Bob Sheak, Dec. 11, 2023

Introduction

This post focuses on COP28 as a failed effort to phase out fossil fuels. There are 2 parts. Part 1 presents evidence that global warming, spurred by emissions from fossil fuel production and consumption, continues to increase. Part 2 considers evidence that COP28 is rigged to fail and, after all is said and done, will not support the phasing out of fossil fuels.

PART 1: Global temperatures rise with the expansion of fossil fuels

Overwhelming evidence the planet is getting hotter

2023 will be the hottest year in human history, according to evidence compiled by the World Meteorological Organization, as reported by Scott Dance (https://washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/11/30/earth-hottest-year-wmo). Dance is a reporter for The Washington Post covering extreme weather news and the intersections between weather, climate, society and the environment.

“It [the 2023 temperature] will break a record set in 2016, underscoring that the world is closer than ever to the global warming thresholds that global leaders are seeking to avoid. Data from January through October shows the planet is likely to average 1.3 degrees Celsius to 1.5 degrees Celsius above a preindustrial norm this year, the WMO said.”

“Constraining global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels is the world’s most important climate goal,” Dance reports. However, “Scientists say it is becoming increasingly out of reach but that achieving it would save coral reefs, preserve polar ice and prevent dramatic sea-level rise,” along with reducing other increasingly catastrophic developments.

Dance quotes Petteri Taalas, secretary general of World Meteorological Organization, who “stressed that this year’s warming has had real-life harms around the world and pushed the planet to new weather and climate extremes.” Taalas also pointed to specific trends. “Greenhouse gas levels are record high. Global temperatures are record high. Sea level rise is record high. Antarctic sea ice is at record low….”

Taalas, along with United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, maintains the data should incite urgency in the global leaders convening COP28 in Dubai from Nov. 30 through Dec. 12, and remind them there is still hope that climate goals can be reached. In a video message that played at the Dubai conference, Guterres struck a hopeful note: “We have the road map to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the worst of climate chaos. But we need leaders to fire the starting gun at COP28 on a race to keep the 1.5 degree limit alive.” At the same time, past and present actions by big fossil fuel producers and their governments indicate that they are locked into fossil fuels, the greatest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Dance reminds us, 

“Earth shattered monthly average temperature records in July, which marked the planet’s hottest month ever observed and perhaps the start of its hottest extended stretch in 125,000 years. July also brought humanity’s first taste of a world 1.5 degrees hotter, on average, than it was before the widespread consumption of fossil fuels and emissions of planet-warming gases.”

“August was also record hot. Global temperature anomalies surged even further from normal in September and then shattered another monthly record in October.

A Climate Central analysis released earlier this month found that the stretch from November 2022 through October 2023 was Earth’s hottest 12-month period on record.

“The heat has had clear consequences. As the planet simmered at record peak warmth in July, deadly heat waves, extreme floods and raging wildfires signaled climate change alarm bells. Some 3 in 4 people around the world suffered at least 30 days of heat so extreme that it is estimated to be at least three times as likely today as it was before the Industrial Revolution, Climate Central found.”

————-

Chris Walker, a news writer at Truthout, also reports on how the last 12 months were the hottest in the last 125,000 years (https://truthout.org/articles/the-last-12-months-were-hottest-the-world-has-experienced-in-last-125000-years). He adds some information to buttress Dance’s analysis, referring to evidence from

Climate Central and from Andrew Pershing, the vice president for science at Climate Central.

“Global average temperatures over the past year were 1.32 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels.

“Average global temperatures set a new 12-month record high, according to a new analysis of climate data, coming alarmingly close to a threshold at which scientists believe the climate crisis will become irreversible for many of the world’s ecosystems,” that is, at 1.5 degrees Celsius. The global average temperature has been 1.32 degrees Celsius over this year [2.4 degrees Fahrenheit]. “That number comes dangerously close to the 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels that climate scientists say would be enough to create an irreversible crisis that will destroy entire ecosystems around the planet.”

Walker alludes to some of the current effects. “Ninety-nine percent of humanity was exposed to above-average temperatures in the period between November 2022 and October 2023, the report found, with around 5.7 billion of the world’s 7.8 billion individuals being exposed to at least 30 days of higher-than-normal temperatures that were ‘made at least three times more likely by the influence of climate change….’”

“Such long streaks of heat can be incredibly harmful, resulting in thousands of deaths, [as] each day when temperatures exceed 90 degrees Fahrenheit is associated with around 1,373 deaths in the U.S. alone.”

“‘While climate impacts are most acute in developing countries near the equator, seeing climate-fueled streaks of extreme heat in the U.S., India, Japan and Europe underscores that no one is safe from climate change,’ Pershing said.”

———–

“A Slow-Motion Gaza” –

Tom Engelhardt analyzes the lack of progress in curtailing global warming (https://tomdispatch.com/a-slow-motion-gaza). Engelhardt created and runs the website TomDispatch.com.

He points out that humanity and much of life on planet Earth could be extinguished by nuclear war or global warming. His focus in this article is on the latter.

“Imagine this: humanity in its time on Earth has already come up with two distinct ways of destroying this planet and everything on it. The first is, of course, nuclear weapons, which once again surfaced in the ongoing nightmare in the Middle East. (An Israeli minister recently threatened to nuke Gaza.) The second, you won’t be surprised to learn, is what we’ve come to call ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’ — the burning, that is, of fossil fuels to desperately overheat our already flaming world. In its own fashion, that could be considered a slow-motion version of the nuking of the planet.

“Put another way, in some grim sense, all of us now live in Gaza. (Most of us just don’t know it yet.)”

“Yes, in the midst of the ongoing Middle Eastern catastrophe, the latest study by James Hanson, the scientist who first sounded the climate alarm to Congress back in the 1980s, appeared. In it, he suggested that, in this year of record temperatures, our planet is heating even more rapidly than expected. The key temperature danger mark, set only eight years ago at the Paris climate agreement, 1.5 degrees Centigrade above the pre-industrial level, could easily be reached not in 2050 or 2040, but by (or even before) 2030. Meanwhile, another recent study suggests that humanity’s ‘carbon budget’ — that is, the amount of carbon we can put into the atmosphere while keeping global temperature rise at or under that 1.5-degree mark — is now officially going to hell in a handbasket. In fact, by October, a record one-third of the days in 2023 had broken that 1.5-degree mark in what is undoubtedly going to prove another — and yes, I know how repetitive this is — record year for heat.”

Furthermore, Engelhardt points out, “when it comes to the globe’s two greatest greenhouse gas emitters, China is still opening new coal mines at a remarkably rapid pace, while the U.S., the world’s biggest oil producer, is expected to have ‘a third of planned oil and gas expansion globally between now and 2050.’ And the news isn’t much better for the rest of the planet, which, given the dangers involved, should be headline-making fare. No such luck, of course.”

Setting the Planet Afire

“And yet, if you were to look away from Gaza for a moment, you might notice that significant parts of the Middle East have been experiencing an historic megadrought since 1998 (yes, 1998!). The temperatures baking the region are believed to be “16 times as likely in Iran and 25 times as likely in Iraq and Syria” thanks to the warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, if you take a skip and a jump from the flaming Middle East to Greenland, you might notice that, in recent years, glaciers there have been melting at — yes, I know this sounds unbearably repetitious — record rates (five times faster, in fact, in the last 20 years), helping add to sea level rise across the planet. And mind you, that rise will only accelerate as the Arctic and Antarctic melt ever more rapidly. And perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that the Arctic is already warming four times faster than the global average.”

Engelhardt gives some additional examples.  

“You’ve probably forgotten by now, but there were those record heat waves and fires — and no, I’m not thinking about the ones that swept across Europe or that broiled parts of Greece amid record flooding. I’m thinking about the ones in Canada that hit so much closer to home for us Americans. The wildfires there began in May and, by late June, had already set a typical seasonal record, only to burn on and on and on (adding up to nine times the normal seasonal total!) deep into October, sending billows of smoke across significant parts of the United States, while setting smoke pollution records.” He refers to “a recent congressionally mandated report released by the Biden administration on global warming [that] found that this country is actually heating up faster than the global average.”

————-

Don’t lose sight of the causes

Erie C. Ellis, a professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County New York Times, worries that the focus on the 1.5 goal [which is important] leads us to ignore or remain ignorant of the causes of global warming (https://nytimes.com/2023/12/04/opinion/rich-nations-climate-change-summit.html). Dr. Ellis, a visiting fellow at the Oxford Martin School, and the author of “Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction.”

Ellis argues,

“We have become obsessed with targets, the principal one being to hold planetary warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the preindustrial average. But this is a planetary target, not a societal obligation. And in that sense, it is meaningless. The clearest evidence is that the planet is likely to surpass that target by the 2030s. Last year global greenhouse gas emissions continued at their historically high rates of growth. Passing the 1.5-degree mark is merely a symptom of the underlying condition: the continued burning of fossil fuels. That’s what we must stop.”

“The ultimate solution to major societal challenges is clear: leadership by those most responsible to invest in the solutions and restitutions required to mitigate the damage.” They have done it before.

“The successful effort to save the ozone layer is a case in point. International cooperation, backed by strong scientific evidence and led by the nations most responsible, resolved this global problem. In the mid-1970s, scientists discovered that a novel group of chemicals portrayed by industry as chemically inert, chlorofluorocarbons, were depleting stratospheric ozone and allowing more UVB radiation to reach Earth’s surface. This radiation can cause skin cancer and lower a body’s ability to fight illness. Little progress to reduce harmful chlorofluorocarbon emissions was made until the discovery of a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica in 1985, leading to an agreement by the 20 major chlorofluorocarbon-producing nations to phase down and ultimately end their production. The ozone layer is expected to fully recover to pre-1980s levels within decades.”

Phase out fossil fuels

“As with the ozone crisis, the solution to the climate crisis lies at the feet of those responsible. There should be no acceptable allowance for the wealthy producers of carbon pollution to continue to emit any of the greenhouse gases that are heating our planet faster than at any other time since the dinosaurs. We must end investments in carbon-polluting industries and ramp up investments to build clean energy systems. No more offsetting industrial carbon pollution in forests and other ecosystems. If there are to be targets for shaping a better climate future, they should be directed at the specific industries and nations responsible for polluting the atmosphere with fossil carbon emissions — and incentivizing them to replace carbon-emitting technologies with clean ones.”

The U.S. and most other developed nations have done poorly in curtailing global warming

Somini Sengupta reports on a U.N. report that documents “nations” get a “very poor grade” on their insufficient efforts to curtail global warming (https://nytimes.com/2023/11/14/climate/united-nations-ndc-report-card.html).

“Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Despite the clear human and environmental toll of global warming, countries are taking only ‘baby steps’ to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, a senior United Nations official said, summarizing a new U.N. report card on the promises made by governments so far.

The U.N. findings, published Tuesday [Nov. 4, 2023], are the latest of several assessments that paint a dire picture in which the countries aren’t doing nearly enough to keep global warming within relatively safe levels. “‘Today’s report shows that governments combined are taking baby steps to avert the climate crisis,’ said Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the U.N. climate change agency. ‘And it shows why governments must make bold strides forward.’” The 133-page report “was written by researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center.”

“Government subsidies for fossil fuels grew last year…spurred by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the skyrocketing cost of oil and gas.

Among the winners of that price increase were the oil giants of the world, including U.S. oil majors and petrostates in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia.

———–

Past promises and agreements continue spending on fossil fuels

Hiroko Tabrichi adds to this discussion, also reporting on research on how nations that vowed to halt warming are expanding fossil fuels (https://nytimes.com/2023/11/08/climate/fossil-fuels-expanding.html). She is “an investigative reporter on the Climate desk at the New York Times, [and] reports widely on money, influence and misinformation in climate policy.” In this article, she considers a United Nations-backed report released on Nov. 8, 2023. The report, “led by researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute, found that 20 major fossil-fuel producing nations of the world plan to keep increasing coal production until 2030, and oil and gas production decades beyond that.”

She continues. “In 2030, if current projections hold, the United States will drill for more oil and gas than at any point in its history. Russia and Saudi Arabia plan to do the same.

“They’re among the world’s fossil fuel giants that, together, are on course this decade to produce twice the amount of fossil fuels than a critical global warming threshold allows, according to a United Nations-backed report issued on Wednesday.

“The report, which looked at 20 major fossil fuel producing countries, underscores the wide gap between world leaders’ lofty promises to take stronger action on climate change and their nations’ actual production plans.”

“Wednesday’s report squarely lays the onus of curbing fossil fuel production on the world’s richest nations. For each fossil fuel — coal, oil or gas — the combined levels of production being planned by the 10 highest-income countries alone would already warm the world beyond 1.5 degrees by 2040, said Ploy Achakulwisut, who led the research.”

—————-

More on the U.S.

Clifford Krauss specializes on the energy industry for the New York Times. In this article, he discusses how surging U.S. oil production has brought prices at the pump down while at the same time increasing oil and gasoline emissions

(https://nytimes.com/2023/12/01/business/energy-environment/us-oil-production-record-climate.html). Here’s some of what he writes.

“Only three years after U.S. oil production collapsed during the pandemic, energy companies are cranking out a record 13.2 million barrels a day, more than Russia or Saudi Arabia. The flow of oil has grown by roughly 800,000 barrels a day since early 2022 and analysts expect the industry to add another 500,000 barrels a day next year.

As a result, “This week the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.25 a gallon, 25 cents below what it cost a year earlier and nearly $1.80 below the record price set in June 2022, according to AAA.”

“The main driver of the production surge is a delayed response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, which sent the price of oil to well over $100 a barrel for the first time in nearly a decade. The wells that were first drilled last year are now in full swing.

More exports, more imports

The U.S. is exporting “roughly four million barrels a day, more than any member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries except Saudi Arabia. On balance, the United States still imports more than it exports because domestic demand exceeds supply and many American refineries can more easily refine the heavier oil produced in Canada and Latin America than the lighter crude that oozes out of the shale fields of New Mexico, North Dakota and Texas.”

Krauss is concerned. “More supply and lower prices could increase demand for fossil fuels at a time when the world leaders, who are meeting in Dubai, are straining to reach agreements that would accelerate the fight against climate change. Scientists generally agree that the world is far from achieving the goals necessary to avoid the catastrophic effects of global warming, which is caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal.”

Biden’s contradictory policies

Krauss points out that Biden and his administration “has supported green energy and battery-powered cars, he has also hectored oil companies to increase production in an effort to drive down prices for consumers.”

“[Biden] has approved a large drilling project in Alaska over the objections of environmentalists and a small number of offshore oil and gas permits.”

“Most of the new U.S. oil production is coming from the Permian Basin, which straddles Texas and New Mexico. There are also some new projects and expansions in Alaska and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.

Raoul LeBlanc, a vice president at S&P Global Commodity Insights

said the investments made during the second half of last year were now bearing fruit. He predicted that American production could rise to 13.7 million barrels a day by the end of 2024, unless there is a deep recession and prices drop below $65 a barrel, around $10 lower than the current price.”

“‘I am very surprised by how much we have produced this year,’ said Scott Sheffield, chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources, a major producer in the Permian Basin that is being acquired by Exxon Mobil. He predicted that the country could produce 15 million barrels a day in five years.”

————

Part 2: COP28

Here’s a concise summary from Wikipedia of what COP28 is about

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference).

“The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, more commonly referred to as COP28,^[1] is the 28th United Nations Climate Change conference, being held from 30 November until 12 December 2023 at Expo City, Dubai.^[2][3] The conference has been held annually since the first UN climate agreement in 1992. The COP conferences are intended for governments to agree on policies to limit global temperature rises and adapt to impacts associated with climate change.^[4]

“The conference has been widely criticized, both regarding the leader of the summit, as well as the choice of the United Arab Emirates as the host country, given its dubious and opaque environmental record, and role as a major producer of fossil fuels.^[5] President of the summit, Sultan Al Jaber, is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), leading to concerns over conflict of interest.^[6] Over 100 members of the US Congress and European Parliament called for the United Arab Emirates to vacate Jaber from the position.^[7] Claims of greenwashing of Jaber on Wikipedia through paid editing, the legal inability to criticize Emirati corporations in the UAE, covert access to conference emails by ADNOC, and the invitation of Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad have all raised concerns regarding the integrity of the conference.^{[8][9][10][11]} Organized bot farms intended on defending Jaber and the UAE were also uncovered in June of 2023.^[12] On 21 November, Jaber stated that there was ‘no science’ behind fossil fuel phase-out.^[13] Six days later, leaked documents appeared to show plans for the UAE to use the conference to strike new fossil fuel deals with other nations, sparking international outcry.^[14]”

Here are some addition points on why, though not desirable, that COP28 will fail to curb fossil fuels, the primary sources of global warming.

#1 – Stacking COP28 with fossil fuel supporters

Thom Hartmann, a talk-show host and prolific author, offers information about who will be in attendance at COP28 (https://commondreams.org/opinion/can-cop28-succeed). His article was published on Dec. 1, 2023.

“More than 70,000 people from nearly 200 countries — including an estimated 700+ fossil fuel industry lobbyists (there were 636 at the last conference) — are arriving this week in Dubai for the opening of the 28th “Conference Of Parties” (COP28) that are signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). COP is the main decision-making body of the UNFCCC.”

#2 – The unmet challenges at COP28

David Gelles, a correspondent on the Climate Desk at the New York Times, reports on the challenges facing COP 28 (https://nytimes.com/2023/11/30/climate/cop28-climate-dubai-un.html).

Countries talk about the need to cut the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet, but emissions are reaching record highs this year. Rich countries have pledged to help poor countries transition away from coal, oil and gas, but have largely failed to fulfill their promises for financial aid. After 27 years of meetings, countries still can’t agree to stop burning fossil fuels, which scientists say is the main driver of climate change.

“And this year, the hottest year in recorded history, the talks known as COP28 are being hosted by a country that is ramping up its production of oil and has been accused of using its position as facilitator of the summit to strike oil and gas deals on the sidelines.

“‘There is skepticism of this COP — where it is and who is running it,’ said Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute, a research organization.”

As point out earlier, “the United States is also producing a record amount of crude oil and was the world’s leading exporter of natural gas in the first six months of 2023. And while China has led the world in electric vehicle adoption and is investing heavily in renewable electricity, it is also building new coal-fired power plants as its emissions continue to rise.”

“We’ve had COPs for how many years now?” said Avinash Persaud, a climate adviser for Barbados. “If people had been compelled to act at COP1 or COP2 or COP15, we would have had a different world.”

“Still,” Gelles writes, “the COP process is the only vehicle where diplomats, corporate chiefs, princes and presidents come together to focus on a planetary crisis.” But, as considered in Part 1 of this post, COP has a 27 (now 28) year record of failing to achieve effective strategies to reverse the crisis. He considers the reasons for being skeptical, if not being cynical, as to the chances COP28 will address the global warming crisis in any meaningful way. Here’s some of what he writes.

“The United Arab Emirates, the host country, is one of the world’s largest oil producers. And the man presiding over the event, Sultan Al Jaber, happens to be the head of Adnoc, the state-owned company that supplies 3 percent of the world’s oil. He also runs the much smaller state-owned renewables company, Masdar.

“Some activists contend that the U.A.E.’s role as host, and Mr. Al Jaber’s twin roles as oil executive and COP28 president, compromise the credibility of the conference. In the spring, more than 100 members of the U.S. Congress and European Parliament called for Mr. Al Jaber to be removed from the COP presidency, a position that rotates among countries each year.

