Brexit and the return of European militarism

Johannes Stern

The European Union has responded to the UK referendum vote to withdraw from the EU, and the resulting intensification of the political, economic and social crisis of Europe, by calling for the militarization of the continent and buildup of its internal security forces. Since the announcement of the result 11 days ago, a number of high-level foreign policy papers have been published that advocate the transformation of the EU into a military alliance with expanded powers of internal repression.

At the first EU summit without British participation, held last Wednesday in Brussels, the 27 remaining EU government heads agreed on a paper authored by the EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, titled “Global Strategy for European Foreign and Security Policy.” At the heart of the paper is the argument that the EU must become an aggressive world power capable of intervening militarily and, if necessary, waging war independently of NATO and the United States.

The new global strategy document acknowledges the role of NATO in protecting the EU states from enemy attacks. Nevertheless, it states that Europe “must be better equipped, trained and organised to contribute decisively to such collective efforts, as well as to act autonomously if and when necessary.”

The document provides some insight into the measures being prepared behind the backs of the European population. Military capabilities are to be improved in a “concerted and cooperative effort.” That this will require a further diversion of resources from social needs is alluded to: “Developing and maintaining defence capabilities requires both investments and optimising the use of national resources through deeper cooperation.”

The paper makes clear that there is no geographical limit to the potential reach of an EU military force. The EU reserves the right to intervene not only in nearby regions such as North Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, but anywhere in the world.

The declared interests of the EU include “ensuring open and protected ocean and sea routes critical for trade and access to natural resources.” To this end “the EU will contribute to global maritime security, building on its experience in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, and exploring possibilities in the Gulf of Guinea, the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca.”

The drive toward European militarism is pushed above all by Berlin. In an official statement released in recent days, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressly thanked Mogherini “for her commitment and vision in the joint development of the ‘Global Strategy.’” He was pleased to find “key elements of German peace policy in it.”

The thrust of Steinmeier’s “peace policy”—more accurately, war policy—is well established. Together with German President Joachim Gauck, he has been at the forefront of the campaign for German rearmament. At the Munich Security Conference in 2014, he declared that Germany was “too big merely to comment on world affairs from the sidelines,” adding that “Germany must be ready for earlier, more decisive and more substantive engagement in the foreign and security policy sphere.”

Then, on June 13 of this year, he published an article in Foreign Affairsmagazine titled “Germany’s New Global Role,” in which he not only declared that Germany was “a major European power,” but also questioned the dominant role of the United States.

Now, the Foreign Ministry in Berlin is using the UK referendum result to advance Germany’s great power aims. In a paper entitled “A strong Europe in a world of uncertainties,” published last weekend by Steinmeier and his French counterpart, Jean-Marc Ayrault, the British withdrawal from the EU is hailed as an opportunity to focus “our joint efforts on those challenges that can only be addressed by common European answers.”

The Brexit vote and the latest German initiatives have alarmed leading representatives of US imperialism. Last Friday, Robert D. Kaplan, an influential member of the US foreign policy establishment and architect of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, warned in a column in the Wall Street Journal, “The returning geopolitical chaos is akin, in some respects, to the 1930s.”

In the article headlined “How to Crash Putin’s Brexit Party,” he asserts, “… Brexit has undermined a key goal of British geopolitics going back hundreds of years: preventing any one power from dominating the Continent. Yet now Germany is empowered to do just that.”

Kaplan sees the post-World War II alliance between the US, Britain and Germany in jeopardy. “Germany and Britain lately have been allies,” he writes, and “a long line of German chancellors, dating from Konrad Adenauer, have reflected Atlanticism and an understanding of Germany’s unique responsibilities to European peace and stability. Future chancellors may not.”

Germany, he warns, “could strike a separate bargain with Russia or turn inward toward populist nationalism...”.

Kaplan’s immediate concern is that Brexit could undermine US preparations for war with Russia. “The more that Europe fractures,” he frets, “the less resolve there will be to invoke NATO’s Article 5, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all.” His proposed counter-strategy: “Great Britain should reinvigorate its alliance with America. Acting together, the two nations can still project power on the European mainland up to the gates of Russia.”

No one should underestimate the historical and political significance of such statements. One hundred years after the bloodbath on the Somme and 75 years after the launching of the German war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, the contradictions of capitalism are erupting once again, threatening to unleash a new world war between the great powers that would eclipse the horrors of the First and Second World Wars.

The working class must adopt its own strategy to counter the efforts of the imperialist powers to save the capitalist order through war. As the International Committee of the Fourth International emphasized in its statement “Socialism and the struggle against war”: the anti-war strategy of the working class must be developed “as the negation of imperialist nation-state geopolitics,” basing its strategy on the unification and mobilization of its forces internationally to resolve the “global crisis through social revolution.”

Campbell Fellowship for Women Scholar-Practitioners from Developing Nations 2016/2017

Scholarship Name: Campbell Fellowship for Women Scholar-Practitioners from Developing Nations

Application Deadline: first Monday in November each year.

Brief description: Campbell Foundation Fellowship for Women Scholar-Practitioners from Developing Nations whose work addresses women’s economic and social empowerment in that nation

Eligible Fields

Applicants should be pursuing research in one of the social sciences: anthropology, economics, education, geography, history, law, linguistics, political science, psychology, social work, or sociology, or in an interdisciplinary field that incorporates two or more of these disciplines.

About Scholarship

The Vera R. Campbell Foundation funded Fellowship is offered for female postdoctoral social scientist from a developing country whose work addresses women’s economic and social empowerment in that nation. The goal of the program is twofold: to advance the scholarly careers of women social scientists from the developing world, and to support research that identifies causes of gender inequity in the developing world and that proposes practical solutions for promoting women’s economic and social empowerment.

