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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>May 5, 2021</b></font></i></p>
IFLAS - Initiative for Leadership and Sustainability<br>
Wednesday, 24 March 2021<br>
<b>Monetary adaptation to planetary emergency: new paper addresses
the monetary growth imperative</b><br>
- -<br>
The paper notes the increasing likelihood of disruptions to economic
systems from the direct and indirect impacts of environmental change
means that the current monetary system is neither resilient nor
helping humanity become more resilient.<br>
<br>
For twenty years, and with little influence, some environmental
economists argued that the way money is issued into circulation
forces the economy to grow, and that only fundamental monetary
reform could change that. But over the last decade some economists
influential in environmental policy communities, including the field
of degrowth (and postgrowth), have argued that capitalism without
growth is theoretically possible. This paper shows, in simple terms,
they were mistaken to conclude that, and it makes the case again for
systemic changes to our monetary systems.<br>
<br>
Therefore, the authors show how even green-tinged economists have
been misinforming both activists and policy makers. The paper
suggests that as members of the establishment, academics often have
a bias towards questions, conclusions and narratives which will be
acceptable to power. As an economist, sociologist and community
activist, the three authors call on the economics profession to look
again at the way the banking systems force our economies to expand
in order to avoid disruption to businesses, jobs and financial
assets. They argue that no criticism of capitalism is coherent nor a
credible basis for alternatives unless it addresses the Monetary
Growth Imperative. <br>
<br>
“The world is in an unprecedented mess. This means, among other
things, that economists should question their assumptions, or risk
becoming outdated and toxic. The money system is a major, often
overlooked driver of economic behaviour, and it needs urgent reform.
It's time for a radical overhaul," explains co-author Professor
Christian Arnsperger, University of Lausanne. . <br>
<br>
It is the first academic paper that directly challenges economists
in the environmental field to stop being anti-radical in their
assessment of the need for monetary reform...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://iflas.blogspot.com/2021/03/monetary-adaptation-to-planetary.html">http://iflas.blogspot.com/2021/03/monetary-adaptation-to-planetary.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Beckwith shouts out the future]<br>
<b>It’s the End of the World as we Know It, and I Feel FINE. What’s
Next for Abrupt Climate Disruption?</b><br>
May 4, 2021<br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
People often ask me for my projections and guesstimates on what
happens next with our ongoing abrupt climate system disruption. <br>
For example:<br>
<br>
When we we first lost all Arctic Sea Ice?<br>
<br>
When will methane burst out from the Arctic?<br>
<br>
What will happen to our global food supply? Will we have a global
famine?<br>
<br>
What is the best way to pull carbon from the atmosphere/ocean
system?<br>
<br>
Will we deploy solar radiation management technologies? Lime the
oceans. Put mirrors everywhere on land, oceans, or in space?<br>
<br>
How does one deal with all this bad news?<br>
<br>
I chat about some of my thoughts on these complex questions as I sit
on a log in a forest in Northern Ontario in front of a gorgeous
waterfall.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPa6UdvVpmo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPa6UdvVpmo</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Housing govt hearing]<br>
<b>Virtual Hearing - Built to Last: Examining Housing Resilience in
the Face of... (EventID=112576)</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM0YwTIFeBw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM0YwTIFeBw</a><br>
Overview<br>
<br>
America’s housing infrastructure is vulnerable to the growing costs
of climate and weather disasters, which may accelerate the need for
maintenance and repair, or render units of housing infrastructure
uninhabitable. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, increases in global average temperature are linked to
“widespread changes in weather patterns,” and scientific studies
have shown that climate change caused by humans will likely lead to
more frequent and intense extreme weather events. The U.S. National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Centers for
Environmental Information reported that 2020 set a new annual record
with 22 weather/climate disaster events that caused over $1 billion
in damage, the sixth year in a row the U.S. has experienced ten or
more such events. While a comprehensive federal data set specific to
the number of units of housing lost to climate and weather events
does not exist, the destructive impacts on the nation’s housing
stock have been profound both in terms of financial and human costs.