Gelles quotes Al Gore: “They went too far in naming the C.E.O. of one of the largest — and by many measures one of the dirtiest — oil companies on the planet as the president of the U.N. Conference on Climate this year,”

The lack of meaningful action is also linked to “unmet promises made last year at COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Wealthy countries agreed to create a fund to compensate poor countries for destruction from climate disasters. But progress has been painstakingly slow. There has also been scant progress on efforts to overhaul the lending practices of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund — which critics say can trap poor countries in a cycle of debt and disaster.”

“This has left many developing countries mistrustful of the COP talks.”

#3 – COP28 is rigged to fail?

Thom Hartmann is skeptical on what the conference can accomplish, asking whether COP28 is rigged from the start (https://commondreams.org/opinion/can-cop28-succeed).

Hartmann reports, “the fossil fuel producing nations of the world are banding together to block serious efforts at shifting the world away from their products and toward renewable energy sources.

“In a particularly cynical move, a Saudi program called the ‘Oil Demand Sustainability Programme (ODSP)’ is reaching out to poor countries, particularly in Africa, to encourage them to expand their use of oil to power transportation, housing, and electricity.” And “Russia — a country with an economy about the size of Italy that is almost entirely based on fossil fuel production — has declared their intention to block any efforts to reduce demand for the oil and gas they produce.”

“This COP28 meeting is being held in the capital city of the world’s seventh largest producer of fossil fuels.”

#4 – Saudi Arabia’s opposition to any plan at COP28 to reduce fossil fuels

New York Times journalists Lisa Friedman, Brad Plumer and Vivian Nereim write on Saudi Arabia’s opposition at COP28 to any proposal limiting fossil fuels

(https://nytimes.com/2023/12/10/climate/saudi-arabia-cop28-fossil-fuels.html).

Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading exporter of oil, has become the biggest obstacle to an agreement at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where countries are debating whether to call for a phaseout of fossil fuels in order to fight global warming, negotiators and other officials said.

“The Saudi delegation has flatly opposed any language in a deal that would even mention fossil fuels — the oil, gas and coal that, when burned, create emissions that are dangerously heating the planet. Saudi negotiators have also objected to a provision, endorsed by at least 118 countries, aimed at tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030.

“Saudi diplomats have been particularly skillful at blocking discussions and slowing the talks, according to interviews with a dozen people who have been inside closed-door negotiations. Tactics include inserting words into draft agreements that are considered poison pills by other countries; slow-walking a provision meant to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change; staging a walkout in a side meeting; and refusing to sit down with negotiators pressing for a phaseout of fossil fuels.

“The Saudi opposition is significant because U.N. rules require that any agreement forged at the climate summit be unanimously endorsed. Any one of the 198 participating nations can thwart a deal.”

“Saudi Arabia has a long history of throwing sand in the gears of climate talks. In fact, one reason that the U.N. climate body operates by consensus, with any one country able to block a deal, is that Saudi Arabia demanded those rules at the first climate summit in 1992 and has fought to maintain them ever since.”

“The Saudi delegation is dominated by members of the country’s Energy Ministry, which is closely associated with the state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco. As recently as last year it pushed, along with Russia, to delete a reference to “human-induced climate change” from a U.N. scientific document, effectively challenging the scientific fact that burning fossil fuels causes climate change.”

#5 – Pushing the still unviable nuclear fusion at COP 28

Jennifer McDermott’s article for AP on Dec. 5, 2023 analyzes John Kerry’s “fusion strategy as a source of clean energy

https://apnews.com/article/fusion-nuclear-john-kerry-cop28-climate-power-energy  ….

McDermott writes, “The United States will work with other governments to speed up efforts to make nuclear fusion a new source of carbon-free energy, U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry said Tuesday, the latest of many U.S. announcements the last week aimed at combatting climate change.” And Kerry also said: ‘We are edging ever-closer to a fusion-powered reality. And at the same time, yes, significant scientific and engineering challenges exist,’ Kerry said, in Dubai for U.N. climate talks. ‘Careful thought and thoughtful policy is going to be critical to navigate this.’”

What is nuclear fusion?

“Nuclear fusion melds two hydrogen atoms together to produce a helium atom and a lot of energy—which could be used to power cars, heat and cool homes and other things that currently are often powered by fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. That makes fusion a potentially major solution to climate change, which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Still, fusion is a long way off, while other clean technologies like wind, solar and others are currently in use and could be increased.”

Fusion has not yet, and may never, become a viable option

Researchers have been trying for decades to harness the reaction that powers the sun and other stars — an elusive goal because it requires such high temperatures and pressures that it easily fizzles out.

Kerry wants to speed that up in hopes of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, a benchmark set by the international community. He urged nations to come together to “harness the power of fundamental physics and human ingenuity in response to a crisis.”

Research and development in early stages

“The United States and United Kingdom announced a partnership in November to accelerate global fusion energy development, and the United States announced its own vision last year for research needed over the decade. In southern France, 35 nations are collaborating on an experimental machine to harness fusion energy, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale, carbon-free source of energy. That project has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. On Friday, Japan and Europe said they were launching the world’s largest fusion reactor.

“Both China and Russia are partners in ITER, and China in particular is moving aggressively to promote fusion research and development, said Andrew Holland, chief executive officer of the Fusion Industry Association.

Some nations at COP28 agree to continue research on fusion energy

“Until now, all nuclear power has come from nuclear fission reactors in which atoms are split — a process that produces both energy and radioactive waste. The global nuclear industry launched an initiative at COP28 for nations to pledge to triple this kind of nuclear energy by 2050. More than 20 have already signed on, including the United States and the host of this year’s talks, the United Arab Emirates.

“Fusion doesn’t produce the radioactive waste of nuclear fission. In a global race to make it a practical and possibly limitless power source, more than $6 billion has been invested to date, according to the Fusion Industry Association. There are more than 40 fusion companies globally now with over 80% of the investment in the United States. Thirteen of the companies emerged in just the past year and a half.

McDermott quotes Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington. Lyman said: “But despite the hype, reliable and cheap nuclear fusion energy is still a pipe dream,” and “is far less likely than other alternatives to be commercialized on a timeframe that would allow it to help prevent the worst effects of climate change, he said. Lyman said the enormous price tag could also rob more promising alternatives, such as renewable energy, of resources they need to thrive.”

Concluding thoughts

Global warming is worsening. Efforts, like those at COP28, are failing. Certainly, COP28 will do nothing to stop in time or ever the production of fossil fuels in relatively rich countries across the globe, including the U.S. All humanity will suffer, though the most vulnerable populations especially in poor countries will suffer most severely.

The Biden administration has a mixed record, but on balance is unable or politically unwilling to push for policies to end dependence on the polluting and climate destructive fossil fuels. According to polls, the issue of “climate change” is not high on the agendas of the majority of American voters.

Though it is unlikely, perhaps the Democratic Party candidates and voters will surprise us in the 2024 elections. But the powerful fossil fuel corporate interests will continue to use their money and political influence to stymie meaningful reform. If Trump is elected, he is on record of wanting to ramp up the production of oil and gas in the U.S. and on opposing any international agreements to phase out coal, oil, and gas. He will order the withdrawal of the U.S. from any international agreements to curtail fossil fuel production and consumption, repeal the Biden administration’s Inflation Adjustment Act, slash funds for the Environmental Protection Agency, and close the Energy Department’s renewable energy offices (https://washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/12/11/trump-climate-talks-COP28-dubai).

 Bob Sheak, Nov 18, 2023

Introduction

This post considers the threats to U.S. democracy from Trump, who has the support of wealthy and powerful groups and a huge electoral base of tens of millions of Americans. Trump’s rhetoric has become increasingly violence-prone and with fascist overtones. 12 issues are identified that substantiate the extremist and anti-democratic goals of Trump, as he runs for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 without, at present, any serious Republican opponents.

What is fascism?

Here are a few responses.

#1 – Distinguished philosophy professor Jason Stanley defines fascism as “ultranationalism of some variety (ethnic, religious, cultural), with the nation represented in the person of an authoritarian leader who speaks on its behalf” (How Fascism Works, p. xiv). When it infuses politics, one of its dangers is that “it dehumanizes segments of the population,” “leading to the justification of inhumane treatment, from repression of freedom, mass imprisonment, ad expulsion to, in extreme cases, mass extermination” (p. xv).

#2 – The Council on Foreign Relations offers the following answer. (https://world101.cfr.org/contemporary-history/world-war/what-fascism).

“Many experts agree that fascism is a mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of both the nation and the single, powerful leader over the individual citizen. This model of government stands in contrast to liberal democracies, which support individual rights, competitive elections, and political dissent.

“In many ways, fascist regimes are revolutionary because they advocate the overthrow of existing systems of government and the persecution of political enemies. However, when it advances their interests, such regimes can also be highly conservative in their championing of traditional values related to the role of women, social hierarchy, and obedience to authority. And although fascist leaders typically claim to support the everyman, in reality their regimes often align with powerful business interests.”

#3 – The Merrium Webster Dictionary defines fascism as “ a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition” (https://www.merriam webster.com/dictionary/fascism).

Fascist systems then have the following characteristics: (1) a strong, dictatorial, leader; (2) the leader controls the government and other major institutions of the society; (3) the checks and balances of liberal democracy are eliminated; (4) the interests of the rich and powerful are advanced; (4) the opponents are repressed; (5) the rights, or many of the rights, of even his electoral base are taken from them.

Fascism vs. authoritarianism

Doctor Paradox adds to the meaning of “fascism” by contrasting it with authoritarianism (https://doctorparadox.net/dictionaries/authoritarianism/authoritarianism-vs-fascism).

“Fascism is a specific type of authoritarianism. Both are forms of government characterized by tightly centralized power, either under a sole dictatorship / demagogue or a small cadre of rulers — typically of wealthy oligarchs — where rule is absolute and the vast majority of people have little say in policy-making or national events. Identifying authoritarianism vs. fascism isn’t always a clearcut distinction, particularly given that one of the hallmarks of fascism is often that fascist leaders tend to conceal or hide their ideological aims until they achieve power and sometimes even beyond — so as not to alert the public to their true plans until it’s too late for people to fight back.”

“Under both authoritarianism and fascism, there is little or no political freedom and few (if any) individual rights. Authoritarian governments often use force or coercion to maintain control, dissent is typically suppressed, and political violence is tacitly encouraged so long as it is in support of the ruling regime.”

Trump’s anti-democratic promise

While the United States is not yet a fascist society, Trump and much of the Republican Party hold views and engage in actions that threaten to take America toward such a society. If they win control of the White House and Congress in 2024, Trump tells us they will take steps to weaken, if not destroy, democracy, and advance an agenda that embodies extremist values and undemocratic institutional arrangements.

Here I organize a critique of Trump fascistic slant around 12 issues. The point is to alert readers, as many have done, about this unprecedented threat to American democracy.

#1 – Trump the LEADER and the big lie

Trump remains the leader of the Republican Party. He unceasingly claims that he won the 2020 presidential election, despite the overwhelming evidence that he did not (e.g., The January 6 Report by the House January 6th Committee). The evidence. “In total, the Trump Campaign and allies of President Trump filed 62 separate lawsuits between November 4, 2020, and January 6, 2021, calling into question or seeking to overturn the election results. Out of 62 cases, only one case results in a victory for the President Trump or his allies, which affected relatively few votes, did not vindicate any underlying claims of fraud, and would not have changed the outcome in Pennsylvania.” Indeed, “In every state in which claims were brought, one or more judges specifically explained as part of the dismissal orders that they had evaluated the plaintiffs’ allegations or supposed proof of widespread election fraud or other irregularities, and found the claims to be entirely unconvincing” (p. 210).

#2 – The Big Lie is widely accepted by Republicans

Most Republicans in the U.S. Congress accept or go along with this false claim, as reflected in the recent vote in choosing a Speaker taken by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. The litmus test for House Republicans was that a Speaker should be someone who accepts Trump’s lies about winning the 2020 presidential election and his right-wing agenda. Marc Elias provides some information on the new Speaker Mike Johnson’s views and record (https://democracydocket.com/opinion/a-big-lie-ring-leader-becomes-speaker-of-the-house). The article was published on Oct. 30, 2023.

“The newly elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (La.) is no ordinary Republican election denier. He was a ringleader in one of the most dangerous efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He used his position as a lawyer and member of Congress to legitimize the fringe legal theory underpinning the ‘Big Lie.’ Other than former President Donald Trump, he is arguably the most culpable federal elected official in what transpired on Jan. 6, 2021.

Johnson “combines MAGA Republicanism with Christian nationalism. Shortly after becoming speaker, Johnson told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that anyone looking to understand his world view should ‘go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it.’ 

“When it comes to issues of democracy, Johnson is an avid vote suppressor and an accomplished election denier. He is best thought of as a cross between Jim Jordan and John Eastman.

“Like Jordan, Johnson is a solid MAGA vote for Trump in Congress. He has a history of advancing the racist ‘great replacement theory’ — that Democrats want to bring undocumented people into the country to vote. He voted against the bipartisan law that reformed the Electoral Count Act as well as the voting rights bills that Congress tried to advance over the last two years.

“No federal officeholder, other than Trump himself, bears more responsibility than Mike Johnson for the destruction and degradation of democracy we saw that day [Jan. 6, 2021].

“Like Eastman, Johnson was a lawyer for 20 years before joining Congress and advocated for deeply conservative and right-wing causes. And like the now-indicted Eastman, Johnson espoused dangerous and anti-democratic legal theories aimed at allowing Trump to remain in power in the aftermath of the 2020 election.”

“…Johnson argued that the results in several states were invalid. Relying on a virulent version of the fringe independent state legislature theory, he argued that since some courts had altered state election procedures to protect voting rights during the pandemic, the result of those state’s elections were illegal and should be rejected.”

“Trump called the case “the big one.” Johnson agreed and was ready to go all in.

On Dec. 9, Johnson sent an email to House Republicans, asking his colleagues to sign onto a brief supporting Texas’ effort to disenfranchise tens of millions and flip the election results. Leading this legal effort in the House, Johnson made sure to note that Trump was “anxiously awaiting the final list” of members who signed on.

The fact that the House Republicans’ attorney reportedly told Johnson that his arguments were unconstitutional made no difference. Ultimately 126 Republican members signed onto the brief with Johnson proudly leading the pack. The Dec. 9, 2020 email sent by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) to House Republicans asking them to sign onto an amicus brief in Texas v. Pennsylvania.

“A day later, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition 7-2. But the damage had been done. 

“Johnson had laid the legal groundwork for Republicans to reject the election results and gave a patina of legitimacy to the illegitimate aims of those set to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6. Most importantly, he had given Trump a three-week head start in creating the list of Republican members who were with him and those who were not.”

#3 – Trump’s electoral base is unwaveringly committed to him

Support for Trump is widespread in the society. Currently, according to polls, he is by far the most popular presidential candidate for 2024 among Republicans. His supporters agree with Trump’s assertions that he won the election, the Big Lie. They like his agenda and thuggish style. His corporate and wealthy backers like his positions on reducing taxes, deregulation, support for maximizing the extraction, use, and export of fossil fuels, and cutting federal spending. His massive electoral base of tens of millions of right-wing voters stick with him because he promises to shake up and transform government, protect maximum gun rights, endorse the primacy of ultra-conservative Christian positions, ban or severely limit reproductive rights, take military action to make the southern border secure against most immigrants, and, as president, get rid of Democrats and moderates in federal agencies while  replacing them with sycophants.

#4 – A lot of Americans embrace Trump’s “authoritarianism”

Philip Bump, a Washington Post columnist based in New York, analyzes why so many Americans “embrace Trump’s authoritarianism”

(https://washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/10/lot-americans-embrace-trumps-authoritarianism). He writes:

“With every hour that passes, Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination grows tighter. Every day in which his opponents aren’t gaining ground on his position is a day in which he gets nearer to appearing on the ballot next November and nearer to possibly being inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025.

“To many observers, there’s an incongruity to this. After all, recent days have also brought new awareness of Trump’s plans should he be inaugurated on that day, plans that are often unvarnished embraces of an authoritarian use of power. Trump plans to root out disloyal bureaucrats and install ideologically sympathetic ones. He’s speaking openly of using the Justice Department to target his opponents, including to hobble possible political opponents. And that’s just to name two recent examples.”

Disturbingly, many Americans support the turn toward authoritarianism. Bumb refers to the annual American Value Survey released by PRRI [Public Religion Research Institute] in October and other evidence.

“Last month, PRRI released the results of its annual American Values Survey. The pollsters asked respondents a slew of questions measuring their views of the country and its politics in the moment. Included among the questions was one that specifically addressed the question of authoritarianism: Did they think that things in the U.S. had gone so far off track that we need a leader who would break rules in order to fix the country’s direction?

“About 2 in 5 respondents said they did. That included nearly half of Republicans.”

“Back in early 2016, political scientist and consultant Matthew MacWilliams identified support for authoritarian tendencies as a key indicator of support for Trump among Republican primary voters. Before the 2020 election, he revisited the idea, noting that ‘approximately 18 percent of Americans are highly disposed to authoritarianism, according to their answers to four simple survey questions used by social scientists to estimate this disposition.’

“One asked a question similar to PRRI’s, about willingness to let a ‘strong leader’ do what he or she wants. Another centered on perceptions of the media. A third focused on opposition to diversity.

“The American National Election Studies survey conducted around presidential elections included questions that approximated the ones asked by MacWilliams.

“Less than half of respondents objected to the idea that we need a strong leader, even if the leader bends existing rules. A plurality of conservatives endorsed that idea. Less than half of respondents similarly expressed concern that the government might want to muffle critical reporting with a plurality of conservatives again expressing a lack of concern about that possibility.”

“CNN’s most recent polling, conducted by SSRS, shows that Trump leads Biden nationally by a 4-point margin, statistically even. Even given Trump’s response to the 2020 election, though, and the myriad criminal charges he faces, respondents were five points more likely to say they would be proud to have him as president then said the same of Biden.

“CNN’s poll also asked people to measure Biden and Trump on personal characteristics. Most respondents said that they thought Biden had respect for the rule of law; only about a third said the same of Trump.

“But remember: 49 percent of respondents prefer Trump over Biden. Meaning that at least 14 percent of respondents both think that Trump doesn’t respect the rule of law and want him to be president.”

Bump continues. “The issue of Trump’s legal challenges is itself instructive. For years, he’s argued that investigations into his actions are inherently political, efforts to subvert his political success. He frames this as an elite response to his fighting for average Americans, a message that resonates with his base. Despite the obvious evidence for Trump’s wrongdoing — the Capitol riot, the documents found at Mar-a-Lago, the attempts to overturn the election results in Georgia — most Americans told YouGov pollsters in August that they viewed the charges as intended to block Trump politically.

“About 4 in 5 Republicans held that view. That they would then shrug at Trump doing the same to his opponents is unsurprising.”

#5 – Trump says his opponents are “vermin”

Trump’s rhetoric is filled with threats against opponents, calling them “vermin,”

according to a report by Azi Paybarah, (https://washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/13/white-house-biden-trump-vermin). Paybarah quotes Trump from a campaign speech he gave.

“‘We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,’ Trump said in New Hampshire, repeating the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. ‘They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.’”

Such language is reminiscent of Hitler. “Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, said in an email to The Washington Post that ‘calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.’”

Paybarah continues. “In the Saturday speech, Trump also called himself a ‘very proud election denier,’ and said ‘the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within. Because if you have a capable, competent, smart, tough leader, Russia, China, North Korea, they’re not going to want to play with us.’”

#6 – Many in Trump’s “base” believe that violence is justified in support for Trump.

