Prince Charles recently gave a speech in which he mentioned the causality behind the Syrian civil war as well as the financial system.
"The tragic conflict in Syria provides a terrifyingly graphic example, where a severe drought for the last seven years has decimated Syria's rural economy [...] Driving many farmers off their fields and into cities where, already, food was in short supply. [...] The time then has surely come for our financial institutions to recognise that the Earth is not a limitless resource that can be plundered at will, and to integrate that principle of stewardship into our financial structures." Quote Charles, Prince of Wales. Photograph by Victoria Johnson.
The organization Positive Money is pointing at side effects from the dominant economic system. Part of their reasoning is about how the banking system affects the environment, "how the current economic system contributes to environmental destruction and accelerated resource consumption":
Recessions (which are unavoidable in the current growth focused system) make people and governments care less about the environment
A debt-based money system may result in the need for continued economic growth (resulting in natural resource exploitation)
When the financial system is man made and our real problems rooted in resource scarcity, desperate needs and whims of nature how come we don't fix the first to at least not limit our ability to fix the latter? Could market fundamentalism have reached a religious grip on our societies?
"Modern economic theory is presented as a science. Elaborate mathematics and diagrams are employed to derive principles that are assumed to be universal among economic actors, even though the specialized math used is a “dated version” [...] and such diagrams “often contain outright fallacies” [...] After a closer examination of the dominant economic theory and its critics, one might come to the conclusion that it is actually a belief system quite similar to a religion, not an actual scientific study. [...] The word “economics” comes from a Greek term meaning “management of a household.” As evidenced by the recent meltdown at Fukushima, externalities recognize no national borders. Our household is the entire planet, and we can only make efficient use of its resources by recognizing it as a single system. There is only one biosphere. What happens to it affects us all. We need to redefine economics so that it actually ensures our total well-being to the greatest degree possible while maintaining an ecological balance. We need a holistic economic theory based on empirical data, not traditional notions." - Chet Gaines
Remember how Bill McKibben of 350.org gave a short speech at Wall Street lately? He's not the only one connecting the dots between the socially unjust financial crisis and the environment. When I went to Occupy Copenhagen last time I think most of the speakers were mostly going on about the bank bailouts - but I was chatting to the guy next to me about... socially unjust exploitation of natural resources.
In case you missed Bill's speech, here are some highlights for you:
"[...] the company building that ["Keystone XL"] tar sands pipeline was allowed to choose another company to conduct the environmental impact statement, and the company that they chose was a company was a company that did lots and lots of work for them [... in his campaign Obama said] "It’s time to end the tyranny of oil.” [...] “I will have the most transparent government in history.” We have to go to DC to find out where they have locked that guy up. We have to free Obama, because there is some sort of stunt double there now. [...] The reason that it’s so great that we’re occupying Wall Street is because Wall Street has been occupying the atmosphere. That’s why we can never do anything about global warming. [...] The sky does not belong to Exxon. They cannot keep using it as a sewer into which to dump their carbon."