Scholarship Offered Since: Not Specified

Scholarship Type: Postdoctoral Fellowship for women

Eligibility and Selection Criteria

Applicants must be nationals of developing countries that are currently eligible to borrow from the World Bank.

To facilitate full engagement in the SAR intellectual community, applicants must demonstrate their fluency in English, such as through their record of professional interaction in written and spoken English.

Value of Scholarship

In addition to a $4,500/month stipend and housing and office space on the SAR campus, the Campbell Fellow receives travel, shipping, and library resource funds; health insurance; and the support of a mentoring committee of established scholar-practitioners.

Duration of Scholarship: Six months

Eligible Countries

Applicants must be nationals of developing countries that are currently eligible to borrow from the World Bank.

To be taken at (country): USA

Offered annually? Yes

How to Apply

Applications to the Resident Scholar Program are due on November 1st of each year.

Visit the Scholarship Webpage

Sponsors

This fellowship is made possible through the generous support of the Vera R. Campbell Foundation.

Important Notes:

Projects that identify causes of and/or solutions to gender inequity in the developing world, and thus contribute to women’s social and economic empowerment, will be favored. Sample topics include education and socialization of girls; globalization and the economic status of women; policies and practices toward family, reproduction, and women’s health; impacts of international and civil conflict on women; women’s roles in resolving such conflicts or sustaining civil society; media representations of women and the formation of ideologies of gender; the practice and process of gender-based development; and women in science and technology. SAR will select fellows on the strength of their clearly stated intention to serve their communities and countries of origin.

New Zealand International Doctoral Research Scholarships (NZIDRS) 2017

Brief description: New Zealand International Doctoral Research Scholarships (NZIDRS) is a NZ Government-enabled scholarship open to all international students who meet the eligibility criteria.

Application Deadline: 15th July, 2016 (annual)

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International countries

To be taken at (country): Newzealand. Recipients can undertake PhD study in any discipline at any of New Zealand eight Universities:
AUT University,
Lincoln University,
Massey University,
University of Auckland,
University of Canterbury,
University of Otago,
University of Waikato,
Victoria University of Wellington.

Eligible Field of Study: Applications are welcomed from eligible candidates undertaking relevant research in any discipline.

About the Award: The New Zealand International Doctoral Research Scholarship (NZIDRS) is a Government funded scholarship, administered by Education New Zealand. The scholarship aims to attract and retain the best international researchers to New Zealand. The scholarship provides full tuition fees and a living stipend for up to 3 years.

The NZIDRS is a prestigious, highly competitive scholarship. It is awarded based on academic excellence and the benefit of the candidate’s proposed research to New Zealand. Recipients of this award will have an academic record placing them within the top 5% of PhD candidates worldwide.

Offered Since: Not known

Type: PhD Research Scholarship

Eligibility: In order to apply for the NZIDRS, candidates must meet ALL five eligibility criteria.
These criteria are non-negotiable.

1. Candidate must hold a minimum grade equivalent to a GPA of 3.7 on a 4.0 scale OR an A to A+ average in your most recent or highest post graduate tertiary qualification

2. Candidate must have a confirmed, non-conditional offer of place for a (direct-start) PhD programme at a New Zealand university

3. If candidate has already commenced their PhD studies in New Zealand, their start date must be after 01 July 2015

4. Candidate must conduct their PhD study in New Zealand (not from a distance)

5. Candidate must not hold citizenship or PR status in New Zealand or Australia.

Selection Criteria: The NZIDRS are awarded based on academic excellence and the impact of the PhD research for New Zealand.  Applications must propose research that has a clear, direct and tangible positive effect on:

• New Zealand’s economy, in terms of international trade and business development in key sectors, OR
• New Zealand’s population in terms of health and safety, OR
• Research and scholarship in either of the above two areas

Number of Awardees: Not stated

Value of Scholarship: 

• New Zealand University annual tuition fees and associated student levies
• An annual living stipend of NZ$25,000 per year (tax free)
• Medical insurance coverage up to NZ$600 annually

Duration of Scholarship: The NZIDRS covers the following above for a TOTAL of three years (36 months):

How to Apply:

1. Download and complete an NZIDRS Application Form (available on the Scholarship Webpage)
2. Answer all questions by completing all fields and submit your form along with ALL required documents to Education New Zealand.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Government of Newzealand Ministry of Education.

MIPLC-DAAD Scholarship for Students from Developing Countries 2017/2018

Brief description: The MIPLC is a part of the DAAD’s scholarship program for “Development-Related Postgraduate Courses.” Candidates who would like to apply for the scholarship offered in this context, should note that special conditions apply.

Application Deadline: For the 2017/18 intake, the deadline for applications is October 15, 2016.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Developing countries

To be taken at (country): Germany

Eligible Fields of Study: Development-Related Postgraduate Courses

About the Award: With its development-oriented postgraduate study programmes, the DAAD promotes the training of specialists from development and newly industrialised countries. Well-trained local experts, who are networked with international partners, play an important part in the sustainable development of their countries. They are the best guarantee for a better future with less poverty, more education and health for all. The scholarships offer foreign graduates from development and newly industrialised countries from all disciplines and with at least two years’ professional experience the chance to take a postgraduate or Master’s degree at a state or state-recognised German university, and in exceptional cases to take a doctoral degree, and to obtain a university qualification (Master’s/PhD) in Germany.

