trafficker-in-chief/

President Donald Trump thinks of himself as a champion against human trafficking. He addressed a White House Summit on the issue in January claiming there was a “humanitarian crisis” at the border fomented by criminal organizations and that “traffickers victimize countless women and children.” He signed an executive order and diverted $400 million in funding to combat the issue, boasting in his usual manner that “we have signed more legislation on human trafficking than any other administration has ever even thought about.” But in recent months, the administration has been found to be flouting the United States’ own anti-trafficking laws by deporting thousands of children and families seeking asylum, practically delivering them into the hands of traffickers across the border in Mexico.

Dr. Amy Cohen, executive director of Every Last One, explained to me in an interview that under the Trump administration’s so-called “Remain in Mexico” program, “the United States has been essentially feeding vulnerable migrant children and families to cartel traffickers in Mexico continuously.” The program, officially known by the Orwellian-sounding title of “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP), sends immigrants seeking entry into the United States across the border to Mexico to await the adjudication of their cases. While the Department of Homeland Security claimed that MPP would “decrease the… ability of smugglers and traffickers to prey on vulnerable populations,” in fact it does the opposite.

Cohen elaborated on this horrific phenomenon, saying, “migrants are dropped off with nothing on the other side of the border, with no shelter, with no protection, with no food, with no money. And within minutes, they are picked up by cartel gangs that are waiting.” As a child and family psychiatrist who works closely with traumatized migrant children, she did not mince words, saying that families are, “kidnapped and used for extortion, which is a form of trafficking. Sometimes they are tortured. Sometimes they are raped. Children are compelled to watch. Sometimes children themselves are raped.”

The only way to view the outcome of this policy is that the United States is actively participating in a trafficking operation. The Trump administration cannot claim ignorance of the outcome of MPP. According to Cohen, “This is happening in cities literally all along the border. This is not a secret; this is widespread.” So extensive is the abuse that according to her, “The vast majority of asylum seekers who we’ve placed into the MPP program have at one time or another experienced at least one, sometimes multiple, episodes of what I would consider trafficking, of kidnapping, and some form of psychological or physical torture."

because of the extreme danger that the Trump administration has put families in, according to Cohen it has “forced many parents into a decision” about whether to keep their children with them or send them unaccompanied across the U.S. border.

But under cover of the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government has accelerated the expulsion of even unaccompanied children to Mexico and Central America—in violation of federal law. The Associated Press explained that “More than 2,000 unaccompanied children have been expelled since March under an emergency declaration enacted by the Trump administration, which has cited the coronavirus in refusing to provide them protections under federal anti-trafficking and asylum laws.”

Now reports have emerged of the government hiring a private security and transportation firm to move immigrant families and children into hotels in the United States before expelling them. According to the New York Times, which broke the story, the Trump administration has created “a largely unregulated shadow system of detention and swift expulsions without the safeguards that are intended to protect the most vulnerable migrants.” Children, some as young as one year old, are being cared for in hotels like Best Western and Hampton Inn by private security personnel who have no childcare training.

Cohen says advocates like her believe that “this has been a way for the United States to try to hide a number of these children who they are deporting.” Those children held in government facilities have to be registered as having entered the United States, which then triggers legal protections for them. But by holding children in hotels, effectively off the books and out of public view, “government attorneys are denying that they are actually in the custody” of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, says Cohen. Bizarrely, they are claiming that the children are in the custody of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over concerns of COVID-19, and thereby flouting the legal mandate known as the Flores Settlement to maintain the safety, care, and oversight of the children.

Where the children end up once they are removed from the U.S. is not known, and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency will not say. According to Reuters, “Between April and June, U.S. officials arrested more than 3,300 unaccompanied children on the southwest border, but CBP has declined to say how many have been expelled under the new process or give a breakdown of arrests by nationality for that time period.” During that same time frame, out of the thousands of children apprehended, only about 160 remain in U.S. custody.

It is ironic, to say the least, that some of Trump’s most loyal followers are conspiracy theorists who label themselves QAnon claiming that the president is facing off against a “cabal of Democratic pedophiles.” So mainstream is this movement that one of its followers just won a GOP congressional primary in Georgia. QAnon is now appropriating the social media hashtag #SaveTheChildren and promoting fantastical claims of a widespread child sex trafficking ring. Its followers have even joined the anti-trafficking movement in the United States. But they have entirely ignored the very real trafficking and exploitation of children at the U.S. border that their president has unleashed.