"[...] when there’s money to be made, both workers and the environment are expendable [...] If you are a CEO who skims millions of dollars off other people’s labor, it’s called a “bonus.” If you are a flood victim who breaks into a sporting goods store to grab a lifejacket, it’s called looting. If you lose your job and fall behind on your mortgage, you get evicted. If you are a banker-broker who designed flawed mortgages that caused a million people to lose their homes, you get a second-home vacation-mansion near a golf course. If you drag heavy fishnets across the ocean floor and pulverize an entire ecosystem, ending thousands of years of dynamic evolution and depriving future generations of a healthy ocean, it’s called free enterprise. But if, like Tim DeChristopher, you disrupt an auction of public land to oil and gas companies, it’s called a crime and you get two years in jail. [...] The 1% are willing to spend billions impeding democratic initiatives, which is why every so-called environmental issue is also about building a democratic culture. [...] Tearing apart wildlife habitat to make a profit and doing the same at a workplace are just considered the price of doing business. Clearcutting a forest and clearcutting a labor force are two sides of the same coin. [...] The desperate effort to grow the economy to solve our economic woes is what keeps Timothy Geithner at the helm of the Treasury and is what stalls the regulation of greenhouse gasses. It’s why we are told we must sacrifice environmental quality for pipelines and why young men and women are sacrificed to protect access to oil, the lubricant for an acquisitive economic engine. [...] we have built an all-encompassing economic engine that requires unending growth. A contraction of even a percent or two is a crisis, and yet we are embedded in ecosystems that are reaching or have reached their limits. [...] Like so much else these days, the crash, as it happens, will not be suffered in equal measure by all of us. The one percenters will be atop the hill, while the 99% will be in the flood lands below swimming for their lives, clinging to debris, or drowning. [...] Degrading the planet’s operating systems to bolster the bottom line is foolish and reckless. It hurts us all. No less important, it’s unfair. The 1% profit, while the rest of us cough and cope. After Occupy Wall Street, isn’t it time for Occupy Earth?"
"Every bank which you are down here protesting finances extreme energy -- fracking, tar sands development, mountaintop removal, deep water drilling."
- Gasland documentary director Josh Fox
"To make our society sustainable, we have to deal not just with environmental issues and climate change, but with the economic crisis, and resource depletion. The most effective responses will deal with all three aspects at once. While climate change response has mostly been blocked, Occupy has gotten traction, channeling public outrage at the bailouts, the debt crisis, and rising unemployment. Occupy supporters should think about putting the transition to a renewable energy economy, which addresses all three aspects of sustainability, at the core of their agenda. The 1% absolutely does not want us to realize how urgently this transition is needed. Their power depends on keeping the unsustainable fossil fuel economy running as long as possible. They’re heavily invested in it. Of the 10 largest global corporations, 6 are oil companies. To continue making as much money as they can, they would have us wait until it’s too late to make a successful transition."
From President Roosevelt's [Wikipedia] January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union in which he advocated a "Second Bill of Rights" [Wikipedia].
It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people — whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth — is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights —among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however — as our industrial economy expanded — these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
Americas own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.
For unless there is security here at home, there can not be lasting peace in the world.
Never proposed, never passed. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sick during the speech and died April 12, 1945.
"FDR's "Fireside Chats" With America" by Tony the Misfit.
It starts out criticizing elements of the economic system - boring to many by definition but perhaps a little more interesting here in the financial crisis? - and moves on (about 21 minutes into the movie) to discuss examples of how financial tools are preferred by the West (the US) before using the military to gain cheap access to 3rd world natural resources. It's essentially John Perkins, former NSA associate, talking about the topics of his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man [Official site | Wikipedia | Google Books].
This video is the 10 last minutes of John Perkins talking:
What he says about Iraq:
"Iraq, actually, is a perfect example of the way the whole system works. We economic hitmen are the first line of defense: We go in, we try to corrupt the government and get them to accept these huge loans which we then use as leverage to basically own them. If we fail [...] then the second line of defense is we send in the jackals. The jackals either overthrow governments or they assassinate. And once that happens then a new government comes in and they'll toe the line because the new president will know what will happen if he doesn't. In the case of Iraq both of those things failed [...] so, in '91 we send in the troops and we take out the Iraqi military [...assuming] Saddam is gonna come around. [...] So the economic hitmen go back in in the 90ies... without success. If they'd had success he'd still be running the country, we'd be selling him all the fighter jets he'd want [...] the jackals couldn't take him out again [either] so we sent in the military once again and this time they did the complete job [...] in the process creating for ourselves some very, very lucrative reconstruction deals."
Very much not surprising. But nice to hear from an insider. His conclusion makes me think of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire. Regarding Iraq specifically, we've had some hard-to-believe right wing postulates that the war-for-oil theory is left wing propaganda pointing at non-US (yet Western) companies getting many contracts. First of all, it really doesn't matter as long as these companies supply for the (so called "free") world market. Second, recently U.S. Companies Join Race on Iraqi Oil Bonanza.
