Day 35 of UK lock down: Too much oil

Over the last months demand for oil has collapsed, sending the price through the floor, but oil producers have continued production regardless, because closing a well is an expensive procedure which could also lead to reduced production after re-opening. As a result, global storage is nearly at full capacity and already oil tankers, and probably bathtubs and saucepans, are being called into use to hold the unwanted oil.

If demand doesn’t recover in the next few weeks many oil wells will have to close, which may also mean closing many oil-based businesses. Those governments showing signs of managing the pandemic in a rational and effective way seem very unlikely to return to “normal” any time soon, so mass oil well closure is looking increasingly probable.

Predictably, this is being characterised from within the fossil fuel industry as a looming energy crisis on an unprecedented scale. So, we are being asked to save the status quo of trashing the global ecosystem to produce polluting and climate-wrecking hydrocarbons, which also have, by the way, been the cause of many of the armed conflicts of the last 100 years, with casualty figures way beyond those of Covid-19.

As an opportunity to reboot and move rapidly to sustainable, renewable, more localised energy production this is equally unprecedented and equally massive. And we already have the technologies. If we don’t seize the day, future generations will never forgive us.

See Guardian report here

See analysis of US oil here

See analysis of disastrous oil wars here (surprisingly Conservative source alert)

Day 26 of UK lock down: Food for Thought

Food accounts for over a quarter (26%) of global greenhouse gas emissions;

Half of the world’s habitable (ice- and desert-free) land is used for agriculture;

70% of global freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture;

78% of global ocean and freshwater eutrophication (the pollution of waterways with nutrient-rich pollutants) is caused by agriculture;

94% of mammal biomass (excluding humans) is livestock. This means livestock outweigh wild mammals by a factor of 15-to-1. Of the 28,000 species evaluated to be threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List, agriculture and aquaculture is listed as a threat for 24,000 of them.

https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food

Yet one third of all food produced globally is lost or wasted each year, amounting to 1.3 billion tonnes.

http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/

Meanwhile, 1.9 billion adults are overweight or obese, while 462 million are underweight.

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malnutrition

Bon appetit !

Day 25 of UK lock down: preparing to race to the bottom

There are several convincing economic forecasts that suggest we could be heading for a post-pandemic global recession as bad, if not worse, than that of the 1930s. We have also recently seen how lack of cooperation with the EU has led the UK to be even further behind in procuring adequate amounts of PPE for NHS and care workers.

Nevertheless, the cabal of fuckwits in Downing Street have concluded that, somehow, Covid-19 increases the case for avoiding regulatory alignment with the EU and for hastening down the path towards a no-deal Brexit, with all the additional economic damage that will bring.

Whether this is a true reflection of what they are pursuing, or just some mad and divisive negotiating stance designed to disorientate their EU counterparts, probably won’t be clear until Hogmanay, but neither option bodes well for the future.

https://www.newstatesman.com/covid19#update-324263

Day 20 of UK lock down: plucky little Britain

The brilliant Fintan O’Toole absolutely nailed the disingenuous and embarrassing myth of British exceptionalism in a piece in today’s Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/11/coronavirus-exposed-myth-british-exceptionalism.

A whiff of that particular myth has been steadily seeping under the door during the current lock down, accompanied by nostalgic radio music evoking thoughts of how Winston Churchill and Vera Lynn led the plucky Brits to victory over the foreign menace, with a subtext that our uniquely indomitable spirit will see us through the current crisis, regardless of the serial fuck-ups that have marked our response so far. 

https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2020/03/15/health-secretary-matt-hancocks-response-to-covid-19-isnt-fooling-anyone/

Johnson is apparently on the mend but, according to his father, had his own dulce et decorum est pro patria mori moment, by almost “taking one for the team”.

Britain undoubtedly does have some admirable national characteristics in its societal DNA, but so does every other country on the bloody planet, which is hardly surprising given the boundary-crossing ebb and flow of people over the last 10,000 years. To be constantly banging on about our national greatness is more like an embarrassing show of adolescent insecurity than an adult response to an indiscriminate global crisis.