Kenny Stancil cites research that “12 Million US Adults Think Violence Is Justified to Put Trump Back in White House” (https://commondreams.org/news/12-million-us-adults-think-violence-justified-to-restore-trump-presidency). The article was published on June 9, 2023. He writes,

“More than two years after the deadly January 6 insurrection, 12 million people in the United States, or 4.4% of the adult population, believe the use of violence is justified to restore former President Donald Trump to power, The Guardian reported Friday.”

“We’re heading into an extremely tumultuous election season,” Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor and CPOST director, told The Guardian. “What’s happening in the United States is political violence is going from the fringe to the mainstream.” [CPOST is the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Threats.]

“The CPOST survey conducted in April found that 20% of U.S. adults still believe ‘the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,’ down only slightly from the 26% who said so in 2021.

“‘What you’re seeing is really disturbing levels of distrust in American democracy, support for dangerous conspiracy theories, and support for political violence itself,’ Pape told The Guardian.”

“‘Once you have support for violence in the mainstream, those are the raw ingredients or the raw combustible material and then speeches, typically by politicians, can set them off,’ said Pape. ‘Or if they get going, speeches can encourage them to go further.’”

“Several right-wing candidates who echoed Trump’s relentless lies about President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory lost in last year’s midterms. But more than 210 others—including at least two who participated in the January 6 rally that escalated into an attack on the U.S. Capitol—won congressional seats and races for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, underscoring the extent to which election denialism is now entrenched in the GOP and jeopardizes U.S. democracy for the foreseeable future.”

“The research center’s most recent survey found that ‘almost 14%—a minority of Americans, but still a significant number—believe the use of force is justified to ‘achieve political goals that I support,’ the newspaper reported. More specifically, 12.4% believe it’s justified to restore the federal right to abortion, 8.4% believe it’s justified to ensure members of Congress and other government officials do the right thing, 6.3% think it’s justified to preserve the rights of white Americans, and 6.1% believe it’s justified to prevent the prosecution of Trump.’”

“More optimistically, the survey found that over 77% of U.S. adults want Republicans and Democrats in Congress to issue a joint statement condemning any political violence.

“‘There’s a tremendous amount of opposition to political violence in the United States,’ Pape remarked, ‘but it is not mobilized.’

#7 – Trump as the Martyr and Savior

Marc Fisher considers why Trump’s fans go along with viewing the ex-president as a martyr like Jesus (https://washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/10/11/trump-jesus-why-he-casts-himself-martyr-why-fans-go-along).

“When Donald Trump’s civil trial on fraud allegations began in Manhattan last month, some of his most avid fans pictured him sitting alongside the archetypal martyr, Jesus. Trump quickly circulated the faux courtroom sketch to his social media followers.

“At rallies, in fundraising letters and wherever he can find an attentive listener, the former president — who faces 91 felony charges, four criminal trials and, in the New York civil case, the prospect of a court-ordered dismantling of his financial empire — has taken up a new mantra: ‘They’re not after me; they’re after you,’ said the headline plastered across the top of Trump’s campaign website when the trial began. ‘I’m just standing in the way.’”

“Over the pasteight years, Trump has often devoted as much attention to touting his victimhood and the attacks upon him as to expressing his goals or ideals for the country.

“The showman who parlayed his personal brand and a life in the gossip pages and on reality TV into the presidencyhas cultivatedan identity as Trump the martyr. Claiming he has been ‘harassed, investigated, defamed, slandered, and persecuted like no elected leader in American history,’ as he put it in a fundraising appeal last fall, Trump now routinely appeals to supporters to view him as the single figure who will weather attacks on their behalf, standing up for those who’ve been left behind by the country’s wealthy and powerful forces.”

From his earliest feuds in the New York real estate world half a century ago to his characterization of his 2024 presidential campaign as a “Final Battle” against those who would take him down, Trump has positioned himself as the one who will suffer on behalf of his followers or customers, said Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime fixer and attorney who broke with his former boss midway through the White House yearsand spent more than a year in prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress.

“To protect his incredibly fragile ego, he needs to create this victimization,” said Cohen. “The problem can’t be him, so who else can it be? That’s where the martyrdom comes in: He has to shift the blame on someone else, and then he can say, ‘The only one standing in between them and you is me.’”

“With each new charge, Trump sent out fundraising letters in which he presented himself as a perpetual victim of the authorities’ attacks. ‘No matter what our sick and deranged political establishment throws at me, no matter what they do to me, I will endure their torment and oppression, and I will do it willingly,’ he said in a fundraising appeal last fall. ‘Our cruel and vindictive political class is not just coming after me — they are coming after YOU.’”

“Although Trump has recently stepped up his portrayal of himself as a martyr, the instinct to tout his suffering on behalf of ‘the forgotten men and women’ has been a mainstay of his rhetorical repertoire throughout his venture into politics. In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly offered himself as the one candidate who would absorb the disdain that the country’s elites aimed at the ‘deplorables,’ the mantle many Trump supporters adopted after Democratic nomineeHillary Clinton tarred them with that description in a fundraising speech.

“Trump regularly positions himself as the one man who will selflessly sacrifice on behalf of ‘the forgotten men and women of this country.’ Yale historian Timothy Snyder has called Trump ‘the martyr in chief, the high priest of the big lie,’ creator of a sacred cause — the reinstallation of Trump in the Oval Office — for which his followers sacrificed themselves on Jan. 6, 2021, during the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Although Trump is not particularlyreligious and privately scoffs at the devout, he has happily adopted apocalyptic language and welcomed comparisons to Jesus.

When Trump was arraigned in New York in April, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a Trump acolyte, said he was ‘joining some of the most incredible people in history” who “have been arrested and persecuted by radical corrupt governments …, including Nelson Mandela and Jesus.’

“‘There is a kind of theological motif to his rhetoric, oddly enough for Donald Trump,’ said Roderick Hart, a government professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has written extensively on Trump’s use of language. ‘When you see Trump in church, he doesn’t know what to do. He stands there totally perplexed.

‘But he uses the language of the martyr, who so thoroughly believes in his propositions that he’s willing to die for it. But the thought of actually sacrificing himself is not likely to occur to him. He says, ‘I’m taking this for you,’ but then he says, ‘Now let’s talk some more about me.’”

“Unlike many charismatic figures, Hart said, Trump wins supporters not by saying what he will do for them, but by promising to withstand pain for them.”

“To his supporters, ‘Trump is a martyr; in his mind, he has been sacrificed,’ said Hart, the Texas professor. ‘He’s profoundly cynical, but he really believes someone with his stature can’t possibly be rejected by sentient human beings.’

When Trump describes the court cases against him as ‘an attempt to hurt me in an election,’ when he calls polls that show him to be unpopular ‘fake,’ when he contends baselessly that the election he lost in 2020 was “stolen,” he comes off to those who loathe him as a dangerouslyparanoid narcissist. But to those who admire him, he is a righteous warrior martyred by people who want to undermine their country.”

#8 – What A Second Trumpocracy Would Mean

Clarence Lusane, a political science professor and interim political science department chair at Howard University, and Independent Expert to the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance, considers what a “second Trumpocracy [or presidency] would mean”

(https://tomdispatch.com/what-a-second-trumpocracy-would-mean). The article was published on Oct. 26, 2023.

One thing is already clear, Lusane maintains. “If he becomes the official nominee of the Republican Party in next year’s presidential race, Donald Trump will receive tens of millions of votes in the general election. He may get less than the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. He may get more. Regardless, tens of millions of GOP, conservative, and extremist voters will cast their ballots for him.

“In 2016, despite his history of elitist, racist, and sexist behavior, failed businesses, lack of governing experience, and no demonstrated past of caring for anyone but himself, he won nearly 63 million votes. While still almost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton got, it was not just enough for a victory in the Electoral College but a clear warning of things to come.”

Lusane continues. “In 2020, after four years of non-stop chaos, the death of more than 200,000 Covid victims at least in part because of his mishandling of the pandemic, a legitimate and warranted impeachment, abuse of power, ceaseless corruption, and more than 30,000 documented public lies, he gained 74 million votes, even if, in the end, he lost the election.

“Now, in addition to all that history, you can add on the incitement of a violent insurrection, a second impeachment for attempting to overthrow the government, four criminal indictments (91 separate charges), being found liable for sexual abuse, and a stated plan to exact retribution against his enemies in a second term. And yet he will undoubtedly again [in the 2024 presidential election] receive many tens of millions of votes.”

“In any case, the current trajectory remains Biden vs. Trump 2.0 while, whatever the outcome of the election, this nation seems to be headed for a crisis of historic proportions. No matter who wins, next November 7th will do nothing to end the divisions that exist in this country. In fact, it’s only likely to exacerbate and amplify them.” 

#9 – Trump will not accept defeat in 2024

“Trump has already made it clear that he won’t accept any losing outcome,” according to Lusane. Neither will millions of his followers. For modern Republican Party leaders and their base, election rejection (if they lose) has become an ironclad principle. On the stump, Trump has already begun to emphasize that the spiraling legal cases against him are ‘election interference,’ that the Democrats are putting the pieces in place to steal the election from him, and that the Black judge and prosecutors holding him accountable are ‘racists.’” He insists that he can only lose the 2024 election if there is rampant fraud and illegal votes for the Democratic presidential candidate, probably Joe Biden. He will “certainly have GOP members in Congress ready to resist certifying a Democratic victory.”

Trump particularly fears losing his financial empire.

“The civil suit New York Attorney General Letitia James brought against Trump and the Trump organization has already resulted in a devastating judgment by Judge Arthur Engoron. He ruled Trump and his adult sons liable and immediately stripped them of their control over their businesses. Trump may now not only lose all his New York business properties but have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution. For someone whose whole identity is linked to his purported wealth, there could hardly have been a more crushing blow.

“In his mind, a second term as president clearly has little to do with benefiting the country, the Republican Party, or even the rest of his family. It’s his only path to shutting down the two federal cases against him in Florida and Washington, D.C. However, even such a win wouldn’t help him with the election interference case in Georgia or the hush-money criminal case in New York. Convictions in either of those would mean further accountability sooner or later. A second term would undoubtedly offer him another chance to monetize the presidency, just as he did the first time around, in a fashion never before seen.

“His record is still being investigated but, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Trump raked in tens of millions of dollars that way. It reports that Trump’s businesses took in more than $160 million from international sources alone, and a grand total of more than $1.6 billion from all sources, during his presidency. As CREW put it: ‘Trump’s presidency was marred by unprecedented conflicts of interest arising from his decision not to divest from the Trump Organization, with his most egregious conflicts involving businesses in foreign countries with interests in U.S. foreign policy.’”

#10 – Trump says violence is aceptable

According to Lusane, Trump’s legitimate fear of losing the 2024 presidential election is “pushing him toward ever more strident and violent language. He’s also signaling to his followers that the use of force to put him in power (or go after those who deny it to him) is all too acceptable.

“The chaos and disorder likely to follow any Trump loss in 2024 will only be further enhanced if the GOP keeps control of the House of Representatives or wins control of the Senate. A number of congressional Republicans have shown that they will not hesitate to do all they can to put Trump back in the White House, including igniting a constitutional crisis by refusing to certify Electoral College votes.

Even worse, “if Trump were to win, the extremists in and out of government would immediately be empowered to carry out the most right-wing agenda since the height of the segregationist era. A reelected Trump will find the most loyal (to him) and corruptible cabinet members possible. Their only necessary qualification will be a willingness to follow his orders without hesitation, whether or not they’re legal, ethical, or by any stretch of the imagination good for the country.

Count on one thing: it wouldn’t be an America First but a Trump First and Last administration.

#11 – Trump will know better how to create a submissive executive branch in a second presidential term

Jonathan Swan, Maggie Hagerman and Charlie Savage report that “Mr. Trump and his backers want to increase presidential power over federal agencies, centralizing greater control over the entire machinery of government in the White House” (https://nytimes.com/article/trump-2025-second-term.html). Here’s some of what Swan and his colleagues write.

“They have adopted a maximalist version of the so-called unitary executive theory, which says the president can directly command the entire federal bureaucracy and that it is unconstitutional for Congress to create pockets of independent decision-making authority.

“As part of that plan, Mr. Trump also intends to revive an effort from the end of his presidency to alter civil-service rules that protect career government professionals, enabling him to fire tens of thousands of federal workers and replace them with loyalists. After Congress failed to enact legislation to block such a change, the Biden administration is developing a regulation to essentially Trump-proof the federal work force. However, since that is merely an executive action, the next Republican president could simply undo it the same way.

Lusane also reports, “Beyond Trump’s individual sociopathic behavior, a far-right agenda is being created that will provide a certain ideological clarity to his bumbling authoritarianism. The policy work, not just from the Trump campaign but from Project 25, should scare everyone. A $22 million initiative by the rightwing Heritage Foundation, Project 25 has already produced a 920-page book, Mandate for Leadership: the Conservative Promise, detailing plans to reshape the federal government. If implemented, its strategy would write ‘the end’ to the classic separation of powers, checks and balances, and even a non-partisan civil service. Every single federal department and agency would instead be restructured to fall under the complete control of the president.”

#12 – “The Far Right Has a ‘Battle Plan’ to Undo Climate Progress Should Trump Win in 2024”

Kristoffer Tigue reports on this on August 1, 2023

(https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01082023/far-right-battle-plan-to-undo-climate-progress-trump-win-2024).

Tigue writes, “The proposal, called Project 2025, would gut environmental spending, stymie clean energy development and fundamentally shift how federal agencies regulate U.S. industries.

“Far-right conservative groups are promoting a sprawling ‘battle plan’ to obstruct and undo the federal government’s efforts to tackle the climate crisis, with hopes of quickly enacting a series of sweeping changes if Donald Trump, or any other Republican, gets elected as president next year.

If implemented, the plan “would not only undo any progress the Biden administration has made to reduce emissions and fund clean energy development and other climate-related efforts, but it would make it far more difficult for a future administration to pursue any policy that seeks to address global warming at all, according to a report last week by POLITICO. The plan would even make it challenging for federal agencies to carry out common environmental protections that have been practiced in the country for more than 50 years.

The plan was written by more than 350 right-wing hardliners—including former Trump staffers—the plan would block wind and solar power from being added to the electrical grid; gut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency; eliminate the Department of Energy’s renewable energy offices; prohibit states from adopting California’s tailpipe pollution standards, transfer many federal environmental regulatory duties to Republican state officials; and generally prop up the fossil fuel industry.”

Concluding thoughts

Trump and his allies want to undermine U.S. democracy. If they win control of the White House and both chambers of the U.S. Congress they will have ample opportunity to do this.

U.S. history is, at least in part, a history of violence against indigenous people, people of color (especially, African-Americans), immigrants, workers and unions, women’s rights, and others. It is reflected in the Civil War, as southern white plantation owners and their government and grassroots supporters fought a losing and bloody war to expand slavery in the west. Adam Hochschild recaptures the government’s suppression of war opponents, socialists, and trade unions during WWI in his book, American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis. Kevin M. Krouse and Julian E. Zelizer edit a collection of essays by historians “to take on the biggest legends and lies” in American history. The book’s title: Myth America. Dana Milbank analyzes the “twenty-five year crack-up of the Republican Party” in his book, The Destructionists. Dan Pfeiffer focuses his book on the “big lie” promoted by right-wing media (Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook, and the Mega Media are Destroying America). Among the most troubling books is the book by Malcolm Nance, They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency.

Malcom Nance does not mince words. He is a globally renowned expert on terrorism, extremism, and insurgency and best-selling author. He offers the following description of Trump’s electoral base in his book titled They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency (publ. 2022). This base is anti-democratic and willing to accept violence if necessary to achieve their goals.

“The Trump worshipping base has become an openly fascist movement. It endangers the nation with near constant threats to take up arms and create political instability through violence. The goals of TITUS [Trump Insurgency in the United States] are not just to alter and coopt the national dialogue but to dismantle the framework of government and the Constitution itself. They openly advocate the destruction of America’s diversity, multiculturalism, and equality. They continue to demand that an unelected dictator be put back into office. They want a strongman who will impose the will and ideology of forty million misguided people over the voices and lives of all other Americans” (p. 241).

Bob Sheak, Oct 29, 2023 (edited on March 1, 2024)

Introduction

This  post considers evidence on the brutal, terroristic, surprise attack by Hamas on Israel and how Israel’s response to the attack, including massive bombing, collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, are also brutal and in violation of international law. Amidst this unfolding and devastating war, the Biden administration wholeheartedly supports Israel.

The Hamas attack

There is no doubt that the barbaric attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas in Israel must be condemned. Reporting for ABC News, Bill Hutchinson describes the attack on southern parts of Israel (https://abcnews.go.com/international/timeline-srprise-rocket-attack-hamas-isreal-story?id=103816006). The article was published on October 19.

“The conflict was touched off by the Oct. 7 sneak attack, which included thousands of armed Hamas fighters breaching a border security fence and indiscriminately gunning down Israeli civilians and soldiers taken off guard. Other militants stormed beaches in Israel in motorboats and some brought death from the sky, swooping in on paragliders.

“More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, including children, and more than 4,500 people have been injured, Israeli officials said. At least 32 of those killed in Israel are Americans, according to the U.S. State Department.

“The Israel Defense Forces said 203 people [the number is over 220 hostages, as of Oct 25] have been taken hostage by Hamas and it’s believed they are being held in Gaza.” There is no knowledge of exactly where the hostages are being held. Four hostages have been released.

Some details on the Hamas attack

Muhammad Darwish and his colleagues at CNN report on some of the grisly details of what Hamas inflected on a number of Kibbutzim in Israel (https://cnn.com/2023/10/10/middleeast/israel-kibbutzim-kfar-aza-beeri-unim-hamas-attack-intil/index.html). Here’s what they write about one of the  Kibbutzim.

“Bodies of Israeli residents and Hamas attackers lay outside burned-out homes in the Israeli kibbutz Kfar Aza on Tuesday, days after the Palestinian militant group launched a large-scale surprise assault on Israel.

“Houses in Kfar Aza were ransacked and set ablaze. Overturned mattresses, destroyed furniture, broken trinkets and unexploded grenades lay strewn across the grounds, along with bodies – a window into the scale of devastation wrought by Hamas in this area.

“‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my career, never in 40 years of service this something I never imagined,’ Maj. Gen. Itai Veruv told CNN on Tuesday, just a few hours after Israeli troops secured the kibbutz from Hamas assailants.”

Biden’s support of Israel

The Biden administration immediately rallied in support of Israel. The administration condemned Hamas. It now has two carrier groups off the coast off Israel, as reported by Tara Copp for the Associated Press (AP) (https://apnews,com/article/israel-hamas-military-navy-carrier). Overall, within hours of the horrific attack by Hamas on Oct 7, 2023, the U.S. began moving warships,  aircraft, and other military munitions to the region and planned to provide Israel with whatever it needed to respond and protect itself. Copp reports that “Special operations forces are now assisting Israel’s military in planning and intelligence.”

Biden has also asked the U.S. Congress to provide Israel with an unprecedented package of aid to support the country after the Hamas raid. He is asking that Congress approve “$14.3 billion for Israel, as part of a larger request of $106 billion that includes money for Ukraine, Israel, countering China in the Indo-Pacific and for enhancing border security. The assistance to Israel is for air and missile defense, military financing and embassy support.

Polls of American show a majority in support of the administration’s policy

Nathaniel Rakich provides an overview of recent polls on the Israel-Palestinian conflict in an article published on Oct. 24, 2023 (https://abcnews.com/538/americans-war-israel?id=104150059).

“…most Americans side with Israel in the conflict, according to the polls. The exact numbers vary widely, but across five recent polls, between three and five times as many Americans said they sympathized with Israelis than said they sympathized with Palestinians. (Although it’s worth noting that, in most of the surveys, a sizable minority said that they sympathized with both sides equally. And when not pitted against each other, both Israelis and Palestinians garner overwhelming sympathy from Americans: The SSRS/CNN poll found that 96 percent of Americans have at least some sympathy for Israelis and 87 percent have at least some sympathy for Palestinians.)

