Vital quarantine reading – free audiobook on youtube right now!

I know one thing I’m adding to my to-do list for this quarantine! Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is an important book about how wealthy capitalists use disasters to increase their wealth and power. The lessons here may help those of you confused by the way some people in power seem to be so incompetent that it’s like they’re trying to screw everything up. The answer may be that they are.

And the audio-book has been on Youtube since September of 2018! I had no idea! Understanding disaster capitalism is essential both to understanding how people like the Tories and the GOP seem to view the world, and one of the conflicts of interest that is probably interfering in efforts to actually do something about climate change.

Whether you go with the audiobook or any other format, I think this is well worth your time. As a bonus, here’s the UK’s Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson explaining their plans for the British economy:

Thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, layoffs have increased, job interviews have been indefinitely postponed, and many places aren’t hiring new workers. All of that means I really need help paying my bills and keeping a roof over my head. Patreon.com is a way for you to help with that, even if it’s just a little bit, and get some perks and extra content in return. You control how much you give, and how long you give it, and every little bit really does help. When lots of people pitch in, it can make a huge difference. Please help if you’re able, and share my work with others. Thank you!

Update on an Antarctic glacier

Hey, did you know that this blog is normally focused on climate change? Crazy, right? I’ve been caught up in current events, but I’m going to start doing more stuff about climate change and responding to it, along with other projects.

It’s been pointed out one or fifty times that the current COVID-19 crisis provides a nice demonstration of how the entire species can take dramatic action on an issue, provided those with power actually feel the need to do so. I think it also provides a useful parallel in that the warnings and calls for immediate action were downplayed and ignored for long enough that the problem grew out of control in many places. While the pandemic response has decreased air pollution and emissions quite a bit, that’s a small, temporary change, and the effects of over a century of accumulated CO2 continue on.

East Antarctica’s Denman Glacier has retreated 5 kilometers, nearly 3 miles, in the past 22 years, and researchers at the University of California, Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are concerned that the shape of the ground surface beneath the ice sheet could make it even more susceptible to climate-driven collapse.

If fully thawed, the ice in Denman would cause sea levels worldwide to rise about 1.5 meters, almost 5 feet. With this sobering fact in mind, the UCI and NASA JPL scientists have completed the most thorough examination yet of the glacier and surrounding area, uncovering alarming clues about its condition under further global warming.

The team’s assessment is the subject of a paper published today in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters.

“East Antarctica has long been thought to be less threatened, but as glaciers such as Denman have come under closer scrutiny by the cryosphere science community, we are now beginning to see evidence of potential marine ice sheet instability in this region,” said co-author Eric Rignot, chair, Donald Bren Professor and Chancellor’s Professor of Earth system science at UCI.

“The ice in West Antarctica has been melting faster in recent years, but the sheer size of Denman Glacier means that its potential impact on long-term sea level rise is just as significant,” he added.

According to the study, Denman Glacier experienced a cumulative mass loss of 268 billion tons of ice between 1979 and 2017.

[…]

Denman’s eastern flank is protected from retreat by a subglacial ridge. But Brancato said that the western flank, which extends roughly 4 kilometers, is characterized by a deep and steep trough with a bed slope conducive to accelerated retreat.

“Because of the shape of the ground beneath Denman’s western side, there is potential for rapid and irreversible retreat, and that means substantial increases in global sea levels in the future,” she said.

In December, Nature Geoscience published a paper on the BedMachine Antarctica project led by Mathieu Morlighem, UCI associate professor of Earth system science, which revealed that the trough beneath Denman Glacier extends 3,500 meters below sea level, making it the deepest land canyon on Earth.

The UCI and NASA JPL scientists report in the Geophysical Research Letters paper that the bed configuration of Denman is unique in Antarctica’s eastern sector. Other major glaciers, such as Totten and Moscow University, feature prograde beds that slope down in the flow direction, providing some measure of stability, Rignot said.

[…]

“We need to collect oceanographic data near Denman and keep an eye on its grounding line,” Rignot said. “The Italian COSMO-SkyMed satellite system is the only tool for us to monitor grounding line conditions in this sector of Antarctica, and we are fortunate to have on our team Dr. Brancato, who is skilled in extrapolating the data to give us the precise and up-to-date information we require.”