Towards the end the movie sums up in some more philosophical discussions (including some hippie stuff). Some of it is undeniable Ecowar cornerstones.
"The most important issue at hand is the intelligent management of the earth's resources. [...] Our true problems in life are technical, not political. [...] Society today is backwards. With politicians constantly talking about protection and security rather than creation, unity and progress. The US alone now spends about 500,000,000,000 dollars annually on defense. That is enough to send every high school senior in America to a four year college. In the 1940ies the Manhattan Project produced the first true weapon of mass destruction. This programme employed 130,000 people at an extreme financial cost. Imagine what our life would be like today if that group of scientists, in stead of working on a way of killing people, worked on a way to create a self-sustaining, abundant world. [...] It is time to unleash something much more powerful: weapons of mass creation."
Of course, just like America is addicted to oil (George W. Bush's own words) it's also addicted to war. At least, shutting down the military would be a mega-shock to the financial system. That is why I enjoyed it very much when in Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capital series the US military is literally battling climate change. Also a topic discussed in the new copy of Ode Magazine: Jim Channon: Mobilizing the military to clean up the earth.
The true battle in the future is not between nations; it’s about repairing the damage we’re doing to our planet. [...] the army must set about reforesting the Earth, planting billions of trees and cleaning up the fresh water reserves. [...] The Marines will protect and restore the dying coral reefs and coastal wetlands while the Air Force monitors carbon emissions, ozone depletion and air pollution. [...] The Navy, Channon says, should be tasked with measuring rising ocean temperatures and melting polar ice as well as policing illegal dumping and overfishing of the seas. [...] siphon excess water from the oceans and channel it into the desert basins of the planet to create enormous salt water lakes [...] transport thousands of refugees from the Pacific Islands to these areas, where they may tend giant new fishponds
These quotes are the visions of retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon - who's portrayed by Jeff Bridges in The Men Who Stare at Goats which appears to be a lot more fun than Zeitgeist Addendum.
The second of three videos: Dr. Joachim Spangenberg, Vice Chairman of the sustainable Europe Research Institute Germany e.V. (SERI), speaks at "Climate change and conflict - The Danger of future wars", Klimaforum09 Sunday the 13th of December 2009. The video is of the first half of his presentation only (the rest I got on audio only).
"The greenhouse gas in the atmosphere cannot be convinced by political majority decision it should behave differently."
"There is no substitue for water, there is no substitue for soil, there is no substitue for biodiversity. Which means we are dealing with resources which are all threatened by climate change. [...] We are organizing a multi-threat attack on mankind - at the same time not building up our defense lines."
"Economic tells you that if something's not scarce it's not valuable. [...] Which means biodiversity, as long as it's plentiful, it has no value. And when we begin to lose it it becomes valuable. So maybe the best method to enhance the value of nature is destroying it?"
Quillagua is among many small towns that are being swallowed up in the country’s intensifying water wars. Nowhere is the system for buying and selling water more permissive than here in Chile
[...]
Some economists have hailed Chile’s water rights trading system, which was established in 1981 during the military dictatorship, as a model of free-market efficiency that allocates water to its highest economic use.
But other academics and environmentalists argue that Chile’s system is unsustainable because it promotes speculation, endangers the environment and allows smaller interests to be muscled out by powerful forces, like Chile’s mining industry.
Economists and military dictatorship vs academics and environmentalists - gee.
unbridled water trading and a two-year drought mean that “there are many more water rights for the river than water that arrives from the river,”
Every outbreak of violence has its own distinctive origins and characteristics. All, however, are driven by a similar combination of anxiety about the future and lack of confidence in the ability of established institutions to deal with the problems at hand.
[...]
The riots that erupted in the spring of 2008 in response to rising food prices suggested the speed with which economically related violence can spread.