Type: Postgraduate

Eligibility: Candidates eligible for the DAAD scholarship for “Development-Related Postgraduate Courses” must:

• hold at least a four-year Bachelor’s degree (or a three-year Bachelor’s degree plus a further degree), completed with above-average results.
• have received their latest degree no more than six years ago.
• have at least two years of full-time professional experience gained in a public authority or a state or private company in a developing country (university staff and academics are generally not taken into account). To meet this requirement, it is sufficient if candidate has completed the two years by the time the program starts in October. In any case, the experience must have been gained after the completion of your first university degree.
• have English test scores which meet the MIPLC requirements (see scholarship website).

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: 

• The scholarship recipient(s) will get a full tuition waiver from the MIPLC.
• The DAAD will pay the scholarship recipient(s) a monthly stipend of EUR 750.00.
• As a rule, the scholarship additionally includes certain payments towards health, accident and liability insurance coverage in Germany.
• In addition, the DAAD will generally pay an appropriate travel allowance, unless these costs are covered by the home country or by another funding source.
• Furthermore, the DAAD will also pay a study and research allowance.
• Last but not least, the scholarship covers a mandatory two-month German course before the start of the MIPLC LL.M. program.

The scholarship does not cover additional costs, e.g. enrollment fees or the fees for a semester ticket for public transport in Munich.

Duration of Scholarship: Duration of course

How to Apply: You have to apply more than a year in advance. Visit Scholarship Webpage

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Munich Intellectual Property Law Centre (MIPLC), DAAD.

Important Notes: The program will start in early October 2017 and will end in mid-September 2018 (date of submission of Master’s thesis). The exact dates will be announced in due time in our academic calendar.

The MIPLC does not require a “Research Proposal” (DAAD brochure, page 14). Therefore, you do not have to (and should not) submit such a proposal.

New Love For Militants In Kashmir Valley

Basharat Shameem

A new wave of militancy, mostly comprising of educated young men, is sweeping through the trouble-torn Kashmir valley. This new breed of Kashmiri militants is more radicalized and more firm in its convictions than its predecessors. Lately, there has been an unprecedented rise in the number of militants operating in the Kashmir valley with South Kashmir erupting as the new hotbed. Attacks have been carried out against Army, paramilitary forces and police with nonchalance. The number of people attending the funerals of militants is often massive. The militants enjoy huge public support and sympathy; in fact, they had it right from 1989, but now, the new generation of Kashmiri youth is more overt in this. They repeatedly resort to stone pelting near the encounter sites so that the militants have a free escape. Most of the times, this proves successful because of the obvious distraction and also the apprehension of civilian casualties on part of the security establishment. The security establishment is worried; the people are apprehensive, all the while the volcano of Kashmiris’ distrust for India, which frequently gets manifested in the streets, encounter sites, funeral processions and Friday prayers, is heating up. Without appearing cynical, the immediate aftermath of the recent Pampore attack, in which eight CRPF men lost their lives, was an apt illustration of how common Kashmiris feel about India right now? While the very next day, the whole of India was mourning the death of its soldiers, the Pampore town observed a complete shutdown as a mark of solidarity with the two LeT militants killed in the attack. Young Kashmiri militant, Burhan Wani, has emerged as the new poster boy of militancy in the Kashmir valley. Just take a look on the different social media sites; it is he who has become the new online hero for the Kashmiri teenagers, and not any IAS toppers which would have generally been the case in any normal situation.

The political and security establishments both at the state and central level have acknowledged this disturbing trend. Recently, the GOC Northern Command Let Gen D S Hooda frankly admitted to the ever increasing radicalization and the new found tilt towards militancy among the valley youth. But if Gen Hooda’s acknowledgement is taken as the assessment that his organization has made of this recent radical surge in Kashmir valley, then there needs to be a serious appraisal. He points out the oft repeated reasons—lack of opportunities, religious fundamentalism and role of ISI. Most of the militants are well educated and do not come from the ‘deprived’ sections but from relatively affluent middle class families. Gen Hooda has called for an honest assessment and urgent remedial measures of this problem. But dismissing and bracketing this militancy, which is totally local in its orientation, as being the handiwork of the neighbouring country’s intelligence agency is surely not an honest and prudent assessment. Gen Hooda and his establishment would be well served if they aim to move away from their self-righteous and simplistic persuasion. One is entitled to pose the question that from where does this alienation emanate? One cannot but agree with Gen Hooda and the perceptions of his organization that there is an urgent need in exploring the ways for de-radicalizing the valley youth. But the million-dollar question that he needs to ask himself and his establishment (both political and military) is that how to achieve an end to the deep-rooted sense of alienation and frustration among the youth? Except the periphery areas, the so-called ‘integrationist’ schemes like the Sadhbhavana have utterly failed to achieve their purposes. It is because the situation is too complex and serious to be resolved by lollypops like Sadhbhavana.

When the state defines itself by sanctioning violent practices, as theorists argue, there is bound to be a counter-definition which at times, like in the case of Kashmir valley, takes things to another extreme. For many people, including those in the establishment, the recent surge in the militancy in the Kashmir valley has been an unexpected development. However, the underlying reality points towards a slightly different direction. While there has been a steady decline in the militancy in valley during the last eight years or so, one thing which has really got unnoticed, is the extreme state oppression which has exacerbated during the same period of time. The tragedy is not the number of militants joining the militant organizations but the repressive ways of choking the democratic space, recurrent rights violations by the forces, failure and incompetence of police in tackling small law and order problems which results in high-handedness, atrocities and humiliations that an average Kashmiri faces on almost daily basis, and the impunity enjoyed by the erring personnel. All these years, hundreds of Kashmiris have been killed in the street protests. The most recent example is that of six killings in Handwara protesting against an alleged act of molestation. Many more have been imprisoned under the draconian laws. In many ways, the persona of once a bright teenager, Burhan Wani, and the manner in which he was brutalized by the repressive state mechanism to turn into a mutineer, has become emblematic of the whole of Kashmir’s tryst with state oppression. They only ask: how can you have democracy and militarization functioning together?