More than two years ago, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions claimed that the government cared about children when he officially announced Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, saying, “If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law.” It was a thinly veiled attempt to punish those fleeing poverty and violence for a better life in America. And while mass public outrage forced Trump to back off (he signed an executive order in June 2018 to end what his own discretionary policy initiated), in truth the torture and trauma facing immigrant families did not end. It was simply moved out of our view across the border into even more dangerous conditions.

As America hurtles toward November 3 with a desperation unlike any we’ve felt for previous presidential elections, the issue of how President Trump has treated immigrant families and children has been largely off the radar. But if we care about children and about protecting them from horrific torture and abuse, Trump’s role as Child-Trafficker-in-Chief ought to be central to our election discourse.

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https://theconversation.com/ai-algorithms-intended-to-root-out-welfare-fraud-often-end-up-punishing-the-poor-instead-131625

President Donald Trump recently suggested there is “tremendous fraud” in government welfare programs.

Although there’s very little evidence to back up his claim, he’s hardly the first politician – conservative or liberal – to vow to crack down on fraud and waste in America’s social safety net.

States – which are charged with distributing and overseeing many federally funded benefits – are taking these fraud accusations seriously. They are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence and other automated systems to determine benefits eligibility and ferret out fraud in a variety of benefits programs, from food stamps and Medicaid to unemployment insurance.

Of course, government agencies should ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent effectively.The problem is these automated decision-making systems are sometimes rife with errors and designed in ways that punish the poor for being poor, leading to tragic results.

As a clinical law professor who has researched safety net programs and has represented low-income clients in public benefits cases for over 20 years, I believe it’s essential these systems are designed in ways that are fair, transparent and accountable to prevent hurting society’s most vulnerable.

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an 220

deported to death: US sent 138 Salvadorans home to be killed

The Conversation

by Mneesha Gellman, Emerson College At least 138 people deported from the United States to El Salvador since 2013 have been killed, according to a new report by Human Right

no lnx

Deported to death: US sent 138 Salvadorans home to be killed

President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019, at the InterContinental New York Barclay in New York City. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Written by The Conversation February 7, 2020

by Mneesha Gellman, Emerson College

At least 138 people deported from the United States to El Salvador since 2013 have been killed, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch, which investigates human rights abuses worldwide.

The 117-page report also says researchers identified at least 70 deportees who were sexually assaulted, tortured or kidnapped. Many victims were asylum-seekers attacked or killed by the gangs they originally fled.

The findings show that “the U.S. is repeatedly violating its obligations to protect Salvadorans from return to serious risk of harm,” Human Rights Watch says.

The group used court records, police reports, interviews with victims and their families and news articles to document the fates of deportees. It is the first systematic effort to find out what happened to Salvadorans whose asylum claims were rejected in U.S. immigration courts because they failed to demonstrate “credible fear” of violence in El Salvador.

International asylum laws created after the Holocaust require countries to take in people who are persecuted for their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

El Salvador has one of the world’s highest homicide rates. It is one of the main sources of migration to the U.S.

As part of its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration in September signed an agreement with El Salvador requiring the Central American country to keep asylum seekers there while they await the results of their asylum claims.

But the murders of 138 deportees belie any notion that El Salvador can protect citizens who are under threat.

Roots of impunity

Roughly the size of New Jersey, El Salvador is densely populated and highly connected by cellphone service and social media. The vulnerable groups protected under international asylum law cannot easily go under the radar or relocate if targeted by gangs, corrupt police or domestic abusers.

Hundreds of Salvadorans are killed every month. Murders, disappearances and tortures almost always go unsolved in El Salvador. Criminals, especially those with access to power, are rarely punished for their wrongdoing.

I have documented this culture of impunity across Central America and Mexico, focusing on the indigenous people, women and political dissidents who are so often victims of political violence.

This violence dates back centuries, to Spain’s bloody conquest of the Americas. As in the U.S., colonial-era brutality has lasting impacts on the region’s race, class and gender divisions.