“Back in 2013,” according to Rakich, “Gallup found that Americans sympathized with Israelis over Palestinians 64 percent to 12 percent, but earlier this year, that gap was down to 54 percent to 31 percent.

“Interestingly, Gallup found that most of that shift was due to changing attitudes among Democrats and independents. For example, Democrats went from sympathizing with Israelis over Palestinians 55 percent to 19 percent in 2013 to sympathizing with Palestinians over Israelis 49 percent to 38 percent earlier in 2023. Meanwhile, Republicans remained steadfast in their support of Israelis — 78 percent sympathized with them in 2013, and 78 percent sympathized with them 10 years later.”

“Given Americans’ sympathies for Israelis, it makes sense that they also approve of Israel’s retaliation against Hamas’s attacks. SSRS/CNN found that 50 percent of Americans thought the Israeli government’s military response was fully justified, and another 20 percent thought it was partially justified. And a YouGov/The Economist survey from Oct. 14-17 found that only 18 percent of Americans thought the Israeli government’s response has been too harsh; 32 percent thought it was about right, and 22 percent thought it was not harsh enough.

“J.L. Partners/DailyMail.com, polling Oct. 10-12, also asked Americans about specific measures that Israel could or is taking against Palestine. The most popular countermeasure was conducting airstrikes on Hamas targets; 60 percent of respondents to the poll felt that that was a reasonable response by Israel. By contrast, 50 percent said that a full invasion and occupation of the Gaza Strip was reasonable, and 45 percent said that a blockade of electricity, food, water and fuel was reasonable.

“Not only do Americans support the Israeli government’s response, but they also want their own government to come to Israel’s aid. Seventy-one percent of Americans told YouGov/The Economist that protecting Israel was a very or somewhat important U.S. policy goal. And Quinnipiac University’s Oct. 12-16 survey found that 76 percent of registered voters thought supporting Israel was in the U.S. national interest.”

In terms of specific policies, between 41 and 64 percent of Americans supported sending weapons and/or military aid to Israel, depending on which poll you look at (YouGov/The Economist, J.L. Partners/DailyMail.com or Quinnipiac). A consistent 28-29 percent opposed it in all three polls. Between 49 percent and 55 percent also supported sending financial aid to Israel in the first two polls, while only 21-27 percent opposed it. However, J.L. Partners found that Americans opposed sending U.S. troops to fight alongside Israel. Only 32 percent were in favor of that, while 48 percent were opposed.

“So far, Americans seem to be happy with the level of U.S. involvement in the conflict. In an ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted Oct. 13-14 using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, 49 percent of Americans thought the U.S. was doing about the right amount to support Israel in its war against Hamas. Only 18 percent thought the U.S. was doing too much, and 29 percent thought the U.S. was doing too little. Quinnipiac’s poll had similar numbers.”

——————-

GAZA

Gaza is home to 2.2 or 2.3 million Palestinians. In 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were driven out of what was to become the first Israeli state and over time the population grew. One can get a sense of the history of Palestine and Israel in Rashid Khalidi’s best-selling book, The Hundred Year’s War on Palestine (publ. 2020). Here are some current facts.

Presently, 40 to 50 percent of Gaza’s population are youth, aged under 19. Wikipedia offers the following analysis (https://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip).

“The Gaza Strip (/ˈɡɑːzə/;^[4] Arabic: قِطَاعُ غَزَّةَ Qiṭāʿ Ġazzah [qɪˈtˤɑːʕ ˈɣaz.za]), or simply Gaza, is a Palestinian exclave on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea,^[5] bordered by Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the east and north. Together, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank make up the State of Palestine, which has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967.^[6]

“The smaller of the two Palestinian territories,^[7] Gaza is separated from the West Bank by Israel. Both are nominally under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority,^[8] however Gaza is governed by Hamas, a militant, Sunni Islamic organization,^[9] which has ruled the territory since an internal conflict between Palestinian factions in 2007 that followed their electoral victory in 2006.^[10][11] Since then, Gaza has been under a full Israeli-led, and Egyptian supported, land, sea and air blockade. This prevents people and goods from freely entering or leaving the territory, leading to the territory often being called an ‘open-air prison’.^[12]

“The Gaza Strip is 41 km (25 mi) long, from 6 to 12 km (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide, and has a total area of 365 km² (141 sq mi).^[13][14] With around 2 million Palestinians^[15] on approximately 365 km² (141 sq mi) of land, Gaza has a high population density (comparable to that of Hong Kong).^[16][17] The majority of Palestinians in Gaza, which contains eight refugee camps, are descendants of refugees who fled or were expelled from the area that became Israel after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.^[18] Sunni Muslims make up most of Gaza’s population, with a Palestinian Christian minority. Gaza has an annual population growth rate of 2.91% (2014 est.), the 13th-highest in the world.^[14]”

Hamas

Kali Robinson identifies a little known fact about the origin of Hamas in an article on the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) website, Oct. 9, 2023 (https:///cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas). Here’s some of what she writes.

“A spin-off of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1980s, the Islamist militant group Hamas took over the Gaza Strip after defeating its rival political party, Fatah, in elections in 2006.”

At this point in time on Oct. 28, 2023, Israel’s principal objective appears to be to find and destroy Hamas regardless of how much death and destruction it’s military forces perpetrates in pursing this goal and with little apparent concern about the 200+ hostages. Israeli bombing in Gaza increases and a Israeli ground invasion is in process, beginning on Oct. 28 and 29.

Some Israeli government officials. including Netanyahu, would like to push all Palestinians in Gaza out of the strip, though presently there is nowhere else for them  to go and it would be in violation of international rules of war (an issue taken up later in this post).  

Israel helped to create Hamas

Mehdi Hasan and Dina Sayedahmed report that Israel helped to create Hamas

(https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict). Here’s what they write.

“But did you also know that Hamas — which is an Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement” — would probably not exist today were it not for the Jewish state? That the Israelis helped turn a bunch of fringe Palestinian Islamists in the late 1970s into one of the world’s most notorious militant groups? That Hamas is blowback?

“This isn’t a conspiracy theory. Listen to former Israeli officials such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s. Segev later told a New York Times reporter that he had helped finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a ‘counterweight’ to the secularists and leftists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as ‘a creature of Israel.’)

“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, told the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Back in the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists. ‘I … suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face,’ he wrote.” They did not listen to him.

————

Hamas (continued)

Back to Robinson. “Hamas is an Islamist militant movement and one of the Palestinian territories’ two major political parties. It governs more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but the group is best known for its armed resistance to Israel.”

“Dozens of countries have designated Hamas a terrorist organization, though some apply this label only to its military wing. Iran provides it with material and financial support, and Turkey reportedly harbors some of its top leaders. Its rival party, Fatah, which dominates the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and rules in the West Bank, has renounced violence. The split in Palestinian leadership and Hamas’s unwavering hostility toward Israel have diminished prospects for stability in Gaza.

“Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (“Islamic Resistance Movement”), was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian cleric who became an activist in local branches of the Muslim Brotherhood after dedicating his early life to Islamic scholarship in Cairo. Beginning in the late 1960s, Yassin preached and performed charitable work in the West Bank and Gaza, both of which Israel occupied following the 1967 Six-Day War.

Yassin established Hamas as the Brotherhood’s political arm in Gaza in December 1987, following the outbreak of the first intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem…. In 1988, Hamas published its charter, calling for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic society in historic Palestine. In what observers called an attempt to moderate its image, Hamas presented a new document [PDF] in 2017 that accepted an interim Palestinian state along the “Green Line” border established before the Six-Day War but that still refused to recognize Israel.”

“Hamas has a host of leadership bodies that perform various political, military, and social functions. General policy is set by an overarching consultative body, often called the politburo, which operates in exile. Local committees manage grassroots issues in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Ismail Haniyeh currently serves as political chief, having replaced longtime leader Khaled Meshaal in 2017. Haniyeh has operated from Doha, Qatar, since 2020, reportedly because Egypt restricts his movement into and out of Gaza. Hamas leaders established a presence in Qatar after falling out with their previous host, Syria, when Palestinian refugees participated in the 2011 uprising that preceded the Syrian Civil War. Some senior Hamas figures reportedly operate out of the group’s offices in Turkey.

“Day-to-day affairs in Gaza are overseen by Yahya Sinwar, who previously headed Hamas’s military wing and served twenty-two years in an Israeli prison for masterminding the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers. He was among the more than one thousand Palestinian prisoners freed in 2011 in exchange for an Israeli soldier held by Hamas. As of June 2021, Gaza’s de facto prime minister is Issam al-Da’alis.”

“As a designated terrorist entity, Hamas is cut off from official assistance that the United States and European Union (EU) provide to the PLO in the West Bank. Historically, Palestinian expatriates and private donors in the Persian Gulf provided much of the movement’s funding. In addition, some Islamic charities in the West have channeled money to Hamas-backed social service groups, prompting asset freezes by the U.S. Treasury.”

“Today, Iran is one of Hamas’s biggest benefactors, contributing funds, weapons, and training. Though Iran and Hamas briefly fell out after backing opposing sides in Syria’s civil war, Iran currently provides some $100 million annually [PDF] to Hamas, PIJ, and other Palestinian groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States. Iran was quick to praise Hamas’s assault on Israel in late 2023 and pledge its continuing support for the Palestinian group.

“Turkey has been another stalwart backer of Hamas—and a critic of Israel—following President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rise to power in 2002. Though Ankara insists it only supports Hamas politically, it has been accused of funding Hamas’s terrorism, including through aid diverted from the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency.”

How Hamas govern Gaza?

Robinson continues. “As Hamas took over the remnants of PA institutions in the strip, it established a judiciary and put in place authoritarian institutions. In theory, Hamas governs in accordance with the sharia-based Palestinian Basic Law, as does the PA; but it has generally been more restrictive than the law requires, including by controlling how women dress and enforcing gender segregation in public during the early years of its rule. The watchdog group Freedom House found in 2020 that the “Hamas-controlled government has no effective or independent mechanisms for ensuring transparency in its funding, procurements, or operations.” Hamas also represses the Gazan media, civilian activism on social media, the political opposition, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), leaving it without mechanisms for accountability.”

How do Palestinians view Hamas?

Robinson: “The political bifurcation of the West Bank and Gaza is widely unpopular: a June 2023 poll [PDF] by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) showed that one-third of Palestinians consider it the most damaging development for their people since the state of Israel’s 1948 creation. The same poll found that more than half of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank would vote for Hamas’s Haniyeh over PA President Mahmoud Abbas in a presidential election, while just one-third of Palestinians would choose Abbas. Additionally, Abbas has indefinitely postponed national elections scheduled for 2021, citing Israel’s alleged refusal to let Palestinians in East Jerusalem vote, though observers suspect that Abbas aims to prevent a likely Hamas victory.

How has Hamas challenged Israel?

Robinson: “Hamas has fired rockets and mortars into Israel since the group took over the Gaza Strip in the mid 2000s. Iranian security officials have said that Tehran provided some of these weapons, but that Hamas gained the ability to build its own missiles after training with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and proxies. In recent years, Israel estimated that Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza had about thirty thousand rockets and mortars in their arsenal. Hamas militants have flown balloons carrying incendiary devices toward Israel, which have sometimes caused fires. The group has also carried out incursions into Israeli territory, killing and kidnapping soldiers and civilians.”

Israel’s response to the Hamas attack

The Israeli claim of precision bombing – an oxymoron

 Israeli officials says that the massive and increasing bombing of Gaza is precise and aimed at non-civilian targets. They also claim that the 1.1 million Gazan residents in the northern parts of Gaza have been notified to move south, away from the Gaza/Israel border and ostensibly away from Israeli bombing. However, the Israeli bombing is occurring everywhere in Gaza,

The idea of precise bombing to avoid Palestinian deaths and injuries, and the destruction of residences and building of all kinds, including schools, hospitals, residences, and other structures, is hard to believe, given the dense population of the tiny Gazan strip and the extensive and increasing destruction and death that now results from the bombing.

Ethnic cleansing

Israel has demanded that the 1.1 million Palestinians in the northern parts of Gaza move south. Otherwise, they will be viewed as supporters of Hamas and will be targeted as complicit in the attacks on Israel, that is as enemy combatants and relevant military targets. On Democracy Now, a weekly program on the internet, the host Amy Goodman refers to this issue in an interview with Jehad Abusalim, Palestinian scholar, policy analyst from Gaza and the executive director of The Jerusalem Fund (https://democracynow.org/2023/10/23/jehad_abusalim_gaza).

“AMY GOODMAN: Jehad, I wanted to get your comment on the Israeli military informing Palestinians in Gaza that they would be identified as a partner in a terrorist organization if they didn’t follow forced displacement orders and move south. This message came in leaflets that were dropped from the sky by drones on Saturday, after Israel ordered 1.1 million residents in the northern part of Gaza to move south — of course, not clear if they could ever return.”

The result is that, out of fear, hundreds of thousands of Gazans, perhaps 700,000 Gazans, have moved to the south. Tragically, Israel’s military forces have bombed them anyway, bombing all parts of Gaza.

As the bombing goes on, there is very little aid allowed by Israel to enter the strip. Belen Fernandez hones on the inadequate humanitarian aid allowed to enter Gaza by Israel, referring to the “Trickle of Aid Amid Unyielding Gaza Onslaught,” as nothing more than a PR Trick (https://commondreams.org/opinion/gaza-aid-as-pr-stunt). The article was published on Oct. 22, 2023.

“According to United States President Joe Biden – who continues to wholeheartedly back the Israeli slaughter-fest in Gaza both morally and financially while pretending to care a tiny bit about the victims of the whole arrangement – Israel had agreed to allow some 20 humanitarian aid trucks to enter the besieged Palestinian enclave on Friday via the shuttered Rafah crossing from Egypt. [Since this report, the number of trucks has approached 70.]

“A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Wednesday [Oct. 18] affirmed that, ‘in light of President Biden’s demand, Israel will not thwart humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population in the southern Gaza Strip.’

Fernandez is wary of Israeli claims about aid. She writes:

“To be sure, the non-thwarting pledge would have been slightly more credible had Israel not repeatedly bombed Rafah and the other areas of southern Gaza to which thousands of civilians from the north have evacuated under orders from Israel itself. As might have been predicted, the aid trucks were held up all day Friday [Oct. 20] on the Egyptian side of the border as the Israeli army continued its pulverisation efforts in the Palestinian territory.” Since then, a few dozen more trucks have been allowed to enter southern Gaza.

Prior to the current attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, 500 trucks entered Gaza every day, as reported by Michelle Nichols for Reuters (https://reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-aid-monitoring-must-change-allow-more-trucks-un-chief-2023-10-27).  

If Netanyahu and his political war coalitions gets their way, Palestinians will somehow be eliminated from Gaza. as well as from Jerusalem, and the West Bank. Not clear where they would go. Both Jordan and Egypt reject the idea of admitting hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s residents to their land.

Nonetheless, as Brett Wilkins reports, Netanyahu has shown a map of the “new Middle East”  to the United Nation’s General Assembly, and it does not include any Palestinian areas (https://commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-map). Wilkins reports,

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angered Palestinians and their defenders Friday after presenting a map of “The New Middle East” without Palestine during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York” on Oct. 27, 2023.

“Speaking to a largely empty chamber, Netanyahu—whose far-right government is widely considered the most extreme in Israeli history—showed a series of maps, including one that did not show the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or Gaza. These Palestinian territories have been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967, with the exception of Gaza—from which Israeli forces withdrew in 2005, while maintaining an economic stranglehold over the densely populated coastal strip.”

“Palestinian Ambassador to Germany Laith Arafeh said on social media that there is “no greater insult to every foundational principle of the United Nations than seeing Netanyahu display before the UNGA a ‘map of Israel’ that straddles the entire land from the river to the sea, negating Palestine and its people, then attempting to spin the audience with rhetoric about ‘peace’ in the region, all the while entrenching the longest ongoing belligerent occupation in today’s world.”

Starve them

Jon Queally reports on how Israel’s blockade and siege of Gaza is negatively affecting the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza, particularly Israel’s refusal to allow fuel to enter the strip

(https://commondreams.org/news/un-fuel-gaza-hospital-collapse). The article was published on Oct. 22, 2023

Queally quotes Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the United Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East [UNRWA].

“Without fuel, there will be no water, no functioning hospitals and bakeries,” Lazzarini continued. “Without fuel, aid will not reach those in desperate need. Without fuel, there will be no humanitarian assistance. No fuel will further strangle the children, women, and people of Gaza.”

Noting that the UNRWA runs the largest humanitarian operation in the Gaza Strip, he said that without fuel, “we will fail the people of Gaza whose needs are growing by the hour, under our watch.”

Following the first “totally insufficient” convoy of aid trucks allowed to enter Gaza from Egypt on Saturday, another 17 trucks were permitted Sunday. Neither of the deliveries contained fuel, which medical personnel on the ground have said is vital if the health system is to remain capable of keeping the wounded and sick alive.

“‘In three days, UNRWA will run out of fuel, critical for our humanitarian response across the Gaza Strip,’ Lazzarini said.”

The death toll and the wounded in Gaza steadily rise

Unsurprisingly, the number of reported Palestinian deaths goes up day by day and the devastation of medical facilities, schools, whole communities, UN facilities also increases. No place is safe. Hamas also has launched hundreds or thousands of missiles toward Israel, but most have been destroyed by Israeli defenses. As it stands, the combination of the blockade, siege, the severe limiting of humanitarian aid, the attempted ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza, all contribute to a rising human catastrophe of enormous and tragic consequences.

Becky Sullivan reports that Gazan health officials say the “reported death toll in Gaza nor approaches 7.000 by Oct. 26 (https://npr.org/2023/10/26/1208680784/death-toll-in-gaza-approaches-7-000=as-aid-groups-raise-alarm-about-fuel). This number may underestimate the death toll, as an unknown number of Palestinians are buried and unrecovered in rubble from the bombing. Nonetheless, according to Sullivan, Biden dismisses the number and said he has “no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed.”

Sullivan continues.

“The Palestinian agency that produces the death tolls, the Ministry of Health, is nominally operated by the Palestinian Authority, which provides funding and supplies and maintains close contact with hospitals in Gaza. Hamas governs Gaza and likely has close oversight over information Gaza health officials put out. [Still] The daily casualty counts are broadly considered to be accurate by humanitarian groups and have been cited by the State Department.

“Gaza’s borders are effectively closed, limiting the ability of aid groups and journalists to access the territory in order to independently verify the numbers.

Humanitarian groups warn that the death toll could dramatically increase if Israel follows through with its threats of a ground invasion, as it plans to do.

Collective punishment

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)offers the following information (https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/collective-punishments). It appears that the internationally recognized war crime of collective punishment is applicable to what Israel is doing in its war and siege against Palestinians in Gaza. Here’s what the ICRC says generally about the unlawful concept of “collective punishment.”

“The term refers not only to criminal punishment, but also to other types of sanctions, harassment or administrative action taken against a group in retaliation for an act committed by an individual/s who are considered to form part of the group. Such punishment therefore targets persons who bear no responsibility for having committed the conduct in question.”  

“International humanitarian law prohibits collective punishment of prisoners of war or other protected persons for acts committed by individuals during an armed conflict.

“The imposition of collective punishment is a war crime.”