Not being an alarmist here, the scenario is indeed grim which demands immediate attention. This response certainly cannot be done through neutralizing the militants physically; after all, they carry a certain ideology and how can you kill an ideology with bullets and mortar shells? The need is to engage with them, listen to them, and work for a solution, which is, believe me, what these militants want. Finally, the real cause of this militancy is the unresolved conflict itself and not any other factor. We would do well to move towards the resolution of the conflict through a serious dialogue and an engaging democratic process; only then, the cycle of violence can be broken.

From Livelihoods To Deadlihoods

Ashish Kothari

In India, economic development and modernity have transformed livelihoods into deadlihoods. They are wiping out millennia-old livelihoods that were ways of life with no sharp division between work and leisure, and replacing them with dreary assembly line jobs where we wait desperately for weekends and holidays.

Economic progress, we are told, is about moving from primary sector jobs to manufacturing and services. And so the livelihoods that keep all of us alive – farming, forestry, pastoralism, fisheries, and related crafts – are considered backward.

In India, this marginalizes 700 million-800 million people, two-thirds of its population.

The results? Horrendous ones like thousands of farmers’ suicides in the last decade; or the displacement by so-called ‘development projects’ of 60 million people from their farms, forests, and coasts.

Less visible is the pauperization of many others deprived of the natural resources they depend on, as their lands and waters get taken away for industry, infrastructure and cities. Entire new forms of poverty are being created by development.

Assembly line drudgery

Let’s assume that this is inevitable and desirable. As the narrative goes, who wants to continue the ‘drudgery’ of farming and fishing? But what are we replacing these with?

For the poor, either no employment at all, or insecure, exploitative and unsafe jobs at construction sites, mines, industries, dhabas, and other places that can hardly be called less drudgery. A staggering 93% of Indian jobs are in the informal sector, an increasing number of these in exploitative conditions.

And are the middle classes and rich better off?

In terms of remuneration, they are much better off – a recent study shows 1% of Indians owning over 50% of its private wealth (built on the backs of severely underpaid labor).

But what about the quality of work?

The vast majority of those in modern sectors of work, such as the IT industry, are mechanical cogs in a vast assembly line stretching across the globe. Early morning to late night, slouched on a computer terminal, or providing rote responses at call centers, or desperately seeking news to feed the incessantly hungry 24×7 news channels, or staring at stock market numbers – who can honestly say that these are not deadlihoods, suppressing our independence and innate creativity?

If this is not the case, why do we wait so restlessly for the workday to end, or for the weekend to come? Why do we need retail therapy, superficially trying to get happiness by going shopping?

Meaningful work

Over the last few years I’ve been taking sessions on development issues at alternative learning centers like Bhoomi College in Bengaluru and Sambhavana in Palampur. A large percentage of participants in these are IT professionals who want to drop out, to “do something more meaningful”.

Long ago I lost count of the number of people who’ve expressed envy about my enjoying my work. These folks have realized that they are not practicing livelihoods, even if they are making a pot of money.

I do not mean to say that all modern jobs are deadening, nor that all traditional livelihoods were wonderful. I am well aware of the inequality, exploitation, and even drudgery in the latter. But this bathwater needs to be changed without throwing out the baby of meaningful livelihoods.

Live examples of this include the Deccan Development Society and Timbaktu Collective, helping sustain and improve the social and economic status of once-poor peasants (including Dalit women farmers who are now also filmmakers and radio station managers); or Dastkar Andhra and Jharcraft, bringing back viability and providing new dignity to craftspersons. And so too that rare meaningful job in a modern sector: the field biologist who loves being in nature, the music teacher enthusiastically bringing out the talents of students, a chef in love with cooking in charge of an organic food kitchen.

Respect physical labor

For these counter-trends to gain ground, fundamental change is needed in education. In school and college, we are inculcated with the attitude that intellectual work is superior to physical labor. Our minds are trained, to the exclusion of building the capacity of hands, feet, and hearts. We are given role models of people whose success is based on conquest of nature and climbing ladders while kicking other people down.

And so we grow up undervaluing producers. The horrendously low prices that farmers get for their produce is a symptom of a society with warped priorities; we do not want to pay adequately to someone who keeps us alive, but we are willing to pay through our noses for branded shoes and gadgets. And in relation to the latter, we don’t even care what the actual factory worker gets.

So another crucial change is in economic structures: community tenurial security over land and natural resources, worker control over means of production, social control over markets. In Greece recently I went to a detergents factory taken over by its workers. They now run it democratically, have converted the machinery to produce ecologically safe cleaning agents, and have won support from nearby townspeople including consumers. They spoke of how fulfilling their lives are now, compared to earlier when under the yoke of a capitalist owner.

The next time we come across nomadic pastoralists steering their sheep through the traffic-laden streets of our cities, think of this. Yes, perhaps they are anachronisms, soon to disappear. But who is to say the same will not happen to our IT or digital media or call center jobs? Perhaps a generation from now robots with artificial intelligence, seeing some of us staring at a computer screen, will smirk about how inefficient and outmoded we are. Not only farmers and fishers will have become anachronisms, but humans as a whole, except perhaps the few controlling the buttons. Science fiction? Perhaps, but a lot of what was science fiction has become fact.

Revisit our role models

Before we end up in a future where humans are redundant, we could do some serious reconsideration. Perhaps we can transition from being only an IT professional or writer of articles, to being more of the human that we have the potential to be.

Perhaps we can facilitate farmers to also be researchers and filmmakers (as Deccan Development Society’s women have become) – variants of Marx’s vision of being hunter-fisher-pastoralist-critic all rolled into one. Many people I know (who’d be embarrassed to be named here) are accomplished researchers, farmers, musicians, parents, explorers, all in a seamless whole, breaking the false divisions between work and leisure, physical and mental, old and new.