[...]
The cost of food is now closely tied to the price of oil and natural gas because petrochemicals are so widely and heavily used in the cultivation of grains.
[...]
zero economic growth in the developing world and rising food prices -- and you have a perfect recipe for unrelenting civil unrest and violence.
[...]
Statistical modeling shows that economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if they persist over a one to two year period
Last year, Iceland killed nine endangered Fin whales. A few months back they began exporting the meat from the endangered whales to Japan, which is a clear violation of international law. This year, they want to kill 150.
"Iceland has spat in the face of marine conservationists around the world with their extremist announcement that they wish to slaughter 150 endangered fin whales and 100 minke whales this year."
"In many ways [water] is the most dramatic expression of mismanagement of natural or nature-based assets [...] The day a person or a community is bereft of water is the day that your chance of even the most basic life or livelihood is gone and economic activity seeps away. Unchecked climate change will mean that some parts of the world will simply not have enough water to sustain settlements both small and large, because agriculture becomes untenable and industries relying on water can no longer compete or function effectively. This will trigger structural changes in economies right through to the displacement of people as environmental refugees. [...] In rich countries, there's always the potential of channelling water from one river basin to another. But even there people are hitting the limits of what we can do with money and infrastructure because there simply isn't enough water any more." - Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (my emphasises)
Some of the most dramatic examples of water shortages this year include conflict-stricken Sudan, the dramatic drying of Lake Faguibine in Mali on which 200,000 mostly nomadic people depend, fatal clashes over drying boreholes in northern Kenya, and economic and social crisis on the sparsely populated border between Bolivia and Argentina, according to Unep. Oxfam has estimated that 25 million people have been affected by the most recent drought in Ethiopia.
as the population keeps growing and getting richer, and global warming changes the climate, experts are warning that unless something is done, billions more will suffer lack of water - precipitating hunger, disease, migration and ultimately conflict. [...] Ultimately, lack of water is seen as a threat to peace. From genocide in Darfur to rows between states in India and the US [...] Intuitively it is obvious people will fight over their most precious resource, but so far few conflicts have broken out. [...] water is often an underlying cause of tension, but has only identified one water 'war', between Egypt and Sudan
Water agencies could get as little as 15% of their allocations next year unless rain and snowfall return to normal levels in the coming months. [...] The overall water storage is roughly 70% of the average for this time of year. [...] a voluntary conservation program [by one water supplier] has reduced water use by 8% to 10%.
Brunswick, pop. 6,000, city leaders were close to issuing an ultimatum: If Rosemont, or the county or somebody somewhere didn't take over the dilapidated pipes that carry water to 80 homes in Rosemont, the city would turn off the village's water May 25. Just like that: Off. [...] This is hardly the first time water has divided two communities. In Western Maryland, past disputes have turned on a scarcity of supply during times of drought. In this case the supply is not the issue; distribution is.
Fighting over boreholes in arid northern Kenya has killed at least four people as competition for resources mounts in the drought-hit region, the Kenyan Red Cross said on Friday.
Turkana district in northern Kenya is on the brink of disaster. There's been no rain for months, the forecast is grim and thousands of children are at risk.
Even the relatively progressive newspaper I subscribe to (Danish Information) has been front page worried about the financial crisis bringing an end to environmental initiatives. Although it's probably going to be true in many cases I have thought of it as fossilized thinking that going green should equal spending green. The key is to try and think of what we have to accomplish in terms of what investments will take us there.
"My very strong belief is that we need to reorient our investments toward this transition to a clean energy economy, and it will be the engine of growth for getting us out of the doldrums that we've gotten in right now" - Cathy Zoi
"Whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year" - Deutche Bank economist
Also remember that the financial crisis has left few physical marks. All that has suffered are the capitalist fantasies of some investors (and of course some everyday dreams of common people too who have been more or less forced into the financial fantasies by the resulting market changes - my apologies to you for being cynical on behalf of the environment).
