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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Little Smokey Smothers

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Little Smokey Smothers. Enjoy!

^{Little Smokey Smothers - You're Gonna Miss Me}

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."

-- Mahatma Gandhi

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News and Opinion

Yanis Varoufakis, worth a full read:

Cop26 is doomed, and the hollow promise of ‘net zero’ is to blame

The failure of Cop26 reflects our failed democracies on both sides of the Atlantic. President Biden arrived in Glasgow as his people back in Washington were pushing his infrastructure bill through Congress – an exercise that decoupled the bill from any serious investment in renewables and funded an array of carbon-emitting infrastructure such as expanded roads and airports. Meanwhile in the European Union, the rhetoric may be painted in bright green, but the reality is dark brown – with even Germany looking forward to copious amounts of Russian natural gas in exchange of green-lighting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The EU should be creating a pan-European Renewable Energy Union, but alas our leaders are not even debating this idea.

There are three reasons Cop26 is proving such a spectacular debacle. The first reason is a planet-wide collective action problem over “free-riding”. ... Everyone prefers a planet on which no one emits carbon to a planet that sizzles. But everyone also prefers to delay paying the cost of transition if they can get away with it. If the rest of the planet does the right thing, the planet is saved, even if you selfishly postpone your own conversion to environmental probity. And if the rest of the planet does not do the right thing, why be the one sucker who does?

The second reason is a global coordination failure. ... Mountain ranges of cash are lying idly in the global financial system, its ultra-wealthy owners keen to invest it in low-carbon activities. But a private investment in, say, green hydrogen will only return profits if many other investors invest in it too – and so the investors all sit around waiting for each other to be the first. Meanwhile, corporations, communities and states join this waiting game, unwilling to take the risk of committing to green hydrogen until big finance does. Tragically, there is no global coordinator to match the available money, technologies and needs.

The third reason is simply: capitalism. It has always gained pace through the incessant commodification of everything, beginning with land, labour and technology before spreading to genetically modified organisms, and even a woman’s womb or an asteroid. As capitalism’s realm spread, price-less goods turned into pricey commodities. The owners of the machinery and the land necessary for the commodification of goods profited, while everyone else progressed from the wretchedness of the 19th century working class to the soothing fantasies of mindless petit-bourgeois consumerism.

Everything that was good was commodified – including much of our humanity. And the bad externalities that the same production process generated were simply released into the atmosphere. To power the capitalist juggernaut, carbon stored for millennia in trees and under the surface was plundered. For two centuries immense wealth – and corresponding human misery – was produced by exploitative processes that depleted “free” natural capital, carbon in particular. Workers around the world are now paying the cost to nature that the capitalist market never bore. ...

This is why polluters adore net zero targets: because they are a brilliant cover for not restricting emissions. In exchange for non-verifiable offsets, they are allowed to continue plundering the planet’s remaining stored carbon, until the point arrives when their marginal private cost surpasses their revenue from the last unit sold. By cynically placing net zero at its centre, Cop26 became nothing more than an expensive cover-up for continued toxic emissions. Hiding behind Cop26, the great and the good lie to the young, lie to vulnerable people and even lie to themselves by repeating the truth that the “money is there” to be invested in the planet’s salvation.

'The World Is Waiting': Biden Urged to Reverse Trump Landmine Policy, Join Global Treaty

As a benchmark report on worldwide landmine casualties showed a 21% increase in deaths and injuries in 2020, one of the paper's editors on Wednesday renewed calls for the Biden administration to reverse a Trump-era policy allowing the U.S. to use anti-personnel mines and join 164 nations in adopting the historic Mine Ban Treaty.

The report—entitled Landmine Monitor 2021—was produced by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which is chaired by Human Rights Watch. The publication says there were at least 7,073 casualties from landmines and explosive remnants of war last year, up from 5,853 deaths and injuries reported in 2019.

The paper states that half of the people reported killed or maimed by mines and unexploded ordnance last year were children, many of them born years or decades after the weapons were laid. According to the report, Myanmar's military regime—as well as nonstate militants in Afghanistan, Colombia, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan—have used landmines in 2021.

Noting that the United States is one of 12 landmine-producing nations, and taking aim at former President Donald Trump's 2020 rollback of Obama-era restrictions on the use of anti-personnel mines—and President Joe Biden's failure to rescind his predecessor's policy—one of the report's editors implored the U.S. to reverse course. ...

To date, 164 nations—including every other NATO member as well as key U.S. allies Japan and Australia—have joined the Ottawa Convention, commonly called the Mine Ban Treaty. Although the U.S. helped negotiate the accord, it has not signed or ratified it.