Genocide and Accountability

Marjorie Cohn, author and legal expert, argues in an article published on Oct. 20, 2023, that both Israeli and US leaders “must be held accountable for the genocide of Palestinians” (https://truthout.org/articles/israeili-and-us-leaders-must-be-held-accountable-for-the-genocide-of-palestine). Genocide is about the destruction of an “enemy.” Ethnic cleansing is about the forceable removal of a population from selected places. Israel is engaged in both.

“In retaliation against the Palestinians in Gaza for Hamas’s October 7 killing of hundreds of Israeli civilians, Israel has intensified its 16-year siege of Gaza to a ‘complete siege.’ Israel is slaughtering Gazans, cutting off their food, water, electricity and fuel, ordering more than 1 million of them to leave their homes and then bombing their evacuation routes, and trapping them with nowhere to escape.

Israeli forces are amassing tanks on the border in preparation for an imminent invasion. The United States is sending massive firepower to help Israel.”

The idea of “complete siege” is a euphemism for ethnic cleansing. It “explicitly indexes a plan to bring the siege to its final destination of systematic destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza,” Raz Segal wrote in Jewish Currents.

“There is a plausible and credible case that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza, as a significant part of the overall Palestinian population, as a protected group,” the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) wrote in its October 18 emergency legal briefing paper titled ‘Israel’s Unfolding Crime of Genocide of the Palestinian People & U.S. Failure to Prevent and Complicity in Genocide.’”

The CCR brief also implicates the U.S.

“There is a plausible and credible case to be made that the United States’ actions to further the Israeli military operation, closure, and campaign against the Palestinian population in Gaza, with the knowledge of Israel’s intention to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza through killings, causing serious mental and physical harm, and creating conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, rise to the level of complicity in genocide.

Therefore, Cohn maintains, “Israeli and U.S. Leaders Should Be Prosecuted Under the Genocide Convention and Rome Statute.”

“The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention) includes in the definition of genocide the commission of any of the following acts when committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group:

Killing members of the group;

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

“Crimes punishable under the Genocide Convention include genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide and complicity in genocide. Parties to the Genocide Convention — which include Israel and the U.S. — are obligated to prevent and punish genocide.

“Moreover, the Rome Statute can be used by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute the crime of genocide, which is defined the same way as it is in the Genocide Convention. The Rome Statute also provides for the prosecution of individuals who have aided and abetted the commission of genocide. Although neither Israel nor the U.S. is a party to the Rome Statute, the ICC has determined that it has jurisdiction over crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the Gaza Strip.”

Cohn’s evidence

“The Israeli Air Force is conducting a continual aerial bombardment of Gaza. It has dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza [as of Oct 24], one of the most densely populated areas in the world. That’s more bombs than the U.S. government launched in Afghanistan in a year. Some of Israel’s bombs contain white phosphorus, which burns to the bone and cannot be extinguished with water. It is prohibited by Protocol III of the Convention on Conventional Weapons.”

“Israeli forces have hit at least 24 United Nations installations during the past week, killing at least 14 staff members. A UN school in central Gaza in which 4,000 had taken refuge was shelled by Israeli tanks, killing six people and wounding dozens. The Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza was hit with airstrikes that leveled a whole block of homes and wounded dozens of people.

“The Gazan health ministry said in a statement that hospitals ‘have entered the stage of actual collapse due to power outages and fuel scarcity.’”

“Besides hospitals and schools, Israeli warplanes are targeting homes, mosques, churches and other civilian buildings. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, ‘No electricity, no food, no water, no gas — it’s all closed,’ stating that, ‘We are fighting animals and are acting accordingly.’”

Cohn continues. “The Israeli government gave 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza 24 hours to leave their homes and travel south or risk being killed when Israel’s imminent ground invasion occurs.

“More than 1 million Gazans have left their homes. Sixty percent of them are now in an eight-mile long area south of the evacuation zone.

“There continues to be no water for the vast majority of the population in Gaza. We’re talking about 2 million people in the Gaza Strip who do not have water. And water is running out. And water is life. And life is running out of Gaza.”

Two of Gaza’s eight refugee camps, where hundreds of thousands of refugees live, have been bombed. Israel made them refugees 75 years ago in the 1948 Nakba (or “catastrophe”) when Israel conducted a violent campaign of ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes to create the state of Israel. Mass atrocities, including dozens of massacres, killed roughly 15,000 Palestinians. The Nakba caused the forced displacement of 85 percent of the Palestinian population.”

“‘Over the past 75 years, successive Israeli governments have pursued deliberate, calculated, and explicit campaigns against Palestinians of forced expulsion, transfer and displacement, killing, fragmentation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, and denial of fundamental rights,’ CCR wrote in its brief.”

“Statements made by Israeli leaders are evidence of an ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part” a ‘national group.’ The Palestinians in Gaza comprise a substantial part of the Palestinian nation, and Israeli leaders are targeting them because they are Palestinian.

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on October 16, “This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.”

“Defense Minister Gallant’s declaration, ‘we are fighting animals,’ dehumanizes Palestinians to rationalize wiping them out. He pledged, ‘Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.” Gallant threatened to ‘bomb those attempting to provide aid to the Gaza Strip.’”

“Israeli Defense Forces Spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that ‘the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.’

“Netanyahu, Gallant and other Israeli leaders should be charged with genocide in national courts and the ICC. Biden, Blinken, Austin and other U.S. leaders should be charged with complicity in genocide.

U.S. Leaders Are Aiding and Abetting Israeli Genocide

“The Rome Statute provides that an individual can be convicted of genocide in the ICC if he or she aids, abets or otherwise assists’ in the commission or attempted commission of genocide,” which includes ‘providing the means for its commission.’

“In addition to the $3.8 billion a year the U.S. furnishes Israel for military assistance, the Biden administration is sending overwhelming firepower and providing diplomatic cover for Israel’s war on the Palestinian people.”

“President Joe Biden called Hamas’s October 7 attack ‘an act of sheer evil.’ But he has never condemned Israel’s indiscriminate killing, starvation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza.”

“On October 18, the U.S. vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for a ceasefire and urged Israel to rescind its order to 1.1 million Gazans to leave their homes and move to southern Gaza.”

“Netanyahu, Gallant and other Israeli leaders should be charged with genocide in national courts and the ICC. Biden, Blinken, Austin and other U.S. leaders should be charged with complicity in genocide.

“More than 800+ scholars and practitioners of international law, including me, have signed a public statement warning of potential genocide in Gaza. Referring to the ‘complete siege’ of Gaza, the statement notes, ‘This terminology itself indicates an intensification of an already illegal, potentially genocidal siege to an outright destructive assault.’”

Biden appears to go along with whatever Israel decides

Biden traveled to Israel to express his unequivocal support for the country (https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1206832708/biden-israel-trip-mideast-peace)

Ralph Nader points out that Biden’s trip accomplished little to end the continuing Israili bombing of Gaza, ordered his UN Ambassador to veto “a widely supported resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, did not counsel the Israeli government to “obey the laws of war,” had no influence on the hostage situation, expressed little concern for the dire effects on Palestinians from the bombing, had nothing to say about Israel’s blockade of Gaza or how Israel has severely limited the number of supply trucks entering Gaza through the Rafah, or how Israel refuses to allow any fuel to enter the country (https://counterpunch.org/2023/10/23/biden-returns-from-israel-empty-handed).

Nader also criticizes the Biden administration’s request for $14 billion in additional aid for Israel and writes,

“That sum of money, to be authorized without any Congressional hearings or Congressional oversight, is greater than the combined annual budgets of the FDA, OSHA, NHTSA and the section of HHS, whose missions are to reduce the loss of hundreds of thousands of preventable American fatalities in the workplace, on the highways, and in the marketplace and the hospitals. (See, the 2016 peer-reviewed study from the John Hopkins University of Medicine).

“Lastly, still not calling a ceasefire, Biden is disregarding his own military’s private advice against an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza as raising the risk of a larger war in the Middle East that would clearly be against the national interests of the American people and U.S. security.

“He could have done what President Eisenhower did in 1956, when he demanded that the Israeli, British and French attack on Egypt stop immediately.

And stop, they did!”

“Moreover, Biden seems unwilling to recognize the historical origins of this conflict that now has mighty Israel occupying, colonizing, brutalizing and stealing land and water from the twenty-two percent of the original Palestine left for millions of Palestinians under Israeli daily control.”

What to do?

It is neither lawful nor morally justified for Israel to continue on its current path in Gaza. Therefore, there must be pressure on that country to stop the bombing, the ethnic cleansing, the siege, the collective punishment, and any genocidal policies advanced by Israel. It may begin with a “humanitarian pause” that allows for an adequate supply of aid to enter Gaza, including fuel. It should be accompanied by a cease fire. Ideally, though presently unlikely, there would also be negotiations that ended Israeli bombing and lifted the siege and blockade. Hostages held by Hamas could be released as part of a peace settlement, perhaps in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israeli authorities.

Humanitarian pause

Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Emily Rose report on how the UN, US and Canada have at last appealed for a “humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas war to allow safe deliveries of aid to civilians short of food, water, medicine and electricity in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip” (https://reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-promises-unrelenting-attacks-hamas-us-obama-urge-caution-2023-10-24).

According to Reuters, “U.N. agencies were pleading ‘on our knees’ for emergency aid to be let into Gaza unimpeded, saying more than 20 times current deliveries were needed to support the narrow strip’s 2.3 million people amid widespread devastation from Israel’s aerial blitz.”

“The United States is negotiating with Israel, neighbouring Egypt and the U.N. to smooth emergency deliveries into Gaza, but have wrangled over procedures for inspecting the aid and over bombardments on the Gaza side of the border.

“While we remain opposed to a ceasefire, we think humanitarian pauses linked to the delivery of aid that still allow Israel to conduct military operations to defend itself are worth consideration,” a senior U.S. official said.”

“U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Security Council: ‘Palestinian civilians are not to blame for the carnage committed by Hamas,’ referring to the militants’ killing of 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and capture of over 200 in a one-day rampage through Israeli communities near Gaza.

“‘Palestinian civilians must be protected. That means Hamas must cease using them as human shields … It means Israel must take all possible precautions to avoid harm to civilians,’ Blinken said.”

“The World Health Organization, in the latest of increasingly desperate U.N. appeals, called for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to prevent food, medicines and fuel supplies from running out in Gaza.

“HOSPITALS RUNNING OUT OF FUEL”

“Doctors in Gaza say patients arriving at hospitals are showing signs of disease caused by overcrowding and poor sanitation after more than 1.4 million people fled their homes for temporary shelters under Israel’s heaviest-ever bombardment.

“All hospitals say they are running out of fuel to power their electricity generators, leaving them increasingly unable to treat the injured and ill. More than 40 medical centres have halted operations, a health ministry spokesman said.

UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, warned in a post on messaging platform X that it would halt operations in Gaza on Wednesday night because of the lack of fuel.

“However, the Israeli military reaffirmed it would bar the entry of fuel to prevent Hamas from seizing it.”

Calls for a cease fire plus

Pleas for a “humanitarian pause” in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and for increases in humanitarian aid are often combined with demands of a cease fire. But they also sometimes go beyond such demands to include an end to the blockade. the recognition of the Palestinians’ right to their own independent state, and the reclamation of some of the land in the West Bank taken forcibly by Israeli settlers,  with backing by Israeli military forces. Right now, the call for cease fire is needed to end the slaughter of Palestinians and the danger the conflict poses to Israelis.

The United Nations General Assembly calls for a cease fire (https://press.un.org/en/2023/gashc4390.doc.htm).

“Francesca P. Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said much of what Palestinian paramilitary forces have done against civilians in Israel are war crimes and must be accounted for.  In response, Israeli occupation forces have yet again indiscriminately bombarded the Gaza Strip, hitting entire residential areas, schools, hospitals, mosques and churches and killing around 5,000 people [the number now is over 7,000]. Israel has further tightened the unlawful siege of the Gaza Strip, depriving the population of indispensable items of survival and using starvation as a method of war.  Palestinian children, constituting half the population under occupation, are the prime victims of this system, Albanese said, reporting that, from 2008 until 6 October 2023, 1,434 Palestinian children were killed, primarily at the hands of Israeli occupation forces. 

“Elaborating on the situation further, Navi Pillay, Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, unequivocally condemned the killing of over 1,000 Israeli citizens by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups as well as the taking of over 200 Israeli hostages.  She also unequivocally condemned Israeli military attacks, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

“Calling for an immediate ceasefire, she underscored that the Israeli Government must end its 56-year occupation and recognize the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.”

Oct 11, 2023

 Introduction

The scientifically and empirically derived facts documenting the large role played by the extraction, processing and wide use of fossil fuels in the warming of the planet has been known for generations. Humanity is now in an unprecedented global warming crisis. It is affecting some parts of the U.S. and world more than others, but, not too long from now and in the absence of sufficient ameliorating responses, it will harmfully impact all aspects of life – people, societies, economies, agriculture, oceans, and virtually everything. Scott Dance captures this dire situation, writing “the earth is at its hottest in thousands of years” (https://washingtpost.com/weather/2023/07/08/earth-hottest-years-thousands-climate).

 The big oil corporations have known this since at least the 1970s. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway analyze the corporate cover-up in their book, Merchants of Doubt, and James Hoggan does so in his book, Climate Cover-Up. The oil and gas corporations knew, but did everything to cover up this evidence and to use their stupendous political clout to support the ongoing investment in oil and gas along with major subsidies from the government.

 Fossil fuel emissions are not the only cause of global warming, but they are the principal cause. Jake Johnson points out that “fossil fuels made up 82% of global energy consumption in 2022 (https://commondreams.org/news/fossil-fuels-global-energy-consumption).  

In  a recent article, Scott Dance reports that the planet’s temperature in September 2023 surged far above previous records…even further than what scientists said seemed like astonishing increases in July and August (https://washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/10/03/september-global-temperature-record-climate).

 According to Dance, “September’s temperature estimates come from models in which scientists use temperature data from around the world to calculate average global warmth. Such analyses have become a reliable complement to assessments that NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration conduct each month, but with more lag time for data review and processing.

“Temperature data derived from weather satellites also showed it was the warmest September on record, by far.”

This post refers to evidence on the fossil-fuel caused climate crisis, its effects, the counterproductive role of the Republican Party, and actions and proposals by some in the Democrat Party. The present situation poses an existential threat to Americans and people around the planet. It requires massive changes in American society and governments and people everywhere. Though the responsibility for reducing the use of fossil fuels lies mostly with the big greenhouse gas emitters, including the US, China, the European Union, and Russia.

 In his new book, Our Fragile Moment, climate scientist Michael Mann points out that “only our elected policymakers…are in a position to do that,” that is, phase out the production and consumption of fossil fuels. He adds: “In the United States, one of the two major parties, the Republican Party, is largely beholden to the fossil fuel industry. And it has acted that way,” that is, it promotes a policy aimed at maximizing fossil fuel production and consumption (pp. 234-235).

 This is not the popular American view. According to research on American attitudes toward “climate change,” a majority of Americans believe that there is a climate crisis and that government needs to ramp up its efforts to move away from fossil fuels toward renewables (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change).

“Two-thirds of U.S. adults say the country should prioritize developing renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, over expanding the production of oil, coal and natural gas, according to a survey conducted in June 2023.”

 Getting hotter

Juan Cole, “the Richard P.Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan and author of many books, refers to evidence that documents the connection between fossil fuel usage and the climate crisis (https://juancole.com/2023/10/frankensteins-emergency-dangerous.html).

 “The data from scientific institutions around the world is pouring in here in the beginning of October, regarding September, 2023, and the consensus is that it was freakishly hot, unprecedentedly torrid, off-the-charts sweltering. It was the Frankenstein’s monster of months.

 “Much of the extra heat came from human-caused climate change, from our spewing the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to the tune of 40 billion tons a year, by burning coal, fossil gas and gasoline. In addition, this is an El Nino year, when the tides in the South Pacific work in such a way as to heat the world up. And, there seem to have been an unusual number of high pressure systems, affecting Japan, German, the US southwest, and Mexico. These may be caused by a weakened and wobbly jet stream, a result of human-caused climate change.”

Republicans deny and/or dismiss the problem

Ella Nilsen considers “why Republicans can’t get out of their climate bind, even as extreme heat overwhelms the US (https://cnn.com/2023/07/30/politics/republicans-climate-solutions-heat-wave/index.html). She writes that “the GOP is stuck in a climate bind – and likely will be for the next four years, in large part because they’re still living in the shadow of former president and 2024 Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.”

Nilsen continues. “Even as more Republican politicians are joining the consensus that climate change is real and caused by humans, Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric has driven the party to the right on climate and extreme weather. Trump has called the extremely settled science of climate change a ‘hoax’ and more recently suggested that the impacts of it ‘may affect us in 300 years.’” In other words, don’t worry about it.

Most climate scientists this week reported that this summer’s unrelenting heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” were itnot for the planet-warming pollution from burning fossil fuels. The scientistsalso point out that “the planet’s temperature is hotter now than it has been in around 120,000 years.”

 Republicanswant to maximize the use of oil, gas, and coal

 Inan article published in the New York Times, Lisa Friedman considers a Republican “climate strategy” for 2024 called “Project 2025” (https://nytimes.com/2023/08/04/climate/republicans-climate-project2025.html).

 “Project 2025, a conservative ‘battle plan’ for the next Republican president, would stop attempts to cut the pollution that is heating the planet and encourage more emissions.

 “During a summer of scorching heat that has broken records and forced Americans to confront the reality of climate change, conservatives are laying the groundwork for a future Republican administration that would dismantle efforts to slow global warming.

 “The move is part of a sweeping strategy dubbed Project 2025 that Paul Dans of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank organizing the effort, has called a ‘battle plan’ for the first 180 days of a future Republican presidency.

“The plan calls for shredding regulations to curb greenhouse gas pollution from cars, oil and gas wells and power plants, dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels — the burning of which is the chief cause of planetary warming.

 “The New York Times asked the leading Republican presidential candidates whether they support the Project 2025 strategy but none of the campaigns responded. Still, several of the architects are veterans of the Trump administration, and their recommendations match positions held by former President Donald J. Trump, the current front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination.

 “The $22 million project also includes personnel lists and a transition strategy in the event a Republican wins the 2024 election. The nearly 1,000-page plan, which would reshape the executive branch to place more power into the president’s hands, outlines changes for nearly every agency across the government.

 “The Heritage Foundation worked on the plan with dozens of conservative groups ranging from the Heartland Institute, which has denied climate science, to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which says “climate change does not endanger the survival of civilization or the habitability of the planet.”

 “Mr. Dans said the Heritage Foundation delivered the blueprint to every Republican presidential hopeful. While polls have found that young Republicans are worried about global warming, Mr. Dans said the feedback he has received confirms the blueprint reflects where the majority of party leaders stand.”

 Fossil fuel use continues to increase

 Catherine Rampell challenges a Republican view that the problem is that there is a ‘war on American energy and, contrariwise, reports on evidence that oil production is near record highs (https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/03/biden-fossil-fuels-republicans-energy-war-record.”

 Rampell writes: “For years, Republicans have claimed that Democrats have waged a ‘war’ on fossil fuels.” She continues: “This narrative has featured prominently in Republican presidential debates and in front-runner Donald Trump’s remarks about striking autoworkers, among other settings. Apparently (at least according to Republicans), Democrats such as President Biden have used every tool at their  disposal to squelch fossil fuel production and consumption.”

 The evidence belies such claims. “After plummeting early in the pandemic,” according to Rampell, “U.S. crude oil production has been climbing and is now back near record highs. That’s according to data released Friday [Sept. 29, 2023] by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The agency also projects that oil production will hit new all-time highs next year.”

“If‘energy independence’ means exporting more than you import, we’ve achieved it in spades. The United States has been exporting more crude oil and petroleum products than it imports for 22 straight months now, far longer than was the case under Trump.”