Day 19 of UK lock down: hedging their bets

Recently there have been some heart-chilling reports of how hedge funds are making massive profits out of this global crisis.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-8112273/Millionaire-hedge-fund-bosses-Sir-Paul-Marshall-Ian-Wace-make-50m-coronavirus-crash.html

https://www.9news.com.au/world/bill-ackman-hedge-fund-bet-coronavirus-economy-collapse-pershing-square-capital-management-finance-news/aa519075-202d-4bbb-a853-432240d6bcac

For those of us who normally try not to think too much about the murky world of big finance, this raises the question of what the hell is a hedge fund anyway ?

Seemingly, the hedge bit means a barrier, to prevent losses whether the market is expanding or contracting, so investors will profit either way.

And one of the most dodgy aspects of these dodgy funds is the concept of short selling. Investors look for stock whose worth is likely to drop in the short term, before bouncing back. For instance, budget airlines in a time of global immobility which, despite the hopes of anyone who gives a stuff about the environment, are likely to come back with gusto as soon as the lock downs are lifted, regardless of whether they manage to wheedle some publicly funded bailout from the governments.

So, essentially, hedge funds are a means by which the richest 10% of the global population, who already own 85% of global wealth, can get even richer by betting on the outcome of catastrophes.

Day 18 of UK lock down: the future we choose

The pandemic has put much of the world into a kind of limbo of inactivity, as we wait for the virus to run its course, or to come under our control. This stasis brings an abundance of both problems and benefits. Problems in terms of the personal, social and economic cost of lockdown which, as ever, are likely to impact most severely on the poorest in our global society. Benefits in terms of the immediately positive environmental consequences, and the timely reminder that governments are well able to instigate structural & systemic changes when they deem them necessary.

Tempting though it is to indulge in a snark-fest about the latest outrage from Westminster or the White House, and there is certainly no shortage of opportunities, a better use of our time might be to think about what happens next.

The economic cost of the lock down is massive, both in lost revenue and in the burden of loans carried forward by businesses. Whilst governments have been pouring money in to stop the system from falling apart, the longer term payback could easily cause a worldwide depression similar to that of the 1930s. Big corporations and hedge fund managers will already be working on their survival strategies. In such a context the transition to a system which is revolves around respect for the global biome, instead of around exponentially increasing consumption of resources and short term profiteering, just got harder. Harder, but not impossible, if we stay focused.

In their excellent book, The Future We Choose; Surviving The Climate Crisis, Christiana Figueres & Tom Rivett-Carnac put forward the concept of stubborn optimism. If ever there was a time for stubborn optimism, it’s now.

https://globaloptimism.com/the-future-we-choose-book/

Day 17 of UK lockdown

Covid-19 continues to cause global devastation, both by the direct impact of the illness, and by the consequential societal disruption. Johnson is still in intensive care, and Britain is effectively leaderless. As the full impact of the government’s slow response to the unfolding pandemic becomes clearer, second under-donkey Gove adroitly heaps praise on the Civil Service for the fantastic job they’ve been doing in managing this crisis. Whether that is simply praise where it is truly due or cynically strategic stepping away from prospective blame is, as yet, unclear. 

What is clear however is the inappropriateness of the language of war and battle in describing our collective and individual engagement with the situation.  And of the constant focus, particularly by the British government & press, on how we’re doing compared to other countries. This is not a competition, let alone a war. This is an opportunistic virus which has spread rapidly though our globalised networks of trade and recreation, paying no heed to GDP or political persuasion. 

If anything, this is a time to be reflecting on the value of all the people who normally keep our systems working, not measured in terms of their salaries but in terms of their vital social function. Their value, not their worth. This is a time to recognise that we’re all in this together, not only in responding to a global pandemic, but even more importantly through the unavoidable interconnectedness of our entire global community.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/08/national-defence-corona-pandemic-fighter-jets

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/07/horror-coronavirus-real-imaginary-war-britain