Imagine if these were the role models given to our kids, imagine if as youngsters we were encouraged to be self-reliant, inquisitive, respectful of diversity, and a responsible part of the community of life. Imagine if we redefined work to include enjoyment and pleasure?

I believe this will happen, sooner or later. Till then, let us at least appreciate ways of life that have engaged respectfully with the earth for millennia, unlike the alienated modern jobs many of us have. And let’s question whether we want to continue being deadened cogs in a mass production system that enriches only a few. Let’s see how we can combine the best of old and new, to make both more meaningful and fulfilling. This could be the start of bringing back livelihoods and leaving behind deadlihoods.

What Would A Global Warming Increase Of 1.5 Degrees Be Like?

Fred Pearce

How ambitious is the world? The Paris climate conference last December astounded many by pledging not just to keep warming “well below two degrees Celsius,” but also to “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C. That raised a hugely important question: What’s the difference between a two-degree world and a 1.5-degree world?

Given we are already at one degree above pre-industrial levels, halting at 1.5 would look to be at least twice as hard as the two-degree option.

So would it be worth it? And is it even remotely achievable?

In Paris, delegates called on the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to report on the implications of a 1.5 target. They want the job done by 2018, in time to inform renewed talks on toughening emissions targets beyond those agreed upon in Paris.

But the truth is that scientists are only now getting out of the blocks to address what a 1.5-degree world would look like, because until recently it sounded like a political and technological impossibility. As a commentary published online in Nature Climate Change last week warned, there is “a paucity of scientific analysis” about the consequences of pursuing a 1.5-degree target.

To remedy this, the paper’s researchers, led by Daniel Mitchell and others at Oxford University, called for a dedicated program of research to help inform what they described as “arguably one of the most momentous [decisions] to be made in the coming decade.” And they are on the case, with their own dedicated website and a major conference planned at Oxford in the fall.

So what is at stake? There are two issues to address. First, what would be gained by going the extra mile for 1.5? And second, what would it take to deliver?

First, the gains. According to available research, says the Oxford group, the biggest boost will not be measured in average temperatures. On its own, the difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees is marginal. But it would have a much greater effect on the probability of extreme and destructive weather events like floods, droughts, storms, and heat waves.

We know extreme weather is happening more often. A study last year by Erich Fischer of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich found that the risk of what was “once in a thousand days” hot weather has already increased fivefold. His modelling suggests that it will double again at 1.5 degrees and double once more as we go from 1.5 to 2 degrees. The probability of even more extreme events increases even faster.

The same will be true for droughts, says Carl-Friedrich Schleussner of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. Last year, he reported that the extra half-degree would produce dramatic increases in the likely length of dry spells over wide areas of the globe, including the Mediterranean, Central America, the Amazon basin, and southern Africa, with resulting declines in river flows from a third to a half. Schleussner concluded that going from 1.5 to 2 degrees “marks the difference between events at the upper limit of present-day natural variability and a new climate regime, particularly in tropical regions.”

A few studies have tried to drill down to what the difference means for day-to-day lives. And the consequences for many will be stark. At two degrees, parts of southwest Asia, including well-populated regions of the Persian Gulf and Yemen, may become literally uninhabitable without permanent air conditioning.

Some researchers predict a massive decline in the viability of food crops critical for human survival. The extra half-degree could cut corn yields in parts of Africa by half, says Bruce Campbell of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture. Schleussner found that even in the prairies of the U.S., the risk of poor corn yields would double.

Two degrees, says Johan Rockström, director of the Stockholm Resilience Center, “contains significant risks for societies everywhere; 1.5 looks much more scientifically justifiable.”

Ecosystems would feel the difference too. Take tropical coral reefs, which already regularly come under stress because of high ocean temperatures, suffering “bleaching” especially during El Nino events – as happened on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia this year. Most can now recover when the waters cool again, but today’s exceptional temperature may soon become the new normal. “Virtually all tropical coral reefs are projected to be at risk of severe degradation due to temperature-induced bleaching from 2050 onwards,” as warming slips past 1.5 degrees, reports Schleussner.

By some estimates, curbing warming at 1.5 degrees could be sufficient to prevent the formation of an ice-free Arctic in summer, to save the Amazon rainforest, and to prevent the Siberian tundra from melting and releasing planet-warming methane from its frozen depths. It could also save many coastal regions and islands from permanent inundation by rising sea levels, particularly in the longer run.

In 2100, the difference in sea level rise between 1.5 and 2 degrees would be relatively small: 40 centimeters versus 50 centimeters. But centuries later, as the impact of warmer air temperatures on the long-term stability of the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica takes hold, it would be far greater. Michiel Schaeffer of Climate Analytics, a Berlin-based think tank,calculates that by 2300, two degrees would deliver sea level rise of 2.7 meters, while 1.5 degrees would limit the rise to 1.5 meters.

Jay Alder/USGS

Historical and projected changes in global temperatures from 1850 through 2100 if greenhouse gases continue to rise unchecked through the end of the century.

It looks like 1.5 degrees matters a great deal. So how hard would it be to keep warming to that level? After all, last year was one degree above pre-industrial levels. And at various times in the past six months, global average temperatures have sometimes gone above 1.5 degrees.

Most researchers agree that, short of some global economic meltdown, even decade-long averaged temperatures are destined to go above 1.5 degrees of warming by mid-century. So delivering the target by the end of the century will require drawing down temperatures by using technologies and energy systems that can extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale.