Between 2016 and 2020, weather and climate disasters have cost
$615.9 billion in damages4 and have displaced tens of thousands of
people from their homes.<br>
<br>
Climate Change and Environmental Injustice<br>
<br>
Prior to the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, housing
policies, such as redlining and zoning, were used to overtly
segregate low-income people and people of color into less desirable
areas that were susceptible to flooding, located in close proximity
to industrial districts, lacked adequate infrastructure, and were
systemically disinvested in. Due to historic and ongoing
socioeconomic segregation, the current effects of climate change and
weather events are concentrated among low-income communities and
communities of color.<br>
<br>
At present, formerly redlined areas suffer from hotter temperatures
and their homes are 25% more likely to experience damage due to
flooding compared to non-redlined areas. Meanwhile, some formerly
redlined communities face displacement as a result of climate
gentrification. In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, for example, rising
sea levels are driving wealthier White residents to leave their
beach-front properties in search of homes in higher elevation areas,
like Little Haiti, which is a historically Black, formerly redlined
community, from which families are now being priced out of due to
the influx of wealthier White residents. 10<br>
<br>
Many homes in disaster-stricken areas are lost due to a lack of
resilient design and poor structural siting. Leading up to the
COVID-19 pandemic, an estimated 800,000 homes in Puerto Rico had
been damaged by Hurricane Maria. Last year, in the middle of the
pandemic, Georgia and Tennessee experienced deadly tornados that
damaged and demolished more than 2,000 homes. In the wake of
California’s 2018 wildfires—the deadliest in the state’s history—51%
of homes that were built to higher standard codes established in
2008 went undamaged compared to only 18% of homes built to pre-2008
standards.<br>
<br>
Similarly, homes in historically disinvested communities, including
in Native communities and the territories, are also more likely to
be demolished in the aftermath of disasters. Accordingly, advocates
have urged policymakers to “be diligent in building more resilient
and prepared communities” nationwide, while targeting efforts in
low-income areas and communities of color that face disproportionate
climate risk and often lack the institutional capacity and monetary
resources needed to prepare for and recover from disaster.<br>
<br>
Biden Administration and Executive Actions on Climate Change<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM0YwTIFeBw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM0YwTIFeBw</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[from the great actuarial thinker]<br>
<b>How the World’s Energy Problem Has Been Hidden</b><br>
May 4, 2021 by Gail Tverberg<br>
We live in a world where words are very carefully chosen. Companies
hire public relations firms to give just the right “spin” to what
they are saying. Politicians make statements which suggest that
everything is going well. Newspapers would like their advertisers to
be happy; they certainly won’t suggest that the automobile you
purchase today may be of no use to you in five years.<br>
<br>
I believe that what has happened in recent years is that the “truth”
has become very dark. We live in a finite world; we are rapidly
approaching limits of many kinds. For example, there is not enough
fresh water for everyone, including agriculture and businesses. This
inadequate water supply is now tipping over into inadequate food
supply in quite a few places because irrigation requires fresh
water. This problem is, in a sense, an energy problem, because
adding more irrigation requires more energy supplies used for
digging deeper wells or making desalination plants. We are reaching
energy scarcity issues not too different from those of World War I,
World War II and the Depression Era between the wars.<br>
<br>
We now live in a strange world filled with half-truths, not too
different from the world of the 1930s. US newspapers leave out the
many stories that could be written about rising food insecurity
around the world, and even in the US. We see more reports of
conflicts among countries and increasing gaps between the rich and
the poor, but no one explains that such changes are to be expected
when energy consumption per capita starts falling too low.<br>
<br>
The majority of people seem to believe that all of these problems
can be fixed simply by increasingly taxing the rich and using the
proceeds to help the poor. They also believe that the biggest
problem we are facing is climate change. Very few are even aware of
the food scarcity problems occurring in many parts of the world
already...<br>
- -<br>
If energy prices are chronically too low (so that an energy product
requires a subsidy, rather than paying taxes), this is a sign that
the energy product is most likely an energy “sink.” Such a product
acts in the direction of pulling the economy down through ever-lower
productivity...<br>
- -<br>
We are right now in a huge scarcity situation which is starting to
cause conflicts of many kinds. Even if there were a way of producing
these types of alternative energy cheaply enough, they are coming
far too late and in far too small quantities to make a difference.