Sea level rise is just one of many dangers posed by our rapidly warming climate, but it’s one that presents massive difficulties. A huge portion of the global population lives close to sea level, along with infrastructure and industry. It’s almost certainly too late to stop the seas from rising for the rest of this century, though we might be able to slow that rate a bit. That means that we need to work out how to respond to it. Whether we try to build up cities to be able to continue existing where they are, regardless of sea level, or retreat from the water’s edge and rebuild at higher elevations, there’s a lot of work to be done. If we simply wait for the water to rise, and take a reactive, rather than a proactive approach, many people will die, resources will be lost, and the remains of cities and factories will pollute the waters they crumble into for decades to come, like sunken ships, but much, much bigger.

Climate change moves more slowly than a viral pandemic, but just as with COVID-19, there will come a time when the accumulated changes exceed the capacity of our existing infrastructure. We had a chance, until maybe the year 2000, to “contain” the problem, and to prevent catastrophe. Like with the American response to COVID-19, we blew that chance. We’re now in “flatten the curve” territory. We can reduce the rate of warming, and we can take measures to reduce the damage that warming does to our societies. The pandemic is showing us what a serious, global response to a crisis looks like. We need to take advantage of that, and push hard for things like the Green New Deal, and to take power away from the people who have, for decades, prevented action through corruption and misinformation.

Thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, layoffs have increased, job interviews have been indefinitely postponed, and many places aren’t hiring new workers. All of that means I really need help paying my bills and keeping a roof over my head. Patreon.com is a way for you to help with that, even if it’s just a little bit, and get some perks and extra content in return. You control how much you give, and how long you give it, and every little bit really does help. When lots of people pitch in, it can make a huge difference. Please help if you’re able, and share my work with others. Thank you!

Cat Contemplating Quarantine

I thought that for this Saturday I’d share some pictures of my cat engaging in his third favorite activity. Then I couldn’t figure out how to upload the images, so you’re getting it today instead.

His Holiness Saint Ray the Cat had a troubled childhood. We think he lived under the house our apartment was in, back in Somerville, because whenever Tegan came home from work, there was this tiny, noisy kitten demanding attention.  In time, we ended up taking him in. He had Giardia, worms, and other such things. After taking him to the vet, we realized that as it was late autumn at that point, he was probably a couple weeks away from death. For the first couple weeks, all he did was eat, sleep, and poop. If you’re ever wondering what Giardia is like, I’m pretty sure this tiny little kitten pooped his own weight every day.

He was not a well cat.

The perkiness he had shown in demanding attention vanished as soon as he got inside. I think he decided that he was now safe, and being fed, and could focus on healing, and on his one true passion: sleep.

Once he got out of Giardia/flea quarantine in the bathroom,  he began exploring the apartment. He would toddle slowly for about 5-10 feet, then curl up on the floor wherever he had gotten and sleep for a while. Then he’d get up, get another few feet, and sleep again. It took him a few days to actually get a feel for the place.

One thing is certain – he decided that he was done with being outdoors. I’ve never had a cat that was so uninterested in leaving the apartment. He’ll look at the door if you leave it open. He even managed to get outside once, but he ran right back in. I think he was traumatized by his childhood. He’d been there, he’d done that, and he was committed to living the rest of his days as a very, very lazy indoor cat, a career he has pursued to this very day.

So for him, the only difference from the quarantine is that Tegan’s around more. Like me, he seems to like that.

And what is his third favorite activity? Well, after sleeping and eating (we have to regulate his diet, because his not-so-secret ambition is to become spherical), he likes sitting on the sill of our living-room window and gazing out at the wildlife of Scotland. By this I mean the rather pleasant alley between our apartment building and the one next to it, and the people, dogs, and magpies that frequent it:

The picture shows my cat, St. Ray, looking out the window. He is a cat of solid build, with dark gray and black striped fur on his back, tail, and head. His muzzle, chest, legs, belly, and a collar on his shoulders are snowy white and very, very soft to the touch.He is at the bottom of a door-sized window, seated on the sill, with his tail hanging down in a neat curl. He's looking out at people who cannot be seen in the street below. Outside, parts of a tree are visible, buds still just barely starting to open for the spring. The building across the way has shuttered windows, below stone arches carved with leaves and flowers - I believe they are thistles.

His Holiness gazes upon the unwashed masses

The picture shows my cat, St. Ray, looking out the window at a different angle. He is a cat of solid build, with dark gray and black striped fur on his back, tail, and head. His muzzle, chest, legs, belly, and a collar on his shoulders are snowy white and very, very soft to the touch. He is at the bottom of a door-sized window, seated on the sill, with his tail hanging down in a neat curl. He's looking out at people who cannot be seen in the street below. Outside, parts of a tree are visible, buds still just barely starting to open for the spring. The building across the way has shuttered windows, below stone arches carved with leaves and flowers - I believe they are thistles.

THOSE unwashed masses are BIRDS. St. Ray finds birds to be fascinating.