For some, this would be nonsensical geoengineering. Kevin Anderson, a climate scientist at the University of Manchester in the U.K., writing in Nature after the Paris conference, declared “the world has just gambled its future on the appearance, in a puff of smoke, of a carbon-sucking fairy godmother.”

But it could be done. The calculations are inexact. Nobody, even now, knows quite how sensitive global temperatures are to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But here is the task, as outlined by Joeri Rogelj, of the Austria-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), in an article in Nature Climate Change in March.

The planet’s primary thermostat is the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Pre-industrial levels were 280 parts per million. We just hit 400 ppm with warming at one degree and some more in the pipeline, due to time lags. The IPCC, in its most recent report, estimated that to stop at 1.5 degrees will mean holding concentrations to around 430 ppm.

Because much of our CO2 emissions stay in the atmosphere for centuries, that means bringing annual emissions to zero. Impossible? Maybe, but the good news is that greenhouse gas emissions actually fell in 2015 despite rising global economic activity, thanks to the growing use of renewable energy. If we could build on that and bring emissions to zero by 2050, then we might limit emissions from here on out to 800 billion tons.

If we could somehow find ways to extract 500 billion tons from the atmosphere, Rogelj concluded, we would likely be able to have our wish of CO2 concentrations of 430 ppm and warming capped at 1.5 degrees. The fairy godmother would have delivered.

But how? While there are chemical processes for removing CO2 out of the air, they remain very expensive. More likely are biological methods — using plants to soak up CO2 and then preventing that CO2 from getting back into the atmosphere when the plants die or are burned.

The trick that puts a glint in the eye of some technologists and climate scientists is known by the acronym BECCS, which stands for “biomass energy, carbon capture, and storage.” The idea is to convert the world’s power stations to burning biomass, such as trees or marine algae. The industrialized production of this biomass on such a scale would accelerate the natural drawdown of CO2 by plants during photosynthesis. If the CO2 created by burning the biomass could then be captured from the stacks and buried in geological strata — the prototype technology known as carbon capture and storage — then the net effect would be a permanent extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere.

It would be the reverse of the current fossil-fuel energy system. And the more energy generated, the more CO2 would be drawn out of the air.

There are huge questions about such a strategy. Wouldn’t such a vast new industry have its own absurdly high-energy requirements, putting us back at square one?

Is there the land available to cultivate all that biomass? Would we end up chopping down forests to make room for growing the biomass, creating a massive new source of emissions? While there are back-of-the-envelope calculations,nobody has yet satisfactorily answered these questions.

Other geo-engineering options that have been proposed include fertilizing the oceans so that more algae can grow, sucking up CO2 as they do, or a terrestrial equivalent – burying charred biomass known as biochar into soils, where it could provide a kind of deep fertilizer that would turn soils into carbon-suckers over many centuries. But says IIASA’s Florian Kraxner, “Of all the ways of achieving negative emissions, BECCS seems to be the most promising.”

Is this all scientific pie in the sky? Some analysts argue that, whatever was said in Paris, there is little chance of hitting even two degrees, let alone anything tougher. David Victor, of the University of California at San Diego, for instance, wrote in Yale Environment 360 at the conclusion of the Paris agreement that “the world has dithered for too long and must now brace for the consequences. Even a realistic crash program to cut emissions will blow through 2 degrees; 1.5 degrees is ridiculous.”

Others say that even trying to paint a picture of what a 1.5-degree world would look like is a fool’s errand. Mike Hulme of King’s College London in England wrote recently that it could result in bad science, because predictions about future local climate come with such wide error bars. He wondered whether, even at the request of the Paris conference, science should be “corralled into servicing a tightly determined political agenda.”

But the Oxford team is not having such defeatism. “It is our job as scientists, first and foremost, to inform. Whether or not the information we provide makes a difference is ultimately up to others,” they say in their new paper. Moreover, they point out, “if additional research is not undertaken as a matter of urgency, there is a danger… that the 2018 special report will present all the negative economic constraints of achieving 1.5 degree C” without reporting on the potential positive impacts of reduced extreme weather activity that such a scenario could bring.

Ultimately, this is a highly political issue about who should be in charge of setting targets:

those most vulnerable nations, who led the call in Paris for a 1.5-degree target, or those less vulnerable nations in the rich world, who were ready to stick with two degrees? Them or us?

As Petra Tschakert of Penn State University put it in a paper last year, “danger, risk, and harm would be utterly unacceptable in a 2°C warmer world, largely for ‘them’—the mollusks, and coral reefs, and the poor and marginalized populations, not only in poor countries—even if this danger has not quite hit home yet for ‘us’.”

Obituary: British Austerity (2010-2016)

Simon Jones

UK Chancellor George Osborne announced last week that the Government is now forced to abandon its target to run a budget surplus by 2020. The project’s principal output, six years’ of austerity for the country’s people, has come to an end.

Many, even on the Conservative backbenches, now question its utility. Growth in the UK stalled throughout the period, falling markedly below competitors in the global markets. The UK was positioned as the foremost adherent of this bastardised Keynesian policy which saw its own Government cannibalise its own functions in a maudlin effort to lose weight. Over the past six years spending fell 10% – similar crashes have been seen previously only in times of war or famine.

“It is frankly astonishing,” said one Tory backbencher, “that the bulldog spirit of this country could not be roused by such simple means. One wonders how we can compete in future on the global stage with such timidity.” But the Chair of his own Constituency Party countered, pointing out that the Government had failed abjectly in its provision of support to the area’s people. “Many of the people in this constituency own agribusinesses, not financial firms – this Government has quietly ignored their plight. When our workers’ homes were inundated some years back, did they care? Of course not – their only focus is London.”