Rampell concludes: “If this is what waging war on fossil fuels looks like, Democrats apparently aren’t very good at it. But in reality, of course, the war on fossil fuels is a pure political invention. Biden and other Democrats are hewing much more closely to the Republican pro-fossil-fuel agenda than either side would like to admit — at exactly the moment we need to push toward the future.”

The human consequences – examples

Millions of children around the planet have been affected by “climate change”

Julia Conley provides one mind-numbing example. 43 million children have been forced from their homes due to climate change over the last six years  (https://commondreams.org/news/children-displaced-climate). The article was published on Oct. 6, 2023.

“The U.N.’s children’s welfare agency released a new report Friday [Oct 6, 2023] making the case for prioritizing the protection of children from fossil fuel-driven climate disasters—with more than 43 million children across the globe internally displaced in a six-year period due to drought, flooding, wildfires, and other extreme events.

In the report Children Displaced in a Changing Climate, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) details how 95% of child displacements in 44 countries from 2016-21 were due to flooding and storms, with 40.9 million children forced from their homes in countries including Guatemala, South Sudan, and Somalia.

People often go unidentified or unfound after climate-related catastrophes

Matthew Wolfe and Malcolm Araos report in the New York Times on Oct 2, 2023 that “Climate Change Is Forcing Families Into a New Kind of Indefinite Hell” (https://nytimes.com/opinion/missing-climate-change-weather-dead.html).

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Dr. Wolfe is a national fellow at New America. Dr. Araos is a postdoctoral fellow at the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy at the University of Utah.

They refer first to the August wildfire that roared through the town of Lahaina in Hawaii. It “burned so hot that some of the dead were effectively cremated, their bones combusting to unidentifiable ash. Other bodies may have been lost in the Pacific Ocean, into which many of those fleeing the inferno were forced to plunge.”

Their point is that many people go missing in the aftermath of such calamities and this is a particular problem for low-income countries.

“For families of the missing, disappearance is a special kind of indefinite hell. In a wealthy country like the United States, victims of disaster tend to be quickly tallied and searched for. But poorer nations, which are already more vulnerable to the damage wrought by climate change, often don’t have the resources to follow through. We need to fund measures for these countries that both prevent disappearances through emergency preparedness and also resolve them by promptly identifying bodies. The nations responsible for the most climate pollution have a moral responsibility to help families left in limbo.”

Wolfe and Araos continue. “In addition to intensifying disasters, climate change is also leading to disappearances through migration and conflict. Some years ago, one of us, Dr. Wolfe, visited refugee camps on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios to learn more about migrants who had disappeared while trying to reach Europe. Malnutrition, hunger and famine linked to new climate conditions have pushed more Africans to undertake the perilous journey across the Mediterranean and more Latin Americans to travel through Central America and into Mexico. Tens of thousands have disappeared. Rising temperatures have also made these passages more lethal as migrants die of heat exhaustion while trekking across deserts and asphyxiate inside metal shipping containers.

“What was most striking on Lesbos and Chios was both the sheer number of people who seemed to be missing and the loneliness of their relatives’ investigations. There was no government agency their families could turn to for the help they needed, no nation willing to invest resources in searching for someone who had disappeared while crossing borders.

 “Without a body to bury and visit, a loved one’s death, however likely, remains uncertain. This form of ambiguou loss makesgrieving difficult if not impossible, forestalling funerals and pushing many kin of missing persons into a potentially endless search. More practically, such absences can deprive surviving  relatives of a breadwinner while also creating legal difficulties in receiving a declaration of death. Even if a person is declared dead, the wound of disappearance frequently remains unhealed. Years later, against ever thinning odds, families of the missing are still seeking some proof of their loved one’s life or death.”

The United Nations Plan

 Fiona Harvey, Environmental editor at The Guardian, reports on a UN report that urges the global end to fossil fuel exploration by 2030 and funds to support poor countries meanwhile (https://theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/05/un-report-urges-end-to-fossil-fuel-exploration-by-2030).    

 End fossil fuel exploration globally by 2030 and increase assistance for poor countries in the energy transition

 Harvey writes: “Fossil fuel exploration should cease globally by 2030 and funding to rescue poor countries from the impacts of the climate crisis should reach $200bn (£165bn) to $400bn a year by the same date, according to proposals in a UN report before the next climate summit.”

 Rich countries need to meet their commitments

 “Countries were still ‘way off track’ to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the report found, and much more action would be needed to make it possible to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

“The UN’s synthesisreport on the global stocktake, published on Wednesday, will form the basis for discussions at the Cop28 conference in Dubai, which begins at the end of November. The global stocktake is a process mandated under the Paris agreement, intended to check every five years on countries’ progress on meeting their emissions-cutting goals. 

Greenhousegas emissions must peak by 2025

 “Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, said the report offered a range of actions for governments to consider. “[These are] clear targets which provide a north star for the action that is required by countries,” he said.

“Greenhouse gas emissions are still rising but there is broad agreement they must peak by 2025 at the latest if there is to be a chance of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C.”

Low-income countries need support

William Ruto, Moussa Faki Mahamat, Akinwumi Adesina and Patrick Verkooijen are reported to ask for increased foreign  support to make the energy transition away from fossil fuels feasible in Africa, specifically pausing debt repayments  (https://nytimes.com/2023/10/08/opinion/climate-change-africa-debt.html).

 Mr. Ruto is the president of the Republic of Kenya. Mr. Faki is the chairman of the African Union Commission. Dr. Adesina is the president of the African Development Bank Group. Dr. Verkooijen is the chief executive of the Global Center on Adaptation.

Ruto and his colleagues point out, “When poor countries are forced to default on their foreign debt, as Ghana and Zambia have done,they pay a heavy price. Cut off from credit of any kind, spending on health, education and dealing with the damaging effects of climate change comes to a juddering halt.

 “Countries in the West often plead with us to invest in the kind of ambitious resilience projects we need to survive in a warming world. But in Africa, we can’t fix the climate issue unless we fix the debt issue. Of the 52 low- and middle-income countries that have defaulted on their debts or have come close to it in the last three years, 23 are in Africa. The continent’s debt burden is skyrocketing as a result of factors beyond its control: the aftershocks of the pandemic, rising fuel and food prices, higher interest rates and climate catastrophes that weaken our economies and sap our ability to repay creditors.

“To put this figure into context, Africa is now paying more in debt service than the estimated $50 billion a year the Global Center on Adaptation says it needs to invest in climate resilience. These investments are not nice-to-haves — they are vital for building roads, bridges and dams that can withstand torrential rains and floods. Failure to do so is to invite catastrophe, as the recent floods in Libya so tragically attest.

 “But instead of receiving funds to address the climate crisis, Africa is borrowing at a cost up to eight times higher than the rich world to rebuild after climate catastrophes. This is why Africa urgently needs a pause in debt repayments so that it can prepare for a world of ever greater climate extremes. The Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Marrakesh, Morocco, that begin Monday are a good place to start.”

A  Democratic proposal

U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (IL-09) and Nanette Barragan (CA-44) have reintroduced legislation on Sept. 20, 2023, to end fossil fuel expansion, dubbed The Future Generations Protection Act of 2023 (https://schakowsky-house-gov/media/press-releases/schakowsky-barragan-reintroduce-legislation-end-fossil-fuel-expansion).

 “This bill would help ensure a rapid shift away from fossil fuel to clean renewable energy. It has 20 co-sponsors so far. “Not only will this legislation ban greenhouse gas emissions from all new power plants, end hydraulic fracking, and ban crude oil and natural gas exports, but, most importantly, it will make our planet more habitable for future generations,” said Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. “The science is clear: we are rapidly running out of time to prevent the worst effects of climate change. The summer of 2023 was the hottest ever on record. Our children should not be forced to suffer the consequences of our lack of action. The time to act is now and with the passage of this bill, we can make a lasting impact.”

 “I’m proud to join Rep. Schakowsky in reintroducing the Future Generations Protection Act, which recognizes that increasing our dependence on fossil fuels is incompatible with a habitable planet, now and for the future,” said Congresswoman Nanette Barragán.”Communities of color are hit first and worst by the climate crisis. This year we have experienced record wildfires, extreme drought, heat waves, and stronger storms. As Democrats in Congress and President Biden work to make record investments in clean energy to reduce pollution and create millions of green jobs, we need to reduce fossil fuel infrastructure – not expand it and work against the progress we’re poised to make.”

 “The Future Generations Protection Act would:

 Ban greenhouse gas emissions from all new power plants.

Stop hydraulic fracking.

Ban crude oil and natural gas exports.

Prohibit the Federal Energy Resources Commission from approving new liquified natural gas terminal siting or construction, unless doing so would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Concluding thoughts

The high gas prices and their economic effects of recent months reveal how dependent the society continues to be on gas and oil, despite the science, despite public awareness, despite some state and local initiatives (e.g., David Miller, Solved: How the World’s Great Cities are Fixing the Climate Crisis), and despite falling prices for solar and wind energy.

 The

solutions to the problem require major changes in the economy and in the life  styles of Americans, in transportation, in housing, in diet, and more. Many Americans support relevant changes to reduce global warming in the abstract, but also want to continue their present life styles and consumption. The challenge is reflected in the sales of goods producing sectors of the economy, particularly in the tens of  millions of gas-guzzling cars and light trucks on the road, how most homes and offices continue to be heated and cooled by fossil-fuel generated energy, and so on. In the final analysis, the current concerns about rising gasoline prices and the political fallout exemplify, understandably, how immediate personal financial considerations seem to overshadow or at least weaken environmental concerns. But even more important, an energy transition way from fossil fuels is blocked by the Republican Party and a right-wing rigged electoral system, along with the big oil and auto corporations and their allies.

Bob Sheak, Sept 24, 2023

Introduction

The UAW strike against the three big automakers is primarily about the goal of winning fair treatment for union workers in some auto plants and, if successful, to encourage other workers and unions to follow their example. Now, after over a week of the strike and ongoing negotiations, the union has expanded the strike against the big automakers.

The issue of cars and trucks and global warming

Aside from fairness, there is the issue of the large harmful environmental impacts of cars and light trucks on carbon emissions, a major source of global warming. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has this to say about it (https://epa.gov/transportation-air-pollution-and-climate-change/carbon-pollution-transportation).

“Burning fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel releases carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. The buildup of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases like methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) is causing the Earth’s atmosphere to warm, resulting in changes to the climate we are already starting to see today.

​

“Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation account for about 29 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making it the largest contributor of U.S. GHG emissions. Between 1990 and 2021, GHG emissions in the transportation sector increased more in absolute terms than any other sector.”

The UAW recognizes the importance of this issue. The big auto producers are gearing up to produce more electric cars that require less labor input than cars using internal combustion engines. The big automakers are considering this because they see potential profits in this growing – but still small – sector of the auto industry.

As we’ll see, however, the environmental issue is only one of many issues and perhaps not the most pressing one from the workers’ standpoint. Union workers want opportunities to produce electric cars, but, if the strike is resolved, they will go back to producing cars, most of which for years to come will still use carbon generating internal combustion engines.

According to Statista, “In the first quarter of 2023, there were around 286 million vehicles operating on roads throughout the United States. Almost 38.4 million used vehicles changed owners in the U.S. between the first quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, while new registrations of vehicles came to about 13.9 million units during that period.” In 2022, according to Wikipedia, electric and hybrid cars represented just 1.3 percent of cars in use (https://en-wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_cars_ise_by_country). The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the sale of electric vehicles will increase in coming years (https://bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-12/charging-into-the-future-the-transition-to-electric-vehicles.htm), though still representing a minority of all vehicles on the road.

“Although forecasts for the rate of EV adoption over the next decade vary widely given rapid changes in both government policies and the auto manufacturing industry in recent years—many forecasts expect a strong acceleration in EV adoption. S&P Global Mobility forecasts electric vehicle sales in the United States could reach 40 percent of total passenger car sales by 2030, and more optimistic projections foresee electric vehicle sales surpassing 50 percent by 2030.^” Note these figures are about “new” sales, not about the cars and trucks already in use.

In sum

Like most American workers, UAW workers want a fair wage, reasonable working conditions, health and pension benefits, and contracts that achieve such goals. Their demands are considered in the next section of this text. If they are successful, the UAW strike may encourage other workers across the economy to strive for unionization.

It is clear, however, that the immense and rising problem of carbon emissions will be decided or not decided by the people elected to federal and state governments and, in some instances, by a conservative Supreme Court. There is little doubt that the fossil fuel industries will do their best to slow down any transition away from oil and gas. And the Republican Party continues to have a largely climate-denying or -dismissive political agenda. Climate scientist Michael E. Mann has analyzed and debunked the opposition’s climate-denying claims in his books, including “The New Climate War” (publ. 2021) and his new book, “Our Fragile Moment” (publ. Sept 2023). John Grant’s book, “Denying Science,” is also informative.

————-

Why is the UAW on strike?

Ann Marie Lee identifies the UAW’s demands in their negotiations with the big three automakers (https://cbsnews.com/news/uaw-demands-2023-strike-why-contract-negotiations).

“As the United Auto Workers enters day four of its strike [Sept. 15-19, 2023] against Detroit’s Big Three, the stakes are getting higher for automakers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis [the parent of Jeep and Ram]. UAW President Shawn Fain has threatened to target more factories for work stoppages if ‘serious progress’ toward an agreement isn’t reached by Friday at noon.” Here’s what the union wants.

#1 – Pay increases and cost of living adjustments – The UAW is asking automakers for a 36% pay increase across a four-year contract. For now, however, the sides remain far apart on a wage hike. The union also want the Big Three automakers to “reinstate annual cost of living adjustments, arguing that inflation is eating away worker paychecks. For decades, the Detroit automakers offered a COLA, but stopped after GM and Chryslers went bankrupt following the 2008 financial crisis.” Without the adjustments for inflation, “autoworkers have seen their average wages fall 19.3% since 2008, according to Adam Hersh, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.”

#2 – End of wage tiers

The UAW wants the Big Three to scrap its two-tiered wage structure. “Under that system, top-tier workers — meaning anyone who joined the company in 2007 or earlier — earn an average of roughly $33 an hour. But those hired after 2007 are classified as lower tier and earn far less — up to about $17 an hour.” Additionally,

lower-tier employees “aren’t eligible for defined benefit pensions, and their health benefits are less generous. The UAW says that paying employees half as much for doing the same work amounts is unfair.”

————-

Lauren Kaori Gurley highlights this problem of unequal wages and benefits by comparing two striking UAW workers, one in the higher tier and the other in the lower tier (https://washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/20/uaw-strike-ford-autoworkers-wages).

“The tiered wage system came about as a concession the union made to automakers to save autoworkers’ jobs during the height of the financial crisis [of 2007-2008], when the automakers were teetering on the edge of solvency and eventually received government bailout loans of nearly $80 billion. To keep the companies afloat, the autoworkers’ union conceded to lowering wages and reducing benefits for all workers hired after 2007.” There are three tiers.

Higher tier

Gurley describes the situation of Steven Summers, 60, who has worked in quality control in the same Ford factory for 24 years. He is an example of a top tier worker.

“After 24 years on the job, Summers makes $32 an hour. He and his wife, a former autoworker, own a four-bedroom house with a pool in a suburb of Detroit. They raised four daughters and a grandchild on their wages, vacationing in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and signing up for softball leagues. His family isn’t rich, Summers says, but ‘we’re doing all right.’”

Lower tier

Gurley and her colleagues at the Washington Post interviewed eight striking Ford assembly line workers who are in the lower tier of the workforce and found “they must work second jobs to make ends meet. They stock shelves at Dollar Tree, sort packages in Amazon warehouses, wax eyebrows professionally, sell discounted jewelry and deliver food on Uber Eats.” Markeis Womack, 31, installs “visors and glove boxes on Broncos and Rangers for about eight hours a day on the assembly line at the Ford plant in Wayne, starting at 6 a.m. After, he cleaned offices, churches and day cares on a 10-hour shift working as a janitor. His work day ended at 4 a.m., because his Ford job didn’t pay enough to make ends meet. Womack, the father of two young kids, makes $20.69 an hour at Ford and said he can only dream of ‘stability and owning a house.’”

Gurley continues. “It can take close to a decade for lower-tiered workers’ pay to catch up to those hired before 2007. At Ford, new hires now start full time at $18.04 an hour.

At the same time, there are other discrepancies stemming from the tier system. According to Gurley’s reporting, even when lower-tier workers reach  the top of the pay scale, they “get worse health-care benefits and no company-financed health care in retirement or pension, compared with legacy [top tier] employees. Lower-tiered workers do receive 401(k) retirement accounts with a company contribution equaling 6.4 percent of workers’ wages. The union is asking the companies to offer the top-tier health-care benefits to all workers, reinstitute defined-benefit pensions that workers previously received and pay all the health-care costs for retirees.”

A third tier: temps

“Often, new hires at the Big Three automakers start as ‘temps,’ or temporary workers making about $16 an hour, depending on the company, without profit-sharing, bonuses or pensions. Temps are essentially on a worse, third tier. Automakers have long used them to keep labor costs down, particularly when they are meeting temporary surges of demand, but workers complain that they are left in temp status for too long.” The union wants “all new hires [to] get paid at the top rate after 90 days — scrapping tiered wages.”

—————

#3 – Defined benefit pension plans for all

Ann Marie Lee reports that the majority of UAW members “do not get a pension nowadays.” This is a demand that the union is unlikely to win. Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Buffalo, believes the union will ultimately lose its battle for the return of pensions.” Wheaton points out that “[a]lmost no one in any industry is adding those today.”

#4 – Four-day workweek and more time off

Along with substantial pay raises, more paid time off and pension benefits, one of the changes UAW leaders have been bargaining for is a four-day workweek, working 32 hours for 40 hours of pay, and more time off “to spend with family.”

UAW president Fain is quoted by Lee. “Our members are working 60, 70, even 80 hours a week just to make ends meet. That’s not living. It’s barely surviving and it needs to stop,”

#5 – Right to strike, family protection

 Lee writes, the union is also asking for the right to strike over plant closings.

“The Big Three have closed 65 plants over the last 20 years,” according to the UAW’s website. “That’s devastated our hometowns. We must have the right to defend our communities.” The union also wants a “working family protection program” that pays UAW to do community service work if the companies shut down a facility.” In addition, the union wants to “be allowed to represent workers at 10 electric vehicle battery factories, most of which are being built by joint ventures between automakers and South Korean battery makers. The union wants those plants to receive top UAW wages. In part that’s because workers who now make components for internal combustion engines will need a place to work as the industry transitions to EVs.

#6 – Retiree health care 

“In addition to a return of traditional pension payment plans and significantly higher pay for retired workers, the union is seeking health care for all retired UAW members. Workers hired before 2007 still have those benefits. But those hired since – a majority of hourly workers – do not.”

#7 – Limited use of temporary workers 

According to Lee, the union is “also demanding that the automakers limit their use temporary workers, who under the tiered-wage system receive the least pay and no benefits.” 

#8 – They can afford it

Fain himself has acknowledged that the union’s demands are “audacious.” But he contends that the automakers can afford to raise workers’ pay significantly.

“Over the past decade, the Detroit Three have emerged as robust profit-makers. They’ve collectively posted net income of $164 billion, $20 billion of it this year. The CEOs of all three major automakers earn multiple millions in annual compensation

—————

What is the UAW strike strategy?