In 1932, the massacre of indigenous Salvadorans and leftists who rebelled against dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez left between 10,000 and 30,000 dead.

Communist Party member Farabundo Martí, who led Salvadoran peasant farmers in their revolt against political corruption and unjust resource allocation, was assassinated after the massacre. But the struggle continued.

By the 1970s, dissident factions again organized against state oppression. United as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, these groups eventually waged war on the ruling ARENA party, which they blamed for oppressing the Salvadoran working class.

The subsequent Salvadoran civil war killed 75,000 people. In 1992, with intensive military support from the United States, ARENA defeated the rebels.

The 1992 El Salvador peace accords, overseen by the United Nations, were meant to bring national reconciliation. A truth commission documented widespread human rights abuses committed by state and paramilitary forces during the war. But days after the report was released, in 1993, El Salvador’s ARENA-controlled congress passed an amnesty law that excused most government and military officials.

As a result, the root causes of El Salvador’s conflict – particularly, unequal access to insufficient resources – still plague society. So does the very weak rule of law that allowed civil war criminals to go unpunished.

Neither the rightist or leftist governments that have held power since have managed to change this.

El Salvador’s defense minister recently assessed that there are more gang members than soldiers in his country. Police in El Salvador are extremely aggressive in pursuing them, and civilians can get caught in the crossfire, Human Rights Watch finds.

The resulting dangerous disarray sent 46,800 residents to seek asylum in the U.S. last year. Risking the unknown violence of migration over guaranteed violence at home is, for many Salvadorans, a logical decision.

Human security

Crime and violence in El Salvador has declined since President Nayib Bukele took office in June 2019, according to the government.

The president credits his tough-on-gangs policing with improving security in the country. But some crime analysts say the apparent drop in homicides is actually a manipulation of crime data. The government recently changed how it counts murders, eliminating deaths that result from confrontation with security forces – police killings – from the homicide category.

In any case, levels of violence in El Salvador are still among the world’s highest.

Police regularly turn a blind eye to violence by gang members, including both MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, either due to corruption or concern for their own safety. As a result, Salvadoran police frequently fail to meaningfully protect people from gang violence.

In these circumstances, deporting Salvadoran asylum-seekers may violate an international law called “non-refoulement.”

According to the 1954 United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees, which both the U.S. and El Salvador signed, states cannot expel refugees to a territory “where his life or freedom would be threatened.”

Migrants know El Salvador can’t protect them. That, of course, is why they flee. Now the United States government has to know that, too.

This story has been modified to more accurately characterize the methodology used by Human Rights Watch. It is an updated version of an article originally published Oct. 10, 2019.The Conversation

Mneesha Gellman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Emerson College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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aha: fail b/c simplistic linear short term transaction model applied to a complex system

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/how-trumps-trade-war-hurt-the-very-individuals-it-was-supposed-to-help/

no lnx

How Trump’s trade war hurt the very individuals it was supposed to help

Written by Sarah Toce / Salon December 30, 2019

President Donald Trump’s trade war raised prices for consumers and hurt the manufacturing industry, according to a report from economists on the Federal Reserve Board.

“The first comprehensive estimates” of the trade war’s effect on American manufacturers show that the tariffs have hurt the industry more than they helped, wrote Aaron Flaaen and Justin Pierce, two senior economists at the Federal Reserve’s Industrial Output Section.

“We find that U.S. manufacturing industries more exposed to tariff increases experience relative reductions in employment as a positive effect from import protection is offset by larger negative effects from rising input costs and retaliatory tariffs,” the report said.

In short, the economists concluded that the tariffs gave a “small boost” to manufacturers, which was “offset by larger drags from the effects” of rising costs and retaliatory tariffs.

Mother Jones summarized the main findings in a handy chart:

The report looked at a wide range of effects on the impacted sectors. In some cases, the tariffs were simply contradictory. While import tariffs may have helped protect some manufacturers from foreign competitors, tariffs on imported materials have increased costs for those same companies. Retaliatory tariffs imposed by China and other countries in response to the U.S. tariffs further “put U.S. firms at a disadvantage in those markets,” Flaaen and Pierce wrote.