The picture shows my cat, St. Ray, looking out the window. He is a cat of solid build, with dark gray and black striped fur on his back, tail, and head. His muzzle, chest, legs, belly, and a collar on his shoulders are snowy white and very, very soft to the touch.He is at the bottom of a door-sized window, seated on the sill, with his tail hanging down in a neat curl. He's looking out at people who cannot be seen in the street below. Outside, parts of a tree are visible, buds still just barely starting to open for the spring. The building across the way has shuttered windows, below stone arches carved with leaves and flowers - I believe they are thistles.

In which His Holiness contemplates the deeper secrets of the universe. How long has it been since he last ate? Is it time for food once again? Will we ever know?

Thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, layoffs have increased, job interviews have been indefinitely postponed, and many places aren’t hiring new workers. All of that means I really need help paying my bills and keeping a roof over my head. Patreon.com is a way for you to help with that, even if it’s just a little bit, and get some perks and extra content in return. You control how much you give, and how long you give it, and every little bit really does help. When lots of people pitch in, it can make a huge difference. Please help if you’re able, and share my work with others. Thank you!

Second depression, same as the first, a bit more tech, and possibly worse?

With everything that has been going on, and the recent announcement that the United States might be hitting 30% unemployment soon, there has been a lot of talk about the Great Depression, and the various similarities and differences between now and then. There are a lot of parallels, and most of them are not comforting. We have a global pandemic that looks poised to kill millions by the end of the year. The economy, after decades of being undermined and redesigned for the sole benefit of the rich and powerful, is collapsing. We’re in the midst of an ecological crisis which, just like the pandemic, is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The problems caused by the growing inequalities in wealth and power are leading to a rise in extremist far-right political movements, violence, and scapegoating aimed at those with the least power. As the saying goes, history doesn’t repeat, but it sure does seem to rhyme.

So what’s different?

Lots of things. For one, we’ve gotten better at medicine. Even with the disastrous equipment shortage we’re faced with, we have a far better understanding of how diseases spread, how to treat their symptoms, and how to develop medicines that make a real difference. We’re also better at moving stuff around the planet. Equipment, doctors, food, and raw materials can be shipped to where they’re needed much more quickly and easily than they could in the 1920s.

I’ve heard some people worry that, compared to the Great Depression, fewer people have the space, know-how, or pre-existing gardens to grow their own food. I think that is a valid concern, but how much of a concern is probably going to depend a lot on policy. As I mentioned, shipping food internationally has never been easier, and while we can’t rule out massive crop failures with the unstable global climate, it’s been mentioned many times that the world grows more food than is needed to feed everybody already. All that’s lacking is the will to invest in distribution. Likewise, with modern technology, a national jobs program could include investment in the construction and running of indoor/vertical farms, and cities could begin to grow their own food. This could both reduce pressure on the various ecosystems currently used for food production, and reduce pollution generated by shipping across great distances.

Things like that aren’t likely to be “crowdsourced” into existence, but if we’re going to be spending vast amounts of taxpayer money to keep the economy afloat, we might as well be using it to address other problems that need solving. Now is definitely time for the Green New Deal.

And that brings us to the key difficulty. Addressing all of these problems requires placing power in the hands of people who want to address them, and taking power away from those who want to prevent the changes we need. Electoral politics is definitely one of the ways to do this, and I would encourage everybody who hasn’t voted in the Democratic primary thus far to seriously consider voting for Bernie Sanders – the policies he wants are the policies we desperately need, not just for America, but for the good of the whole planet.

But beyond that, there’s something that we had in the 1920s that we don’t really have right now, or at least not the way we need it. The missing ingredients are the socialist and labour movements. When FDR enacted the New Deal in 1933, it didn’t just happen because everyone got together and agreed that it was the best course of action. It happened because America had a powerful, and angry labour movement, and a powerful socialist movement. FDR pushed for the New Deal, but what made it happen was the fear, on the part of what he called “economic royalists”, that if they didn’t give up some of their wealth and power, then America might be the next country to see something like a Leninist uprising, and they would lose everything. Faced with that choice, some tried to overthrow Roosevelt and install a fascist regime, but in the end, we got the New Deal instead.

I think by studying that era, we can see cause for hope, as well as cause for fear. We can see the work that we need to do, and we can see the kinds of reaction we can expect. The Left is weaker than it was in that era, and we need to change that. Unlikely as it may seem, I’d still like to see a President Sanders, but he won’t be able to do much without the ability to point out the window when the oligarchs say “you and what army?” Likewise, if we get someone like Biden, he will only agree to left-wing policies if there’s a massive movement pushing him to do so. Any way you look at it, what we need right now is class solidarity, class politics, and a mass movement by the working classes, which I would argue includes most of the “middle” class, whether or not folks like to admit it.