Andrea Hsu reports on what is involved in the UAW strike strategy (https://npr.org/2023/09/19/1200198072/uaw-strikes-strategy-fair-labor-big-3-detroit#). The strategy is one of “limited, targeted strikes at all three American auto companies,” in plants in Missouri, Michigan and Ohio. If the contract negotiations have not been resolved by Friday, September 22nd [and they were not], UAW President Shawn Fain said that “more locals will be called on to stand up and join the strike,” he announced in a video posted to Facebook Monday night [Sept. 18], while not revealing which plants or how many would be called on next.

After the first week, 13,000 auto workers were already on strike. This is only a fraction of the 146,000 workers employed by the struck auto corporations, ‘but the threat of growing the strike has added pressure and kept the companies guessing.’ Fain told NPR. He also said that “if the company doesn’t respect the demands of our workers, then we will escalate action.” 

Hsu continues. “Labor historians see the deployment of this new strategy as a reflection of newfound militancy at the UAW under Fain’s leadership, but also some sharp and strategic thinking about how to put pressure on companies while maintaining flexibility and limiting fallout.

“‘It’s not the goal of the UAW to bring down Ford, GM and Chrysler,’ says Erik Loomis, professor of history at the University of Rhode Island and author of A History of America in Ten Strikes. ‘That’s not the point. The point is to get a fair deal out of them.’”

“While it’s too early to say whether the strategy will work, Loomis says momentum appears to be on the side of the union, with companies having to guess which part of their supply chain might be hit next.”

Already, however, “there have been ripple effects impacting non-striking workers. On Friday, Ford put 600 workers on temporary layoff, because they need to use materials that need to be coated by the paint department, which is on strike.

“GM has warned it will lay off 2,000 workers at a plant in Kansas early this week because it lacks components supplied by GM’s Wentzville, Mo., plant, which is on strike.

“The UAW said it will provide those workers who are laid off in response to the strikes the same pay as striking workers — $500 a week. For most auto workers on the production line, that represents well under half their weekly earnings.

“So as not to burn through its $825 million strike fund too quickly, Loomis says it’s entirely possible the union will eventually send some striking workers back to their jobs while bringing others out.”

—————-

U.A.W. Widens Strikes at G.M. and Stellantis, but Cites Progress in Ford Talks

The UAW has moved ahead on its strike strategy, according to a report by Neal E. Boudette (https://nytimes.com/2023/09/22/business/uaw-strike-general-motors-stellantis.html). Boudette writes as follows.

The United Automobile Workers union on Friday significantly raised the pressure on General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Jeep and Ram, by expanding its strike against the companies to include all the spare parts distribution centers of the two companies.

“Shawn Fain, the union’s president, said Friday that workers at 38 distribution centers, which provide parts to dealerships for repairs, at the two companies would walk off the job at noon. He said talks with two companies had not progressed significantly, contrasting them with Ford Motor, which he said had done more to meet the union’s demands.

“‘We will shut down parts distribution centers until those two companies come to their senses and come to the bargaining table,’ Mr. Fain said.

“The affected locations include 18 G.M. distribution centers that employ a total of 3,475 workers, and 20 Stellantis centers with 2,150 U.A.W. members, according to the union. The move brings the total number of striking U.A.W. workers to more than 18,000.”

“The union said it was not striking more facilities at Ford because of the gains it had achieved in talks with that company, including on cost-of-living adjustments, the right to strike if the company decides to close plants and two years of pay and health care benefits for workers who are laid off indefinitely.

“‘To be clear, we are not done at Ford,’ he [Fain] said. ‘We have serious issues to work through, but we do want to recognize that Ford is serious about reaching a deal.’”

“The expansion of the stoppage heightens the stakes for both sides, and could force other plants owned by the automakers and their suppliers to halt production.

The union is paying striking workers $500 per week each from its $825 million strike fund, while the manufacturers are faced with losing tens of millions of dollars in revenue every day that the affected plants remain idled.”

Boudette quotes Peter Berg, a professor of employment relations at Michigan State University, who “said the U.A.W.’s strategy of limiting strikes to certain locations eases the cost of supporting workers from its strike fund, but hurts the manufacturers because those plants make some of their most profitable vehicles.

“‘The question is, can the union maintain solidarity and keep everyone together if this continues for several more weeks,’ he said.”

—————–

Strike Is a High-Stakes Gamble for Autoworkers and the Labor Movement

Noam Scheiber, a Chicago-based reporter who covers workers and the workplace, considers the goals and risks of the UAW strike

(https://nytimes.com/2023/09/19/business/economy/strike-autoworkers-labor.html). “Experts on unions and the industry said the U.A.W. strike could accelerate a wave of worker actions, or stifle labor’s recent momentum.”

Overall Union membership has been declining for decades

The fact is that presently very few workers are represented by unions, especially in the private-sector according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (https://bls.gov/news-release/union2.nr0.htm). In the labor force overall, those employed in fulltime or part-time jobs or actively looking for paid work, just 10.1 percent of nonsupervisory wage and salary workers were represented by unions. The unionization rate is lower in the private-sector of the economy and higher in the public sector. The BLS report documents this fact, noting that the union membership rate of public-sector workers was 33.1 percent in 2022, “more than five times higher than the rate of private-sector workers (6.0 percent).” The 2022 unionization rate (10.1 percent) is the lowest on record. In 1983, the first year where comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and there were 17.7 million union workers.”

There are many causes for low and declining union membership. They are analyzed in numerous books and articles. One of the best is historian Nelson Lichtenstein’s 2002 book State of the Union: A Century of American Labor. He noted that “90 percent of all private-sector workers in the United States are employed under at-will doctrines,” which allows employers to fire workers whenever they want and without explanation. This is as true in 2023 as it was in 2002. The overall causes of the decline of private-sector nonsupervisory workers include the following.

• the anti-union efforts of the Republican Party
• an economy dominated by large profit-first corporations and their allies,
• support for anti-union legislation by rich and powerful organizations
• weak government regulations and enforcement
• right-wing voters who oppose government regulation and taxes
• corporate investment in the global South to take advantage of cheap labor, lax regulations, and low taxes
• divisions among workers along racial, gender, and religious grounds

In this context, it takes a committed union leadership supported by a majority of union members to strike and challenge corporate power.

Some recent union successes

Scheiber says there is some reason to be optimistic. Some labor unions have enjoyed something of a renaissance since the beginning of the pandemic through strikes and the threats of strikes. “They have made inroads into previously nonunion companies like Starbucks and Amazon, and won unusually strong contracts for hundreds of thousands of workers. Last year, public approval for unions reached its highest level since the Lyndon Johnson presidency.” Some disputes were resolved before threatened strike action was taken. Strikes by railroad workers and UPS employees, which had the potential to rattle the U.S. economy, were averted at the last minute.” Some strikes are less than national in scope. The strikes by writers and actors are concentrated in Southern California and, at this time, are unresolved.

The wider “class” implications

Scheiber cites the UAW’s president, Shawn Fain, who has portrayed the strike as a “broader struggle pitting ordinary workers against corporate titans.” Scheiber refers to a recent video appearance by Fain, in which he said this: “It’s a battle of the working class against the rich, the haves versus the have-nots, the billionaire class against everybody else.” The “class” reference “appears to be resonating with his members.” Scheiber writes: “Even Mr. Fain’s habit of framing the fight in broad class terms may prove to be a strategic advantage. A recent Gallup poll found that 75 percent of the public backed the autoworkers in the showdown, compared with 19 percent who were more sympathetic to the companies.”

The risks associated with the strike

But Scheiber also identifies potential “pitfalls,” “A prolonged strike could undermine the three established U.S. automakers – and send the politically crucial Midwest into recession. If the union is seen as overreaching, or if it settles for a weak deal after a costly stoppage, public support could sour.”

There are potential negative impacts of the strike as well. One, “the strike could inflict collateral damage that creates frustration and hardship among tens of thousands of nonunion workers and their communities.” Two, small and medium-sized manufacturers across the country that make up the automotive sector’s integrated supply chain will probably feel the brunt of this work stoppage, whether they are a union shop or not. Three, the union demands “could discourage businesses from investing in the United States or render them uncompetitive with foreign rivals.” Four, “Gene Bruskin, a longtime union official who helped workers at a Smithfield meat-processing plant in North Carolina achieve, in 2008, one of the biggest organizing victories in decades, said he strongly favored the strike and how Mr. Fain and the union are seeking to rally the working class. But he also said “a long strike could disillusion workers if the union came up short on key demands.” He gives the example of the need for the union to change the two-tier system of employment in the big auto plants, a system in which newer workers are paid far less than veteran workers who perform similar jobs.” Five, the auto companies could shift more production to Mexico, “where they already have a significant presence.” Six, they could accelerate the introduction of labor-saving automation. Seven, the big auto corporations could locate “new plants in lightly unionized Southern states.” For example, “The Detroit automakers have created joint ventures with foreign battery makers outside the reach of the U.A.W.’s national contracts and have sought to locate some of those plants in states like Tennessee and Kentucky. The union is seeking to bring workers at those plants up to the same pay and labor standards that direct employees of the Big Three enjoy, but it has not succeeded so far.”

——————

The battle over Electric Vehicles in the strike 

On April 12, 2023, the UAW issued a statement on new rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (https://uaw.org/uaw-statement-new-emissions-rules-proposed-environmental-protection-agency). Here’s the statement.

“The United Auto Workers supports the transition to a clean auto industry and has been a proud leader in the fight against climate change. We will carefully review the EPA’s proposals and look forward to working with the Biden Administration in pursuit of standards that are good for workers and the environment. A transition to electric vehicles will not succeed without economic justice for the workers who make the auto industry run.

“There is no good reason why electric vehicle manufacturing can’t be the gateway to the middle class that auto jobs have been for generations of union autoworkers. But the early signs of this industry are worrying, prioritizing corporate greed over economic justice. Forcing workers to decide between good jobs and green jobs is a false choice. We can and must achieve both.

“People who build cars for a living don’t do it because we’re passionate about combustion engines or electric vehicles. We do it because we’re passionate about our families and our communities. We can have both economic and climate justice—and that starts by ensuring that the electric vehicle industry is entirely unionized. We look forward to working with the Biden Administration to hold the auto industry accountable to that mission.”

—————-

More on the role of electric cars in the UAW strike

Jack Ewing, who writes about business from New York, focusing on the auto industry and the transition to electric cars, contends that the issue of electric vehicles is “central” to the strike

(https://nytimes.com/2023/09/16/business/electric-vehicles-uaw-gm-ford-stellantic.html). He writes:

“Carmakers are anxious to keep costs down as they ramp up electric vehicle manufacturing, while striking workers want to preserve jobs as the industry shifts to batteries, ‘a once-in-a-century technological upheaval that poses huge risks for both the companies and the union.’”

Ewing continues.

“The strike has come as the traditional automakers invest billions to develop electric vehicles while still making most of their money from gasoline-driven cars. The negotiations will determine the balance of power between workers and management, possibly for years to come. That makes the strike as much a struggle for the industry’s future as it is about wages, benefits and working conditions.

“The established carmakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — are trying to defend their profits and their place in the market in the face of stiff competition from Tesla and foreign automakers. Some executives and analysts have characterized what is happening in the industry as the biggest technological transformation since Henry Ford’s moving assembly line started up at the beginning of the 20th century.”

Ewing emphasizes that strike negotiations “are about more than pay. Workers are trying to defend jobs as manufacturing shifts from internal combustion engines to batteries. Because they have fewer parts, electric cars can be made with fewer workers than gasoline vehicles. A favorable outcome for the U.A.W. would also give the union a strong calling card if, as some expect, it then tries to organize employees at Tesla and other nonunion carmakers like Hyundai, which is planning to manufacture electric vehicles at a massive new factory in Georgia.”

“Under pressure from government officials and changing consumer demand, Ford, G.M. and Stellantis are investing billions to retool their sprawling operations to build electric vehicles, which are critical to addressing climate change. But they are making little if any profit on those vehicles while Tesla, which dominates electric car sales, is profitable and growing fast.

“Ford said in July, as reported by Ewing, “that its electric vehicle business would lose $4.5 billion this year.

“If the union got all the increases in pay, pensions and other benefits it is seeking, the company said, its workers’ total compensation would be twice as much as Tesla’s employees.”

“‘Union demands would force Ford to scrap its investments in electric vehicles,’ Jim Farley, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview on Friday. ‘We want to actually have a conversation about a sustainable future, he said, ‘not one that forces us to choose between going out of business and rewarding our workers.’”

“For workers, the biggest concern is that electric vehicles have far fewer parts than gasoline models and will render many jobs obsolete. Plants that make mufflers, catalytic converters, fuel injectors and other components that electric cars don’t need will have to be overhauled or shut down.

“Many new battery and electric vehicle factories are springing up and could employ workers from the plants that have shut down. But automakers are building most aggressively in the South where labor laws are tilted against union organizers, rather than in the Midwest, where the U.A.W. has more clout. One of the union’s demands is that workers in the new factories be covered by the automakers’ national labor contracts — a demand that the automakers have said they can’t meet because those plants are owned by joint ventures. The union also wants to regain the right to strike to block plant shutdowns.”

The big U.S. automakers are not making much progress in manufacturing electric vehicles.

“The three companies are already struggling to get their electric vehicle business going. A new G.M. battery factory in Ohio has been slow to produce batteries, delaying electric versions of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup and other vehicles. Ford this year had to suspend production of its electric F-150 Lightning in February after a battery caught fire in one of the pickups that was parked near the factory for a quality check. And Stellantis won’t even begin selling any fully electric vehicles in the United States until next year.”

—————

Concluding thoughts

The UAW is striking for reasonable and far-sighted goals. They hope to have some influence in negotiations with the big automakers about their position on what kind of cars and trucks are manufactured, and where and by whom they are produced, along, with a host of demands that would improve wages, working conditions, job security, benefits, the right to strike, retiree pensions.

If the UAW wins some of its key demands, it may well encourage other unions to challenge management’s often anti-worker policies. However this unfolds, it will be years before cars and trucks powered by internal combustion engines are eliminated or even significantly reduced from the U.S. transportation system. Still, the UAW has helped to bring additional pubic attention to the issues. And it is engaged in a strike that could improve the wages and many other conditions of work for present and future autoworkers and perhaps eventually workers in other industries.

Bob Sheak, Sept 15, 2023

Introduction

This post includes sections on (1) how more and more places across the earth are experiencing unprecedented high and rising temperature reducing their habitableness; (2) a review of the evidence documenting warming; (3) the effects of global warming on people, communities, and everyone; and (4) what may be done to curtail global warming.

I draw significantly in the first sections of this post on the analysis by Jake Bittle in his book, The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration (publ. 2023) as well as other sources

Getting hotter in more and more places

“The largest driver of voluntary migration in the coming decades” will be heat, according to Bittle’s research. “Even with drastic action on emissions, temperatures almost everywhere on Earth will continue to rise over the coming century, creating profound changes in seasonal climates on every continent. These changes will be most drastic in polar regions, which are warming several times faster than the global average – permafrost melt in Canada and Alaska has already caused massive land collapses, and heat wave in Siberia during the summer of 2021 caused wildfires on land that was once too cold to burn” (p. 267).

Bittle continues. “Even in temperate regions, the changes will be tangible. The moderate temperature zone that scientists call ‘human climate niche,’ which in the United States now stretches from South Dakota to the Sunbelt, will shift northward so that by 2070 its northern edge reaches into Canada and its southern edge around Kentucky. The areas below that niche will get hotter with every passing year, and as time goes on, they will start to seem more dangerous and less attractive.” The Sweltering South will get even hotter, the temperate parts of the country will no longer feel as temperate, and the frigid reaches of the North will feel a bit more hospitable. Those changes might not feel like much from year to year, but over the decades they will add up.”

The rising temperatures will be a major factor in where people live, along with the personal resources and/or benefits from government housing programs. If they have the means or government support, they will have adaptive options. Otherwise, they will be stuck in place or only able to move to places that will soon be affected by rising levels of heat. Meanwhile, the rising temperatures in the U.S. and globally will force people with options to move whether they want to or not. Without resources or government support, many will remain in increasingly intolerably and lethally hot environments at home, on the job, virtually everywhere in a given area or region.  

Various indications that the earth is becoming increasingly hot

#1 – Global average temperatures are breaking records

Scott Dance, a reporter for The Washington Post covering extreme weather news and the intersections between weather, climate, society and the environment, reports on scientific findings that “the earth is its hottest in thousands of years” and how we know this (https://washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/07/08/earth-hottest-years-thousands-climate). Droughts at lasting longer

“Observations from both satellites and the Earth’s surface are indisputable — the planet has warmed rapidly over the past 44 years. As far back as 1850, data from weather stations all over the globe make clear the Earth’s average temperature has been rising.

“In recent days, as the Earth has reached its highest average temperatures in recorded history, scientists have made a bolder claim: It may well be warmer than any time in the last 125,000 years.”

#2 – Droughts are affecting more parts of the planet. According to Michael T. Klare, “The drought afflicting the American West has now persisted for more than two decades, leading scientists to label it a ‘megadrought’ exceeding all recorded regional dry spells in breadth and severity. As of August 2021, 99 percent of the United States west of the Rockies was in drought, something for which there is no modern precedent. The recent record heat waves in the region have only emphasized this grim reality.” The effects are worldwide.”

#3 – Michael Klare also points out that the use of fossil fuels continues to increase.

“…the climate crisis is also reflected in “the refusal to alter agricultural and industrial methods of production which only aggravate or—in the case of fossil-fuel consumption—simply cause the crisis, is growing ever more obvious. At the top of any list would be a continuing reliance on oil, coal, and natural gas, the leading sources of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) now overheating our atmosphere and oceans. Despite all the scientific evidence linking fossil-fuel combustion to global warming and the promises of governing elites to reduce the consumption of those fuels—for example, under the Paris Agreement of 2015—their use continues to grow.”

#4 – Klare: “today’s powerful elites are choosing to perpetuate practices known to accelerate climate change and global devastation. Among the most egregious, the decision of top executives of the ExxonMobil Corporation—the world’s largest and wealthiest privately-owned oil company—to continue pumping oil and gas for endless decades after their scientists warned them about the risks of global warming and affirmed that Exxon’s operations would only amplify them.”

#5 – Klare: “The fires in Canada: As of August 2, months after they first erupted into flame, there were still 225 major uncontrolled wildfires and another 430 under some degree of control but still burning across the country. At one point, the figure was more than 1,000 fires! To date, they have burned some 32.4 million acres of Canadian woodland, or 50,625 square miles—an area the size of the state of Alabama.”

#6 – Julia Conley reports on August 4 2023 on scientists being alarmed “over the unprecedented ocean heat,” particularly since “policymakers in the top fossil fuel emissions-producing countries show no sign of ending planet-heating oil and gas extraction” (https://commondreams.org/news/ocean-temperaturews-breaks-record). Here’s one of her facts.

“The European Union’s climate agency, Copernicus Climate Change Service, reported this week that the average daily global ocean surface temperature across the planet reached 20.96°C (69.7°F), breaking the record of 20.95°C that was previously set in 2016.”

#7 – A Critical ocean current system closer to collapse

Brett Wilkins, staff writers for Common Dreams, reports on a study warning that we are closer than previously thought to a collapse of a critical ocean current system (https://commondreams.org/news/amoc-current-collapse).

“The system of Atlantic Ocean currents that drive warm water from the tropics toward Europe is at risk of collapsing in the coming decades, an analysis of 150 years of temperature data published Tuesday concluded.”

#8 – Chris Mooney reports “Scientists working in one of the world’s fastest-warming places [the Arctic] found that rapidly retreating glaciers are triggering the release into the atmosphere of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that causes global temperatures to rise (https://washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/07/06/arctic-glacier-melt-methane-global-temperatures)/

#9 – Forests are going from being “sinks” to “emitters”

David Wallace-Wells, author and journalist, considers this shocking reality (https://nytimes.com/2023/09/06/opinion/columnists/forest-fires-climate-change.html). Here’s some of what he writes.