As a result, manufacturing employment fell, and consumer prices increased. The economists acknowledged that their analysis only examined short-term trends, while long-term trends could show different effects. Trump has argued that the tariffs provide leverage for ongoing trade negotiations, but extensive data thus far shows that his trade war has devastated manufacturers, farmers and other industries.

The economists cited extensive existing research showing that “the majority of U.S. tariff increases are absorbed by U.S. retailers” and are almost entirely passed on to consumers in price increases. Some studies have found that American companies which engaged in trade with China saw “lower stock returns and higher default risk.” The report also acknowledged the political implications of the trade war, citing a study which concluded that it could “explain a shift in voting away from Republican House candidates in the 2018 election.”

The report follows months of extensive reporting on the ongoing manufacturing recession. It confirms what thousands of manufacturing firms have been saying for months: Tariffs are having the opposite effect of what the president claimed.

“There’s been a lot of anecdotal evidence about how tariffs are behind the manufacturing slump. Now the Federal Reserve proves it, finding that the trade war is hurting the sector it was ostensibly supposed to help,” ProPublica reporter Lydia DePillis tweeted.  “The [White House] would say that it takes a while for supply chains to adjust, and manufacturers will recover as they find alternative input sources. Also theoretically, mounting pressure will eventually force the Chinese to knuckle under in a way that will rebalance global trade. Given that we haven’t yet seen the text of the Phase One trade deal with China that’s supposed to be signed imminently, that promise remains … theoretical.”

But the economists did not only find that the trade war is failing to help manufacturers. Their research suggests that tariffs simply do not work in any economy that relies on global supply chains.

“Our results suggest that the traditional use of trade policy as a tool for the protection and promotion of domestic manufacturing is complicated by the presence of globally interconnnected supply chains,” Flaaen and Pierce wrote. “While the potential for both tit-for-tat retaliation on import protection and input-output effects on the domestic economy have long been recognized by trade economists, empirical evidence documenting these channels in the context of an advanced economy has been limited.”

Igor Derysh is a New York-based political writer whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald and Baltimore Sun.

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it's not just the threat of heat stress that is escalating. Our new research shows thatrising temperatures due to climate change are making some pesticides up to 100 times as toxic.Current laws leave farmworkers at grave risk of injury and death—but we can help change that.

Urge your US representative to cosponsor the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/new-iucn-report-on-ocean-oxygen-loss-gives-ultimate-wake-up-call-to-act-on-climate/

no lnx

New IUCN report on ocean oxygen loss gives ‘ultimate wake-up call’ to act on climate

Written by Andrea Germanos / Common Dreams December 8, 2019

A new report on ocean oxygen loss released Saturday should serve as the “ultimate wake-up call” to take bold action to rein in planet-warming emissions and save the world’s “suffocating seas,” researchers said.

The publication from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) shows how the problem known as ocean deoxygenation, driven by global warming and human-caused nutrient pollution, is expanding, with impacts on humans and marine ecosystems alike.

“With this report, the scale of damage climate change is wreaking upon the ocean comes into stark focus. As the warming ocean loses oxygen, the delicate balance of marine life is thrown into disarray,” said IUCN acting director general Dr. Grethel Aguilar.

Representing the expertise of over five dozens scientists across 17 countries, the report is framed as “the largest peer-reviewed study conducted so far on ocean deoxygenation.”

Driving the problem is climate change, both directly, as oxygen is less soluble in warmer waters, and indirectly by affecting ocean dynamics. Deoxygenation is also being fueled by nutrient pollution, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, from sewage, agriculture, and aquaculture. Those factors are summed up in an infographic from IUCN:

Infographic on deoxygenation from IUCN

A four-minute video entitled “A Breathless Ocean” released by the IUCN explains the process further:

The researchers found that from 1960-2010 overall ocean oxygen reserves fell by 2%, and they say the level could drop by as much as a further 7% by 2100.

While there were just 45 ocean sites around the world with low oxygen conditions in the 1960s, 700 such sites now exist. The number of areas in the global ocean depleted of oxygen, or anoxic waters, has quadrupled, the report found.

That’s bad news, because changes in oxygen levels mess with species distribution. Species like jellyfish want low-oxygen areas, but low-oxygen sensitive ones, including most fish, don’t.

Those species are then driven to other areas not affected by deoxygenation, but that can leave them susceptible to over-fishing by commercial operations.