As with so many other things these days, the amount of damage done to society seems to depend a lot on policy decisions. Having the “Camp of the Saints” crowd in charge seems like a good way to have a lot of people die due to incompetence that can never quite be proven to be deliberate.

If you have time to kill, read up on the labour movement. Read up on the Civil Rights movement. Read up on political change. Two books that come to my mind are The Zinn Reader, a collection of writings by Howard Zinn, and Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals. I’m honestly not very well-read on this sort of thing, though I’m trying to change that. There’s also a wealth of information to be found online, and useful stuff from Lefty youtubers and people like Richard Wolff. I’ll try to keep linking anything that seems useful as I continue writing.

Thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, layoffs have increased, job interviews have been indefinitely postponed, and many places aren’t hiring new workers. All of that means I really need help paying my bills and keeping a roof over my head. Patreon.com is a way for you to help with that, even if it’s just a little bit, and get some perks and extra content in return. You control how much you give, and how long you give it, and every little bit really does help. When lots of people pitch in, it can make a huge difference. Please help if you’re able, and share my work with others. Thank you!

This is your free trial apocalypse.

[This image is a tweet and response. First tweet from Jamie Margolin reads: What will it look like when the world actually decides to solve the #climatecrisis? It will look like the world is now addressing #COVID19. The media covering the issue 24/7. Everyone stopping everything and putting the world on pause to deal with the immediate crisis at hand. Response from Rebecca Auerbach reads: This is your free trial apocalypse. If you do not wish to renew your subscription at the end of the trial period, you must cancel your carbon emissions by 2030. Otherwise your apocalypse will automatically renew for the next million years.]

“This is your free trial apocalypse. If you do not wish to renew your subscription at the end of the trial period, you must cancel your carbon emissions by 2030. Otherwise your apocalypse will automatically renew for the next million years.

I don’t entirely agree with this, just because it implies there is a point at which it’s “too late” to do anything about climate change. That is not the case, and it never has been. There are many “points of no return”, beyond which we can’t stop certain changes, but all that really means is that our efforts to survive and to build a better world have to take new levels and kinds of volatility into account. As long as humanity exists, it’s never “too late” to work towards a better world, and a better version of humanity. Simply giving up, as many would have us do, doesn’t mean “game over”, it means the game continues on under the rule of, and for the benefit of those who made everything so terrible in the first place.

Thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, layoffs have increased, job interviews have been indefinitely postponed, and many places aren’t hiring new workers. All of that means I really need help paying my bills and keeping a roof over my head. Patreon.com is a way for you to help with that, even if it’s just a little bit, and get some perks and extra content in return. You control how much you give, and how long you give it, and every little bit really does help. When lots of people pitch in, it can make a huge difference. Please help if you’re able, and share my work with others. Thank you!

Sources of aid for those who need it

The response to my request for help has been incredibly uplifting. I’ve got a ways to go before I can really make ends meet, but I’m closer to that than I was, and I know there are a lot of other people who also need help right now. Whatever your walk in life, you have a right to food, water, housing, and healthcare.

To that end, I’ve put together a list of different resources for people who are struggling to make ends meet right now. This is a mix of both ways to see help, and ways to give help to those in need. I will update and re-post this at least once a week while the pandemic and associated economic fallout continue. This is currently mostly focused on the U.S., with some UK resources, but I want to expand it to cover anyone needing help anywhere if possible. If anyone has resources I’ve missed, please include them in the comments and I’ll add them in to the next round. 

Opportunity to help: TAA Mutual Aid Fund for Grad Workers and Families

As part of the TAA’s broader commitment to supporting or most vulnerable and precarious, we have set up a Mutual Aid Fund where graduate student employees can request aid to respond to an urgent financial need. This fund has been seeded with contributions from three incredible members who wanted to see the TAA act to relieve immediate financial needs for its members.

If you are able, please consider donating to this fund to ensure that our colleagues, co-workers, friends, comrades in financially uncertain times can be supported.

And any UW grad student can apply for funds at http://bit.ly/TAAmutualaid.

From Bigdoorbrigade.com, who have done a great job pulling this stuff together. Look at this stuff, but check them out too, because they’ve got more on how to help, how to organize, and so on:

https://www.mutualaidhub.org/ – a map of mutual aid projects and requests around the United States. FYI, McAffee flagged this site as somehow worrisome. I’m not sure why.

https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/ – Mutual Aid Disaster Relief – solidarity, not charity. This is an opportunity to help, for now. If I find a way to ask them for aid, I’ll update.