“The Canadian wildfires have this year burned a land area larger than 104 of the world’s 195 countries. The carbon dioxide released by them so far is estimated to be nearly 1.5 billion tons — more than twice as much as Canada releases through transportation, electricity generation, heavy industry, construction and agriculture combined. In fact, it is more than the total emissions of more than 100 of the world’s countries — also combined.

“But what is perhaps most striking about this year’s fires is that despite their scale, they are merely a continuation of a dangerous trend: Every year since 2001, Canada’s forests have emitted more carbon than they’ve absorbed. That is the central finding of a distressing analysis published last month by Barry Saxifrage in Canada’s National Observer, ominously headlined “Our forests have reached a tipping point.”

“In fact, Saxifrage suggests, the tipping point was passed two decades ago, when the country’s vast boreal forests, long a reliable ‘sink’ for carbon, became instead a carbon ‘source.’ In the 2000s, the effect was relatively small. But so far in the 2020s, Canada’s forests have raised the country’s total emissions by 50 percent.”

#10 – The number of climate disasters is increasing

The following research findings come from the National Centers for Invironmental Information (https://ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions).

“The U.S. has sustained 371 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2023). The total cost of these 371 events exceeds $2.615 trillion.

2010s (2010-2019)

“In 2023 (as of September 11), there have been 23 confirmed weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect United States. These events included 2 flooding events, 18 severe storm events, 1 tropical cyclone event, 1 wildfire event, and 1 winter storm event. Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 253 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted. The 1980–2022 annual average is 8.1 events (CPI-adjusted); the annual average for the most recent 5 years (2018–2022) is 18.0 events (CPI-adjusted).”

—————-

What to expect as global warming intensifies and expands

#1 – Inland cities will suffer

Bittle points out, “Many of the places that will be hit hardest by this overall temperature increase are inland cities. “This is largely owing to a phenomenon known as the heat island effect: materials like asphalt, concrete, and metal trap heat as it pours down during the day, and at night these same materials release the stored-up heat back into the air, robbing residents of the cool reprieve that comes after sundown in rural areas. At the same time, many urban neighborhoods lack trees and foliage that soak up humidity and provide crucial shade cover” (p. 268).

#2 – Communities with fewer resources will suffer

Bittle continues: “…the burden of his temperature shift will fall hardest on those with fewest resources. Research has shown that the wealthiest neighborhoods in any given city tend to be the ones with the least exposure to extreme heat, thanks to lush tree cover and access to public parks. Wealthier households are also much more likely to have air-conditioning, which during hot spells can mean the difference between life and death.” (pp. 268-269)

————–

Some states withhold cooling aid for the poor as heat gets deadlier

Thomas Frank reports on states that are withholding cooling aid for the poor as heat gets deadlier (https://politico.com/news/2023/09/06/states-withhold-cooling-aid-for-the-poor-as-heat-gets-deadlier-p-00111977).

“Many states refuse to use money from a federal program to help low-income people pay for cooling bills or repairs.

“More than 30 million low-income households that are eligible for federal funding to defray the cost of air conditioning have not received any money from a government program that was created to protect vulnerable people from dangerous temperatures, an E&E News analysis shows.

“The dearth of cooling assistance going to households nationwide reflects shortcomings in U.S. and state policies to address the dangers of extreme heat as it kills more Americans than other weather-related disasters, according to some experts. It comes during a summer of unmatched climate catastrophes, including the hottest month on record.

“The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, distributes roughly $4 billion a year to states to help residents pay for air conditioning and heating and equipment repairs.

“But in 16 states, including some with significant heat risk, not a single household received money to pay cooling costs from 2001 through 2021, according to E&E News’ analysis of federal records. The program, run by the Department of Health and Human Services, has focused instead on providing heating assistance. Every state helps eligible residents pay their winter heating bills, compared to just 24 states that paid for air conditioning costs in 2021.

“‘The programs haven’t caught up with the change in climate,’ said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. ‘We’re now at a period where not only are we having expensive winters, but we’re also having record-breaking heat.’

“The result is a dramatic imbalance between cold- and hot-weather assistance as global temperatures soar because of greenhouse gases from cars, power plants and industrial facilities. An average of 5.3 million U.S. households a year got heating assistance from 2001 through 2021. The average number of households getting cooling assistance was 635,000.”

The Biden administration urges changes

“In July 2022, the Biden administration took the unusual step of urging states to use LIHEAP for cooling. An HHS memo warned about the lethality of extreme heat and listed ways LIHEAP money could protect people.

“We’ve heard more about the need for cooling from the Biden administration than we have from past administrations,” said Meltzer of the utility affordability coalition. Katrina Metzler is the executive director of the National Energy and Utility Affordability Coalition. She ran Ohio’s LIHEAP-funded weatherization program from 2009 to 2016, said state officials face a dilemma if they set aside LIHEAP money for summer cooling in October.”

“Former President Donald Trump proposed eliminating LIHEAP each year he was in office. Congress rejected the idea and funded the program every year at normal amounts.”

—————

#3 – Demand for air-conditioning will go up —

As temperatures rise, demand for air-conditioning will go up as will the prices for air conditioning. In a growing number of situations, electric bill will become “unaffordable for many low-income families.” (p. 269).

#4 – Industries will be negatively affected. Bittle writes that from agriculture to livestock to energy to tourism, business and corporate investments will migrate to avoid the heat (p. 270). For example, “According to one estimate, average annual yields for corn and soybeans in the South could fall as much 20 percent over the next decade, leading to losses of more than half a trillion dollars” (p. 271)

#5 – Threats to people working outdoors

“More than fifteen million workers in the United States have jobs [in agriculture, mining, and construction] that,” Bittle points out, “require them to spend some amount of time outside, and many of them are migrant laborers….”

Migrant workers “clean up climate disasters.

Migrant workers who come from countries undergoing high levels of heat are being used in the U.S. to “clean up climate disasters.” On Democracy Now, host Amy Goodman provides an overview of a program focused on forced immigrant labor ((https://democracynow.org/2023/9/4/the-great_escape_saket_soni).

“As extreme weather disasters intensify, the workers who are hired by corporations to clean up after hurricanes, floods, blizzards and wildfires are increasingly on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

“For Labor Day 2023, we,” Goodman and the Democracy Now staff, devoted part of the program to an interview with author and organizer Saket Soni. His book, The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America, focuses on hundreds of Indian workers who were brought to the United States with false promises and subjected to grueling working conditions at a shipyard in Mississippi. When one of those workers called Soni in 2006 for help, it set off an extraordinary chain of events that led to their escape from the work camp and eventually focused national attention on the plight of the workers.

“As disasters have grown, this workforce has grown. And these workers do all this without legal protections, without legal status,” says Soni, the director of Resilience Force, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrant workers who help rebuild communities after climate disasters.”

Migrant children work brutal jobs

Hannah Dreier reports on the exploitation of children (https://nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html).

“Arriving in record numbers, they’re ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws — including in factories that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom.

Hannah Dreier traveled to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia for this story and spoke to more than 100 migrant child workers in 20 states. hannah.dreier@nytimes @hannahdreier

Examples

Cristian works a construction job instead of going to school. He is 14.

Carolina packages Cheerios at night in a factory. She is 15.

Wander starts looking for day-labor jobs before sunrise. He is 13.

It was almost midnight in Grand Rapids, Mich., but inside the factory everything was bright. A conveyor belt carried bags of Cheerios past a cluster of young workers. One was 15-year-old Carolina Yoc, who came to the United States on her own last year to live with a relative she had never met.

“About every 10 seconds, she stuffed a sealed plastic bag of cereal into a passing yellow carton. It could be dangerous work, with fast-moving pulleys and gears that had torn off fingers and ripped open a woman’s scalp.

“The factory was full of underage workers like Carolina, who had crossed the Southern border by themselves and were now spending late hours bent over hazardous machinery, in violation of child labor laws. At nearby plants, other children were tending giant ovens to make Chewy and Nature Valley granola bars and packing bags of Lucky Charms and Cheetos — all of them working for the processing giant Hearthside Food Solutions, which would ship these products around the country.”

“These workers are part of a new economy of exploitation: Migrant children, who have been coming into the United States without their parents in record numbers, are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country, a New York Times investigation found. This shadow work force extends across industries in every state, flouting child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century.

“Twelve-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee. Underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi and North Carolina. Children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota.

“Largely from Central America, the children are driven by economic desperation that was worsened by the pandemic. This labor force has been slowly growing for almost a decade, but it has exploded since 2021, while the systems meant to protect children have broken down.

“The Times spoke with more than 100 migrant child workers in 20 states who described jobs that were grinding them into exhaustion, and fears that they had become trapped in circumstances they never could have imagined. The Times examination also drew on court and inspection records and interviews with hundreds of lawyers, social workers, educators and law enforcement officials.”

“The number of unaccompanied minors entering the United States climbed to a high of 130,000 last year — three times what it was five years earlier — and this summer is expected to bring another wave.

“These are not children who have stolen into the country undetected. The federal government knows they are in the United States, and the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for ensuring sponsors will support them and protect them from trafficking or exploitation.

“But as more and more children have arrived, the Biden White House has ramped up demands on staffers to move the children quickly out of shelters and release them to adults. Caseworkers say they rush through vetting sponsors.

“While H.H.S. checks on all minors by calling them a month after they begin living with their sponsors, data obtained by The Times showed that over the last two years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children. Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with a third of migrant children.

“Far from home, many of these children are under intense pressure to earn money. They send cash back to their families while often being in debt to their sponsors for smuggling fees, rent and living expenses.”

“In interviews with more than 60 caseworkers, most independently estimated that about two-thirds of all unaccompanied migrant children ended up working full time.”

#6 – Increase in number of refugees

Bittle writes:

“With no other options, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Central America made the thousand-mile trek north to the United States….” “Climate change is not the only reason that refugees are fleeing these countries for the United States, but a succession of droughts and devastating storms has pushed far more of them northward than would have moved otherwise” (p. 277).

In Europe, an “influx of a million refugees to the continent in 2015 set off a chain of events that fractured the EU, leading to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the bloc and the rise of far-right parties in several countries

#7 -The problem of global warming is particularly severe in Asia

Bill McKibben, author and activist, writes on new data that substantiates this point that fossil fuel emissions are lethal, particularly on Asians (https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/fossil-fuel-kills-asians-in-particular).

“When we talk about ‘humanity,’ we are, statistically, mostly talking about Asia—just under 60% of our sisters and brothers live there. But they don’t live anywhere near as long as they should.

“New data last week from University of Chicago researchers showed that across South Asia, air pollution—mostly from burning fossil fuels—is robbing people of five years of life on average. Five years! If you live in Delhi, the most polluted big city on the planet, that number is an unimaginable 11.9 years. If you would have lived to 70, you died at 58. Thank about that. Across the region, “particulate pollution levels are currently more than 50 percent higher than at the start of the century and now overshadow” other health risks. Every breath that people take is killing them, every hour of every day.

“Bottom of Form

But those other health risks are also rising fast,” according to McKibben, “spurred on by the climate disasters that also come with burning fossil fuel. A remarkable report in today’s Washington Post (which has been doing a lot of remarkable climate coverage lately) was headlined. Climate-linked ills threaten humanity, and for a while was the lead story in the paper. It looked at Pakistan, home to last year’s record-breaking flood and a series of devastating heatwaves, and found almost unimaginable levels of misery.”

—————

#8 – In Africa

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports on how “the Central African Republic to Somalia and Sudan, fragile states suffer more from floods, droughts, storms and other climate-related shocks than other countries, when they have contributed the least to climate change (https://imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/30/africas-fragile-states-are-greatest-climate-casualties). The report continues: “Each year, three times more people are affected by natural disasters in fragile states than in other countries. Disasters in fragile states displace more than twice the share of the population in other countries.

“And temperatures in fragile states are already higher than in other countries because of their geographical location. By 2040, fragile states could face 61 days a year of temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius on average—four times more than other countries. Extreme heat, along with the more frequent extreme weather events that come with it, will endanger human health and hurt productivity and jobs in key sectors such as agriculture and construction.”

#9 – In Europe

Ally Wybrew reports on the torrential rain, flash floods and raging wildfires that have devastated Europe this summer (https://euronews.com/green/2023/08/08/torrential-rain-flash-floods-and-raging-wilefires-europes-extreme-summer). Here are Wybrew’s main points.

“Few European countries have escaped the extreme weather spreading throughout the continent. Wildfires have raged across much of Western Europe and the Mediterranean, while flooding and rainstorms have plagued central European countries including Croatia, Austria and the Czech Republic.

“A combination of climate change and the global weather phenomenon El Niño are believed to be contributing to the extreme weather events.

“El Niño occurs when ocean waters become much warmer than usual. According to the WMO, it’s very likely to continue at this strength or higher until the end of 2023.”

———————-

What to do?

Jake Bittle offers ideas on how to help individuals and households on the domestic front. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible and “ramp up our investment in post-disaster aid and climate adaptation.” Give more money to FEMA’s disaster-relief unit. Invest “in more and better funded home buyouts.” Provide “more generous moving stipends to those who relocate without the benefit of an insurance payout” (p. 280).

Such assistance may help some people to escape or adapt, at least temporarily, to the current heating of the planet from fossil fuels and the dire effects on the oceans and more and more of the earth’s land and forests. But the future looks grim in the absence of effective international efforts to reduce carbon emissions and the emissions from other greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, however, there are things people and groups can do.

Collective actions

Julia Conley reports on actions scheduled around the world for Sept. 15-17 to end fossil fuels (https://commondreams.org/news/400-actions-march-climate). There were 400 “actions, marches, rallies, and other events have already been registered around the world. The article was published on Sept. 11, 2023.

“More than 780 organizations have endorsed the day of action—up from 500 less than a week ago—and millions of participants are expected to rally from Cape Town, South Africa to Manila, Philippines and Lahore, Pakistan, as well as in dozens of cities and towns across the United States, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in history.

“The protests are scheduled just before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, taking place on September 20 in New York, where groups including the NAACP, Sierra Club, and Sunrise Movement are supporting the March to End Fossil Fuels on September 17.

“More than 10,000 people are expected to march in New York to demand that U.S. President Joe Biden end federal approvals for new fossil fuel projects like the Willow drilling project in Alaska and phase out oil and gas drilling in federal lands and waters; declare a climate emergency to unlock resources to accelerate the transition to renewable energy; and provide a just transition that creates millions of green jobs while supporting people who have worked in the fossil fuel industry.”

Recommended individual actions

The United Nations offers the following list of “actions for a healthy planet” (https://un/org/en/actnow/ten-actions). It notes first that the U.S. is a leading source of the accelerating global warming – and much of what it recommends applies to households with resources who tend to be the largest sources of greenhouse gases.

Greenhouse gas emissions per person vary greatly among countries. In the United States of America, emissions in 2020 (the latest available data) were 14.6 tons of CO2-equivalent per person – more than double the global average of 6.3 tons, and six times the 2.4 tons per person in India. Here are some actions for how individuals, particularly those with resources, can reduce their impact on the environment. It has particular relevance for the U.S.

———————

Save energy at home

Much of our electricity and heat are powered by coal, oil and gas. Use less energy by reducing your heating and cooling use, switching to LED light bulbs and energy-efficient electric appliances, washing your laundry with cold water, or hanging things to dry instead of using a dryer. Improving your home’s energy efficiency, through better insulation for instance, or replacing your oil or gas furnace with an electric heat pump can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 900 kilograms of CO2e per year.

Change your home’s source of energy

Ask your utility company if your home energy comes from oil, coal or gas. If possible, see if you can switch to renewable sources such as wind or solar. Or install solar panels on your roof to generate energy for your home. Switching your home from oil, gas or coal-powered energy to renewable sources of energy, such as wind or solar, can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 1.5 tons of CO2e per year. 

Walk, bike or take public transport

The world’s roadways are clogged with vehicles, most of them burning diesel or gasoline. Walking or riding a bike instead of driving will reduce greenhouse gas emissions — and help your health and fitness. For longer distances, consider taking a train or bus. And carpool whenever possible. Living car-free can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 2 tons of CO2e per year compared to a lifestyle using a car. 

Switch to an electric vehicle

If you plan to buy a car, consider going electric, with more and cheaper models coming on the market. In many countries, electric cars help reduce air pollution and cause significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than gas or diesel-powered vehicles. But many electric cars still run on electricity produced from fossil fuels, and the batteries and engines require rare minerals which often come with high environmental and social costs. Switching from a gasoline or diesel-powered car to an electric vehicle can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 2 tons of CO2e per year. A hybrid vehicle can save you up to 700 kilograms of CO2e per year.

Consider your travel

Airplanes burn large amounts of fossil fuels, producing significant greenhouse gas emissions. That makes taking fewer flights one of the fastest ways to reduce your environmental impact. When you can, meet virtually, take a train, or skip that long-distance trip altogether. Taking one less long-haul return flight can reduce your carbon footprint by up to almost 2 tons of CO2e. 

Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle

Electronics, clothes, plastics and other items we buy cause carbon emissions at each point in production, from the extraction of raw materials to manufacturing and transporting goods to market. To protect the climate, buy fewer things, shop second-hand, and repair what you can. Plastics alone generated 1.8 billion metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 – 3.4 per cent of the global total. Less than 10 per cent is recycled, and once plastic is discarded, it can linger for hundreds of years. Buying fewer new clothes – and other consumer goods – can also reduce your carbon footprint. Every kilogram of textiles produced generates about 17 kilograms of CO2e.

Eat more vegetables

Eating more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and less meat and dairy, can significantly lower your environmental impact. Producing plant-based foods generally results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions and requires less energy, land, and water. Shifting from a mixed to a vegetarian diet can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 500 kilograms of CO2e per year (or up to 900 kilograms for a vegan diet). 

Throw away less food

When you throw food away, you’re also wasting the resources and energy that were used to grow, produce, package, and transport it. And when food rots in a landfill, it produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. So purchase only what you need, use what you buy and compost any leftovers. Cutting your food waste can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 300 kilograms of CO2e per year.

Plant native species

If you have a garden or even just a plant or two outside your home, check for native species. Use a plant identification app to help. And then think about replacing non-natives, especially any considered invasive. Plants, animals and insects depend on each other. Most insects will not eat non-native plants, which means birds and other species lose a food source. Biodiversity suffers. Even a single tree or shrub can offer a refuge – just remember to skip insecticides and other chemicals.

Clean up your environment

Humans, animals and plants all suffer from land and water contaminated by improperly discarded garbage. Use what you need, and when you have to throw something out, dispose of it properly. Educate others to do the same, and participate in local clean-ups of parks, rivers, beaches and beyond. Every year, people throw out 2 billion tons of trash. About a third causes environment harms, from choking water supplies to poisoning soil.

Make your money count

Everything we spend money on affects the planet. You have the power to choose which goods and services you support. To reduce your environmental impact, choose products from companies who use resources responsibly and are committed to cutting their gas emissions and waste. If you have money that is being invested for you, through a pension fund for instance, it may be supporting fossil fuels or deforestation. Making sure your savings are invested in environmentally sustainable businesses can greatly reduce your carbon footprint.

Speak up

Speak up and get others to join in taking action. It’s one of the quickest and most effective ways to make a difference. Talk to your neighbors, colleagues, friends, and family. Let business owners know you support bold changes – from plastics-free products and packaging to zero-emissions vehicles. Appeal to local and world leaders to act now. Climate action is a task for all of us. And it concerns all of us. No one can do it all alone – but we can do it together.

——————-