Humans dependent on the affected species, especially smaller-scale fisheries, are adversely impacted. Communities may have a reduced catch or are forced to spend more to obtain the affected species—impacts that threaten not only nutrient loss but cultural loss.

“We are now seeing increasingly low levels of dissolved oxygen across large areas of the open ocean. This is perhaps the ultimate wake-up call from the uncontrolled experiment humanity is unleashing on the world’s ocean as carbon emissions continue to increase,” said report co-editor Dan Laffoley, the principal advisor on Marine Science and Conservation for IUCN’s Global Marine and Polar Program.

“To stop the worrying expansion of oxygen-poor areas,” said Laffoley, “we need to decisively curb greenhouse gas emissions as well as nutrient pollution from agriculture and other sources.”

That points to action global leaders must commit to right now as they attend COP 25.

According to Minna Epps, IUCN Global Marine and Polar Program director, “Decisions taken at the ongoing climate conference will determine whether our ocean continues to sustain a rich variety of life, or whether habitable, oxygen-rich marine areas are increasingly, progressively, and irrevocably lost.”

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27112019/climate-tipping-points-permafrost-forests-ice-antarctica-greenland-amazon-nature

Humans are playing Russian roulette with Earth's climate by ignoring the growing risk of tipping points that, if passed, could jolt the climate system into "a new, less habitable 'hothouse' climate state," scientists are warning ahead of the annual UN climate summit.

Research now shows that there is a higher risk that "abrupt and irreversible changes" to the climate system could be triggered at smaller global temperature increases than thought just a few years ago. There are also indictations that exceeding tipping points in one system, such as the loss of Arctic sea ice, can increase the risk of crossing tipping points in others, a group of top scientists wrote Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature.

"What we're talking about is a point of no return, when we might actually lose control of this system, and there is a significant risk that we're going to do this," said Will Steffen, a climate researcher with the Australian National University and co-author of the commentary. "It's not going to be the same conditions with just a bit more heat or a bit more rainfall. It's a cascading process that gets out of control."

The scientists focused on nine parts of the climate system susceptible to tipping points, some of them interconnected:

Just looking at Arctic changes shows how the links between parts of the climate system susceptible to tipping can amplify global warming and its effects, said Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at Exeter University and an author of the commentary.

Shrinking sea ice increases ocean heat because it no longer reflects as much of the sun's energy back to space and it enables the darker water to absorb more warmth. The ocean heat extends over land and, combined with other heating effects, thaws permafrost, which releases more heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, Lenton said.

Research shows that melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet may also be slowingtheAtlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a key Atlantic Ocean current that transports heat between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and directs rainfall around the planet. That could disrupt monsoon rains critical to agriculture in developing countries.

"If you transfer less heat from south to north, it warms up the Southern Hemisphere, which affects the Antarctic ice sheets. When you start thinking about this, heading to a new climate state becomes very plausible indeed," he said.

The ocean circulation slowdown was documented in a 2015 study by researchers including Michael Mann and Stefan Rahmstorf, a co-author of the new commentary. Cold water from the melting Greenland Ice Sheet is likely slowing the current, showing "how these tipping point responses are actually interrelated, not independent," Mann said. "If one goes early then so too may the others, like dominoes."

Lack of Policy Urgency as Permafrost Thaws

Despite increasingly urgent warnings about the effects of rising greenhouse gas emissions, two new reports published this week by the United Nations show that international efforts to slow global warming are falling far short of what scientists recommend.

The Emissions Gap Report—an annual assessment of global pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions—shows that countries' current pledges under the Paris climate agreement will still raise global temperatures 3.2°C (5.8°F) by the end of the century, well beyond the Paris goal of limiting warming to well below 2°C (3.6°F).The Production Gap Report shows that the amount of oil, gas and coal that countries already plan to produce will lead to 50 percent more fossil fuels produced by 2030 than would be allowable to stay under 2°C warming.

The Earth is now warming faster and CO2 levels "are increasing at rates that are an order of magnitude higher than at the end of the last ice age," when rapid climate change destabilized the climate quickly, the scientists wrote in the Naturecommentary.

"To err on the side of danger is not a responsible option," they wrote.

long, cont....]