They also don’t match up with our current coal and oil uses, adding
a layer of time and expense for conversion that needs to be included
in any model...<br>
- -<br>
<b>[4] What we really have is a huge conflict problem due to
inadequate energy supplies for today’s world population. The
powers that be are trying to hide this problem by publishing only
their preferred version of the truth.</b><br>
<br>
The situation that we are really facing is one that often goes under
the name of “collapse.” It is a problem that many civilizations have
faced in the past when a given population has outgrown its resource
base.<br>
<br>
Needless to say, the issue of collapse is not a story any politician
wants to tell its citizens. Instead, we are told over and over,
“Everything is fine. Any energy problem will be handled by the
solutions scientists are finding.” The catch is that scientists were
not told the correct problem to solve. They were told about a
distant problem. To make the problem easier to solve, high prices
and subsidies seemed to be acceptable. The problem they were asked
to solve is very different from our real energy problem today.<br>
<br>
Many people think that taxing the rich and giving the proceeds to
the poor can solve our problem, but this doesn’t really solve the
problem for a couple of reasons. One of the issues is that our
scarcity issue is really a worldwide problem. Higher taxation of the
rich in a few rich countries does nothing for the many problems of
poor people in countries such as Lebanon, Yemen, Venezuela and
India. Furthermore, taking money from the rich doesn’t really fix
scarcity problems. Rich people don’t really eat a vastly
disproportionate amount of food or drink more water, for example.<br>
<br>
A detail that most of us don’t think about is that the military of
many different countries has been very much aware of the potential
conflict situation that is now occurring. They are aware that a “hot
war” would require huge use of fossil fuel energy, so they have been
trying to find alternative approaches. One approach military groups
have been working on is the use of bioweapons of various kinds. In
fact, some groups might even contemplate starting a pandemic.
Another approach that might be used is computer viruses to disrupt
the systems of other countries.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/05/04/how-the-worlds-energy-problem-has-been-hidden/">https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/05/04/how-the-worlds-energy-problem-has-been-hidden/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[a 43 minute video]<br>
<b>Carolyn Baker Interview</b><br>
May 4, 2021<br>
<b>Living in the Time of Dying</b><br>
<br>
Carolyn Baker is someone who is unafraid to look at the possibility
of human extinction and what we as a global community are facing.
She also is willing to look at the spiritual and emotional
possibilities that this climate and biosphere crisis presents us
with. In this interview with Carolyn we discuss approaching collapse
as a rite of passage and accepting and working with the grief
inherent in these times. <br>
<br>
About Carolyn Baker<br>
Carolyn Baker’s mission is to create islands of sanity in a sea of
global chaos. This mission necessitates the development of a variety
of emotional tools alongside commitment to spiritual transformation.
Through her multi-faceted outreach via webinars, podcasts, live
workshops, books, and articles, as well as one-on-one life coaching,
Carolyn is touching the lives of thousands to assist them in
preparing for the dire consequences of the collapse of industrial
civilisation and abrupt climate change. <br>
<br>
Interviewed by Michael Shaw, director and producer of Living in The
Time of Dying. For more information visit our website
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.livinginthetimeofdying.com">www.livinginthetimeofdying.com</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXHUvUA5UMg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXHUvUA5UMg</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming May
5, 2013</b></font><br>
<p>New York magazine's Jon Chait declares that President Obama
doesn't get enough credit for being a climate hawk:<br>
<br>
"The assumption that Obama’s climate-change record is essentially
one of failure is mainly an artifact of environmentalists’
understandably frantic urgency. The sort of steady progress that
would leave activists on other issues giddy does not satisfy the
sort of person whose waking hours are spent watching the glaciers
melt irreversibly. But there is a difference between failing to do
anything and failing to do enough, and even those who criticize
the president’s efforts as inadequate ought to be clear-eyed about
what has been accomplished. By the normal standards of progress,
Obama has amassed an impressive record so far on climate change."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://nymag.com/news/features/obama-climate-change-2013-5/">http://nymag.com/news/features/obama-climate-change-2013-5/</a><br>
</p>
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