For the past 6 years, with harm and humiliation dealt out to all but the rentier classes, the Labour party could not have asked for a more potent straw man to fight. “Obviously austerity is unpleasant,” says former leader Ed Miliband in his North London townhouse. “But the country faces hard choices. When our MPs voted with the Tories to increase cuts to welfare they made a determined statement to the electorate – that we stand ready to make those difficult choices, just as the Tories have been. The challenge then is convincing people to vote for our vision.”

One of the MPs who failed to vote against the Government’s final assault on welfare and recipients is John Mann. A former trade union executive and leader of Labour Students, Mann’s proud liberal leanings have been evident for over a decade. A believer that treatment needs to be offered to drug users, with prison time an incentive to participate, he has been at the forefront of criticising Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. “The electorate need us to show that we are able to make the difficult decision – like I did when I abstained from voting on the Government’s spare room subsidy plans. Hardworking families can’t be asked to sacrifice anything at all for other people – they are already under too much pressure.”

The spare room subsidy is more commonly known as the “bedroom tax.” It requires people in council housing which has a “spare” room, for example one used to store medical equipment, or one where a carer sleeps, to pay money back to the Government. “Look obviously it’s not ideal – but the reality is that we have to balance the budget, and there are people in houses which are too big. A Labour government would make putting people in appropriate housing a priority.” Another parcel of state subsidy which Mann’s abstention supported the dismantling of was child tax credits. After a vote in the upper house sent the bill back for revision Mann said “I am grateful that the unelected House of Lords was there to make a difficult decision.”

Even as Mann wages his gentle crusade in the name of human dignity, there are some in the Labour party not entirely focused on the 2020 election. Jeremy Corbyn, elected in a landslide last year by a much-enlarged membership, insists that by talking about broader social issues, and the interconnectedness of austerity and other forms of state control, the electorate could be brought back to Labour. He even goes so far as to suggest that the party might be able to avoid being drawn into these discussions about austerity, citing only his own blowout success in the Labour leadership election as proof.

Unfortunately Corbyn was not able to speak for this piece. His office is besieged by angry Labour MPs who claim that his total irrelevance caused Brexit . Had he been a different person, capable of speaking to the interests of Labour MPs and not just the hundreds of thousands of new party members who joined in support of him, he might have had a future, they say.

There is rage in the constituency of Angela Eagle, whose fortitude and steely-eyed leadership abilities were displayed most recently in her tearful interview where she announced she was abandoning her shadow cabinet post at a time of national crisis until she and her colleagues got a leader they liked. Her constituency party is furious at her purported challenge to Jeremy Corbyn, who enjoys the support of the vast majority of constituency parties. She has ignored them, further demonstrating her leadership with repeated requests in the national media for Corbyn to resign before she has to put her head above the parapet and challenge him formally.

Outside a ramshackle building near her constituency office in Liverpool, a city renowned for its far left movements which Labour carefully expunged in the ‘80s to win elections in the ‘90s, a man sits by a low wall with a cup, asking for money. He says he used to come here when it was a community centre, but the money was cut about five years ago and it closed shortly after. It’s no great surprise, apparently – Liverpool has suffered under a succession of Governments whose inability to think about post-industrial problems has been masked by their unwillingness to talk about them at all.

It is also the largest city in England which voted to remain in the EU. Historically against the grain, it finds itself ignored not just by the Tories, who considered abandoning it entirely in the 1980s, but by a Labour party which is too lazy and complicit to consider the issues of the people who live here. Austerity is dead now, although its chief architect – George Osborne – looks set to keep his post as chancellor, thanks largely to Labour’s machinations against their leader serving as a distraction for the media. Perhaps austerity will just continue endlessly over the graves of Corbyn and McDonnell, with the tacit support of John Mann and Angela Eagle. Rentier apparatchiks for hard choices: Vote Labour.

Europe and US continue anti-Russian sanctions

Andrea Peters

On Friday, the European Union (EU) extended its sanctions against Russia by another six months. The measures, which target both individuals and companies, will remain in effect until the end of January 2017. They were first implemented in 2014 in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula, whose population overwhelmingly opposed the US-backed, far-right coup in Kiev in February of that year and voted to unite with Russia.

In addition to blocking investment and trade with 15 enterprises in the oil, financial, and defense sectors, the EU has banned travel and frozen the asserts of numerous people with ties to the Russian government and the pro-Russian breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine. It has also cut off all trade with Crimea and refuses to issue visas to any Crimean resident holding a Russian passport.

Justified as the result of Russia’s failure to fulfill its obligations under the Minsk accords—the peace agreement between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian, separatist rebels in Ukraine’s Donbass region—the sanctions are a continuation of the anti-Russian policies pursued by the United States, Germany, and other major western powers. Their aim is to destabilize the Putin government, preparing the way for regime change.

The foreign ministry in Moscow declared the extension to be “illegitimate from the standpoint of international law” and “short-sighted.” It attributed the breakdown of the Minsk agreement to Kiev, which has continued to use violence in eastern Ukraine in an effort to suppress opposition to its rule and failed to grant self-governance to the breakaway Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.

The Russian government, which denies any direct involvement in the Ukraine conflict, stated, “We believe it is absurd to link these discriminatory measures against Russia, which is not a party to the intra-Ukrainian conflict, with its compliance with the Minsk Accords, particularly so, in the current situation, where we see Kiev is unprepared to comply with its own commitments. As a matter of fact, the European Union has made Russia-EU relations a hostage of irresponsible gambling by the Ukrainian authorities.”

In retaliation, the Kremlin announced the extension of its own anti-Western sanctions, which block the import of fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood and dairy products from the EU, as well as Australia, Canada, Norway, and the US.