...The Western U.S. may already be seeing a forest dieback tipping point, Overpeck said.

"Much of our western forest cover is either dying or burning, leading to irreversible changes in vegetation that, in turn, impact water supplies and natural carbon storage," he said.

Some Tipping Points Are Already Close

One of the biggest concerns is that some tipping points, like the meltdown of alpine glaciers and near-total loss of coral reefs, will be reached even if the world meets the goals of the Paris climate agreement, said Katherine Richardson, a climate researcher at the University of Copenhagen and co-author of the commentary.

If multiple tipping points are reached, it's questionable whether emissions reductions will be enough to stabilize the climate system, she said.

"Another problem we have is that we have taken a cost-benefit approach," she said. "Economists assume high-impact tipping points are low probability events, but we may already have passed some of them—which completely changes the way we should be doing our cost-benefit analyses.

"In 2001, IPCC said not to worry (about tipping points) until there is 5 degrees Celsius warming, now they're saying 1 to 2 degrees. Economists have to stay on top of the science."

[map graf scary]

Richardson said she had just explained that morning to the Danish Parliament that some of the common tools for cutting emissions weren't proving to be effective enough, including the European Union's carbon trading marketat its current prices.

"There are so many emissions credits floating around that using them won't have any effect on total emissions or atmospheric concentrations on a meaningful time scale. We can't wait 30 to 40 years," she said. The UN Emissions Gap Report released this week "basically says we've done nothing so far."

The new Nature article reinforces other recent similar warnings, said climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Texas Tech University Climate Science Center.That includes a chapter in the latest U.S. National Climate Assessment on "potential surprises" in the climate system, "The scariest thing that you'll ever read that's not by Stephen King," Hayhoe said.

It explores climate impacts and feedback systems that we don't fully understand, she said, and "that may be far more worrisome than what we do know."

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MTR flooding

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Climate Change Threatens 60% of Toxic Superfund Sites, GAO Finds

:{BY: PHIL MCKENNA

Hundreds of polluted sites face an increased risk of inundation from sea level rise, flooding exacerbated by global warming, or wildfires, Congress’s watchdog warns. Read More}:

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https://www.ecowatch.com/superfund-sites-climate-disaster-2641394009.html

climate crisis has put at least 945 designated toxic waste sites at severe risk of disaster from escalating wildfires, floods, rising seas and other climate-related disasters, according to a new study from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), as the AP reported.

The country's most contaminated spots that pose an imminent threat to human health or the environment are designated Superfund sites. That means cleaning them up is a national priority. The EPA has identified more than 500 contaminants at Superfund sites, including arsenic, lead and mercury.

...

However, the GAO found that efforts to secure the toxic waste have weakened as the Trump administration plays down their threat, according to the AP.

Senate Democrats responded to the report in a letter to the EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler demanding an explanation for agency leaders' "failure to embrace addressing climate change as a strategic objective," according to the Washington Post.

"We believe that EPA's refusal to implement GAO's recommendations could result in real harm to human health and the environment as the effects of climate change become more frequent and intense," the lawmakers wrote to Wheeler, as the Washington Post reported.

The GAO report looked at 1,571 Superfund sites and found that six out of 10 are vulnerable to extreme weather caused by the climate crisis. The GAO produced an interactive map that shows each of the 945 vulnerable sites. It is color-coded to show if the site is threatened by wildfires, hurricanes, storm surge, sea-level rise, or coastal and river flooding, as the Verge reported.

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Trump promised he was ‘rebuilding and expanding’ steel industry. Turns out, it’s ‘got some real problems’

Trump’s favorite tough-guy theme with his China tariffs is how he’s making “Pennsylvania and USA more prosperous/secure by bringing Steel and Aluminum industries BACK.”

Back in January, he claimed “Tariffs on the ‘dumping’ of Steel in the United States have totally revived our Steel Industry. New and expanded plants are happening all over the U.S. We have not only saved this important industry, but created many jobs. Also, billions paid to our treasury. A BIG WIN FOR U.S.” Then in April, “The forgotten voters of the 2016 Election are now doing great,” he crowed in April. The Steel Industry is rebuilding and expanding at a pace that it hasn’t seen in decades.”