It’s Going Down  is a digital community center for anarchist, anti-fascist, autonomous anti-capitalist and anti-colonial movements. They have a list of mutual aid efforts focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic across the United States as well as some in Canada.

This is a US-based google doc with a huge amount of resources linked, from guides, to counter-propaganda, to existing aid efforts. Tactics and info are relevant across the board, most of the linked aid efforts are centered in the US.

Coronavirus resource list “This kit is a collectivized document that will be updated as more mutual aid projects and resources appear online. Recognizing that not everyone will have access to great internet to access some of these, I encourage you to apply these offline as well as online.”

COVID-19 Mutual Aid UK – Mutual aid resources in the United Kingdom

For those interested, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now did an interview with Dean Spade, who created Big Door Brigade.

Fool.com has some resources on legislation, as well as various programs that provide limited help to some people in the U.S.

Thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, layoffs have increased, job interviews have been indefinitely postponed, and many places aren’t hiring new workers. All of that means I really need help paying my bills and keeping a roof over my head. Patreon.com is a way for you to help with that, even if it’s just a little bit, and get some perks and extra content in return. You control how much you give, and how long you give it, and every little bit really does help. When lots of people pitch in, it can make a huge difference. Please help if you’re able, and share my work with others. Thank you!

The fossil fuel industry is using the pandemic to continue destroying everything they can

There are multiple ways for people with money and power to gain further profit from major crises. The most straightforward is that when everything goes to hell, those who already have resources can buy more resources cheap. Property, dying businesses, debt, and vital services all get taken over by various oligarchic entities while most of the public is struggling just to get by. People can’t afford not to sell, don’t have the resources for legal battles, and are too busy scrambling to make ends meet to pay attention to what’s going on.

That lack of attention means that corporate interests can use their power to get access to things like natural resources. In this case it’s made all the more easy because of the GOP’s love of filling government positions with people whose loyalties and ideology run counter to the jobs they’re supposed to be doing. What’s the best use of the Interior Department’s time? Why, selling oil and gas leases at bargain prices!

From Maria Caffrey at the Union of Concerned Scientists: 

Secretary Bernhardt is attempting to tackle this unprecedented event by dusting off an old DOI Bush administration-era pandemic flu plan and putting his second-in-command in charge of overseeing the safety of the roughly 70,000 people employed by the Department of the Interior.

So who’s safe hands has Secretary Bernhardt assigned this issue to? That would be former fossil fuel lobbyist turned Interior Deputy Secretary Katharine MacGregor, the newly confirmed deputy secretary who has been recently implicated in DOI policy changes that ignore worker safety and expert advice, and is also accused of working to remove safeguards related to public health and the environment.

So perhaps it is no surprise that earlier this week, in the midst of the pandemic, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sold just under 14,600  oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico for the bargain price of $100 million over the protestations of environmental groups.

Lest you fall for the Biden fallacy and think that this is somehow unique to the Trump administration, this is straight from the playbook used by the administration of George W Bush when they sold off a huge amount of America’s land and natural resources as they were on their way out the door in 2008. It also makes me think of what’s happening in Bolivia right now. The coup there happened just after the Morales government announced that rather than virtually giving away the country’s natural resources, as the corporate world has come to expect, they would require that those resources be turned into products in Bolivia, by Bolivian workers. It’s also worth noting that if any effort is ever made to reclaim control of resources that were “sold” so cheaply, the corporations and their supporters will insist that it’s their rightful property, as they did with Venezuela’s oil, and use it as justification for political meddling ranging from lobbying, to sanctions, to assassinations and coups.

At a time when we should be doing everything we can to end the use of fossil fuels, and to leave as much of them in the ground as possible, the capitalists of the world continue working to burn every last speck of the stuff, or to empower those who are doing so. They value money over humanity, and so their power needs to be taken away. Like everyone else, they have rights to housing, healthcare, food, water, and freedom of speech. They do not have the right to poison the air and the water, or destabilize the global climate for personal gain. Since that’s how they’re using their power and wealth, they don’t have a right to those either.

Thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, layoffs have increased, job interviews have been indefinitely postponed, and many places aren’t hiring new workers. All of that means I really need help paying my bills and keeping a roof over my head. Patreon.com is a way for you to help with that, even if it’s just a little bit, and get some perks and extra content in return. You control how much you give, and how long you give it, and every little bit really does help. When lots of people pitch in, it can make a huge difference. Please help if you’re able, and share my work with others. Thank you!