As a consequence of the EU and Russian sanctions regimes, trade between the two fell by over $180 billion between 2013 and 2015. European farmers have been particularly hard hit by the loss of access to the Russian market. In Italy, demonstrations against the EU sanctions drew thousands of participants last week. Italy’s Food and Forestry Policies Minister, Maurizio Martina, attended the event, along with a number of local politicians.

The sanctions, in combination with the collapse in world oil prices and the halving of the value of the ruble, have had a debilitating impact on the Russian economy. The country, whose economy the World Bank expects to contract by a further 1.2 percent this year, is not predicted to return to growth until 2017.

Since the start of this year alone, Russia has accumulated a 1.5 trillion ruble (US $23.47 billion) budget deficit. While the inflation rate has fallen significantly, this is largely the result of a drop in consumer demand due to declining incomes and growing wage arrears. The latter have increased by 12.1 percent since January, with employers simply refusing to pay workers. And while the overall inflation rate is down, prices for many basic foodstuffs—fruit, vegetables, cereals, legumes, fish, seafood, and sunflower oil—continue to grow.

Despite the hardships facing the population, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev insisted recently that the Kremlin would not back away from its commitment to fiscal discipline, which he referred to as a “reserve of stability.”

Notwithstanding the latest actions by the EU, there is evidence of differences emerging among the European states over Russia. Most recently, German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier sharply criticized the sanctions regime and NATO’s provocative war game exercises on Russia’s borders. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has also expressed disagreement with the sanctions, along with representatives of Greece, Hungary and Slovakia, the latter of which will soon assume the presidency of the EU Council.

The same day the EU sanctions were prolonged, Washington announced it was targeting five Russian defense companies that it accuses of violating nuclear nonproliferation laws in place for North Korea, Iran, and Syria. Aviation, machine building, and instrumentation manufacturers in Kaliningrad, Tula, Kolomna, and Moscow are being hit with sanctions.

Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabokov stated that the moves by the US constitute “indirect support of terrorism on the part of Washington.”

Speaking rhetorically, Ryabokov asked, “How else can one assess the attempt of the White House ‘to punish’ Russian enterprises that are helping the Syrian people fight against ISIS and other terrorist groups?” He went on to condemn the “dirty methods used by the US for the achievement of its dubious foreign policy goals,” denouncing the US for having “essentially cultivated Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.”

Obama administration blames suicide hotline workers for veteran deaths

Eric London

The Obama administration’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is attempting to blame suicide hotline workers for historically unprecedented levels of suicides among veterans of US war abroad.

Internal emails acquired by USA Today show VA officials claiming that veteran suicides are caused by “staff who spend very little time on the phone or engaged in assigned productive activity,” according to former VA crisis line director Greg Hughes in a May 13 email. Hughes and other officials also blamed a labor agreement that prevents the government from unilaterally firing or disciplining workers.

Attempts by the American ruling class to blame poorly paid hotline workers for veteran suicides is a cynical attempt to paper over the real cause for veteran suicide: the destructive and brutal character of the imperialist wars in which veterans were sent to fight. Twenty-two veterans kill themselves each day, one every 80 minutes. In no small part their psychological trauma is caused by having witnessed unspeakable crimes carried out by the American war machine against the populations of target countries.

According to conservative estimates from the VA itself, significant portions of returning soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including 31 percent of Vietnam veterans, 10 percent of First Gulf War veterans, 11 percent of Afghanistan veterans, and 20 percent of Iraq War veterans.

The establishment of a token suicide prevention hotline took place amidst the 2007 Iraq War “surge” and efforts to starve veterans of health and psychological care. The VA has also operated a conspiracy to delay veteran care by moving them to the bottom of wait lists in an attempt to cut costs.

Veterans Affairs set up the suicide prevention hotline in 2007, as the Bush administration was carrying out its “surge” in the war in Iraq, pouring 30,000 additional troops into the war zone. The establishment of the token hotline took place amidst efforts to starve veterans of health and psychological care. The VA has also operated a conspiracy to delay veterans’ care by moving them to the bottom of waitlists in an attempt to cut costs. Even so, the hotline received over 500,000 calls in 2015 from suicidal veterans—an indication of the degree to which the permanent state of war has affected a broad section of the population. USA Today and the corporate press have fallen in line with the VA’s efforts to blame hotline workers. In a June 30 column, USA Todayeditorial board writes: “Suicide hotline workers are letting veterans down in the worst way.” “An ‘under-performing workforce’ is always an issue. But it’s especially problematic when the workers are helping veterans in crisis. … Some workers handle only a handful of calls per day and leave early …”

Aside from unsupported claims by VA officials, the emails expose the fact that the VA farms out a large proportion of its hotline responses to non-profits. The VA farmed out a significant number of its calls to a network of 164 “back-up call centers.” Now, VA officials report that call center workers are being closely monitored, and that new technology allows management to track the content of calls so that a worker can be punished more easily for not handling a sufficient number of suicide calls.

There are fewer jobs more psychologically grueling than suicide hotline prevention networks, and attempts by the VA to enforce a “speed up” will result not only a hostile work environment for employees, but possibly incentivize workers to speed-up calls with troubled veterans.

After 25 years of permanent war, tragic stories of veteran suicide are commonplace. On March 19, 51-year-old veteran Charles R. Ingram III lit himself on fire 75 feet in front of a VA facility in Atlantic City, New Jersey, leaving behind a wife and two young children. Ingram served as a sailor during the First Gulf War.

In 2012, US Army Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard expressed the callousness with which the American ruling class views the suicide crisis facing veterans:

“I have now come to the conclusion that suicide is an absolutely selfish act. … I am personally fed up with soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess. Be an adult, act like an adult, and deal with your real-life problems like the rest of us.”