Totally revived! Many jobs! Billions paid! So much for that. The price of steel peaked in the summer of 2018 and has been in decline since. Prices for steel are now lower than they were before the initial tariffs were imposed. Car-making and construction is down, so demand is down and “three of the largest steel companies in the country—U.S. Steel, Fort Wayne-based Steel Dynamics and Nucor—all warned their financial results would be worse than projected in the third quarter.”

“U.S. Steel’s got some real problems,” New York City-based steel industry analyst Charles Bradford said. That’s an understatement. Wall Street analysts predicted it would lose 6 cents a share this quarter. U.S. Steel says it’s going to be 35 cents. “ArcelorMittal’s not doing so well either,” Bradford continued. “The steel industry’s got some real problems.”...

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transactional, unintended conseq; the has no policy process, many seats empty or acting, rule by tweet/whim knee-jerk reaction (obama bad, int'l bad, any deal i did not do bad]

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/fears-of-collateral-damage-to-democracy-swell-as-trump-weighs-withdrawing-from-global-postal-pact/

no lnx

Fears of ‘collateral damage to democracy’ swell as Trump weighs withdrawing from global postal pact

Written by Julia Conley / Common Dreams September 17, 2019

Thousands of absentee ballots could be uncounted in upcoming elections thanks to President Donald Trump’s objection to a treaty which governs the international mail exchange for nearly 200 countries.

Citing disapproval of shipping rates it says unfairly favor China, the White House is weighing a potential withdrawal next month from the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a United Nations agency which allows for global postal service.

Without U.S. membership in the UPU, overseas voters could face high shipping rates for mailing their ballots as well as mass confusion, which could leave thousands of votes uncounted in 2019 and 2020.

“Military and overseas citizens already face enormous hurdles casting their votes,” Matthew Weil, director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Elections Project, told The Washington Post. “These citizens may be forced to pay up to $70 to return their ballots via private shipping companies, and it’s not clear all states will accept ballots delivered this way.”

“The White House’s latest gamble with the economy is a quintessentially Trumpian move.”

—Brian Klaas, Washington PostOriginally formed in 1874 to support the international mail exchange, the UPU will gather for a summit this month in Geneva, where the 192 member states will discuss changing shipping rates. The U.S. plans to withdraw from the union if new rates can’t be negotiated—a move which could have a cascading effect on U.S. democracy.

“If the United States withdraws, the country in which you are located may not deliver the mail ballot packet that we send, or timely return your voted ballot to our office,” Colorado election officials wrote recently to absentee voters who cast ballots in the state. Officials advised voters to update their voter registration to ensure their ballots are delivered electronically in November’s election.

The UPU keeps shipping rates low for developing countries. It has allowed China to ship internationally at low rates for five decades, even as the country has emerged as an economic superpower.

In Geneva, the White House plans to push a proposal allowing countries to set their own rates, in which case it may raise shipping rates for China, setting off “a new front in the trade war using the postal system,” wrote Brian Klaas at the Post last Friday.

If the measure fails, Trump reportedly plans to back out of the treaty. The administration has been planning the move since last October.

Election officials have begun warning voters of the possible change.

“Leaving the Universal Postal Union could have disastrous consequences for American voters overseas,” tweeted Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos on Monday.

Leaving the Universal Postal Union could have disasterous consequences for American voters overseas. This includes our active duty military service members stationed abroad, who already face challenging barriers accessing their right to cast their ballots. https://t.co/rqHfBNTdfY

— VT Sec. of State (@VermontSOS) September 16, 2019

In some states the deadline for sending absentee ballots overseas for the 2019 election will have passed by the time the UPU meets beginning on September 24. If the U.S. pulls out of the union after the meeting, thousands of voters may have incorrect information when they mail their ballots.

“The White House’s latest gamble with the economy is a quintessentially Trumpian move: a bold threat to walk away from a multilateral agreement that works pretty well, while ignoring the unintended consequences that could hurt American business, alienate allies, and cause collateral damage to democracy,” wrote Klaas.

More than 350,000 Americans voted via absentee ballot in the 2018 midterms, mostly with postal ballots.

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not actually fix wondow but remove undesirable ppl eg homeless

https://kpfa.org/episode/against-the-grain-july-16-2019/

Tony Sparks on whether broken-windows policing tactics used against homeless people reduce perceived disorder or, in fact, foster it.

see cobra ranch unintended conseq

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aha: application of the wrong/too simple metaphor as diagnosis --> cure

my classic eg urban renewal

another dangerous metaphor is run gov't like a biz, which presumably means rational, metrics, maybe an eye towards boosting economy=prosperity = well-being, Mitt R ran on this [truman dismissed as storekeeper [failed] but accidental prz ~ wallace]

trump and by assoc kushner as rational planner, but also good DEALMAKER [transactional metaphor, maybe related // invisible hand magic mkt BS?

unintended consequences is a WELL INTENTIONED? fail

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this a a carrot w/o removing stick? ignores/ "externalizes" history, politics etc etc, reduction to transaction?

https://www.alternet.org/**2019/06**/palestinians-dismiss-economic-portion-of-kushner-plan-as-dead-on-arrival/

no lnx

Palestinians dismiss economic portion of Kushner plan as dead-on-arrival

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cobra ranch tedx? talk

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The initial academic discussions of complex systems can be traced back to at least 1776, when Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, briefly discusses the “invisible hand” as a force that leads self-interested traders to unintentional, socially desirable outcomes.

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when we do not see /understand a system even if we inuitively understand the proble/ or even the leverage pt, b/c they are ctr-intuitive, we will push the lever the wrong way (Dana Meadows)

Trump sees only direct relationship, one way, two elements

see FAIL, loss doom tip pt for eg/ test theory

"efficiency" is a kind of/ or in service to max profit, thus just in time vulnerable to disaster, no buffer, japanese car industry.

Brownback?

BP gulf oil spill: regulatory capture, going for extreme oil (depth), no plan to stop (boilerplate), regs literally in bed w/ do drugs with?

Defund the left is a plan to deprive democratic ppl of resources (union, only instututional ctr-balance) gotv ground game, campaign funder (lobbyist?): ppl> $ oligarch

ultimate Unintended Conseq is going over to the darkside: systematic dis-abling of moderating factors; powell memo maybe balance, but now win forever at any cost b/c it will be borne by them: poor brown ppl elsewhere (shithole countries/ counties/ hoods

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BLOWBACK: 

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central am went into death spiral? our fault?

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Guatemala 1954 CIA coup (overreaction to get rid of the commie [who just wanted to give fallow land to peasant: UFW [early transnational corp; banana republic, our imperial/ fascistic period needed massive buffer b/c monoculture made bananas vulnerable to one pathogen [lost the gros ventre anyway}; note also mobilization/weaponization of PR by Bernays (nazi propaganda, rally spectacles]

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bin laden anti-soviet Muj

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poster child/ classic eg:  3 body problem?

aha note nexus: cf max profit: kochs are being forced to go against their principles b/c of the dna max profit but also "structural" forces, eg it is cheaper and easier (eg to poison workers) overseas: race to the bottom

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/08/14/koch-subsidiary-invista-build-1-billion-new-plant-china

don w

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has previously reported on Koch Industries’ foray into China with its investment in SINA Corp, a leading Chinese tech company. Now comes the announcement by the fiber company INVISTA, a wholly owned Koch subsidiary since 2004, that it will spend $1 billion to build a facility in China to manufacture a chemical used in the production of nylon.

The new infusion of Koch cash into China comes in addition to more than $600 million INVISTA has invested in China over the past five years.

Koch Industries certainly has the money. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which slashed tax rates for corporations and the wealthy, is expected to provide the Kochs, as individuals and as partners in Koch Industries, with a windfall of as much as $1.4 billion per year.

Meanwhile, Koch subsidiaries in the United States have announced hundreds of layoffs this year.

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systems crashes:

1)  eco-disaster (extraction, degrades eco-SYSTEMS)

2) economy crash: 1929, 2007 Gt recession

3) political systemcorrupted by unlimited secret corp cash

4) Social degradation: materialism: your social worth status is based on what you own (based on either inherited wealth) or what you can extract from earth/ laborers.  Bowling Alone.  Free mkt fundamentalism: you built that alone, thus you deserve it; anyone who is poor deserves it.

crash prevented by balance, by self regulation:  Gaia vsthe mkt

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