Xi Jinping warns against return to Asia-Pacific tensions of cold war era

Xi Jinping has warned against a return to cold war-era tensions in the Asia-Pacific, urging greater cooperation on pandemic recovery and the climate crisis. Amid growing tensions with the US over Taiwan, the Chinese president said all countries in the region must work together on joint challenges.

“Attempts to draw ideological lines or form small circles on geopolitical grounds are bound to fail,” he told a virtual business conference on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. “The Asia-Pacific region cannot and should not relapse into the confrontation and division of the cold war era.”

Xi’s remarks were an apparent reference to US efforts with allies and partners in the region, including the Quad grouping with India, Japan and Australia and the new Aukus alliance, to blunt what Washington sees as China’s growing coercive economic and military influence.

China’s military said on Tuesday it conducted a combat readiness patrol in the direction of the Taiwan Strait, after its defense ministry condemned a visit by a US congressional delegation to Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by Beijing.

Bloomberg CIA Apologia Accidentally Vindicates China’s Strict Domestic Policies

In a new article promoting the CIA’s new mission center focused on China and the need to pour more resources into countering Beijing, Bloomberg also accidentally makes the case that many of the Chinese government’s controversial domestic policies are entirely justified and completely necessary.

Citing anonymous government officials alongside bloodthirsty psychopath John Bolton, the article “China Is Evading U.S. Spies — and the White House Is Worried” argues that “a stronger pivot to China can’t come soon enough” and reminds readers of last year’s House Intelligence Committee report which claimed that “Absent a significant realignment of resources, the U.S. government and intelligence community will fail to achieve the outcomes required to enable continued U.S. competition with China on the global stage.”

But in their efforts to justify the need for greater focus on espionage campaigns in China, the article’s multiple authors explain that the US intelligence cartel has been floundering on that front precisely because of the authoritarian policies which western institutions have been aggressively criticizing China for implementing.

“Xi’s sweeping efforts to change China’s domestic politics and consolidate his control also have taken a toll on American intelligence,” the article says. “The shift from a system of ‘collective’ leadership under former Presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao toward one dominated by Xi means that the CIA has had to go from focusing on the inner circles of seven or even nine top leaders to, effectively, just one.”

“Chinese academia, the media and civil society organizations are all closely controlled by the government, further compounding the challenge of reporting on the country,” the article adds.

“CIA officers in China face daunting challenges posed by China’s burgeoning surveillance state, which has blanketed Chinese cities with surveillance cameras and employs sophisticated facial recognition software to track threats,” claim the article’s authors.

Bloomberg explains that China’s anti-corruption measures have made it much harder to recruit CIA assets, writing, “Xi’s broad anti-corruption campaign, which has punished more than 1.5 million officials, has also led to greater scrutiny of Chinese officials’ income, making payments to potential sources far more problematic, two former officials said.”

“Those efforts were detailed extensively in 2017 by the New York Times, which said as many as a dozen U.S. sources were executed by China, with others jailed, in what represented one of the worst breaches ever of American spying networks,” the article also notes.

So Beijing’s anti-corruption crackdowns, widespread surveillance and strict control over Chinese society is making it harder for the CIA to undermine that nation, and now the CIA is expressing its frustration through the billionaire media. Which shows that China is acting entirely in self-defense when it implements these policies.

When people complain about Chinese authoritarianism and lack of transparency, what they’re really complaining about is that China is defending itself against a nonstop assault from the US-centralized empire which seeks to bring Beijing to its knees.

The heavy-handed domestic policies of US-targeted nations like China are not morally comparable to the censorship, propaganda, secrecy, surveillance and other authoritarian measures you see in the US and its lackey states, because US-targeted nations are actively defending themselves against a hostile foreign aggressor who won’t be content until all nations on Earth bow to its dictates.

These are not the same thing. One is a weaker government acting defensively, the other is a globe-spanning power structure that if given the opportunity will topple your government using mass-scale psyops, espionage, special operations, color revolutions and proxy conflicts to force your nation and its people to subordinate its interests to those of the US empire. Sure it would be great if all the world’s populations were free to say and read and do whatever they want without government interference, but to pretend we live in a world where populations aren’t deprived of those freedoms in response to a nonstop assault by a global juggernaut is to live in a fantasy land.

There is a slow motion third world war underway between the US-centralized empire and the few remaining nations which have successfully resisted its aggressive attempts to absorb them into its folds. Nations like the US use propaganda, censorship, secrecy and surveillance to advance those aggressions, while nations like China use them defensively. This is a fundamental difference, and to pretend it isn’t is to ignore the reality of the power dynamics at play.

It’s so silly how the US war machine uses the word “defense” to describe the machine by which it inflicts nonstop aggression upon the world. “Department of Defense”. “The defense industry”. The US war machine doesn’t “defend” anything, it attacks relentlessly and maliciously. Defense is what the nations who resist those aggressions are doing.

US Changes Vote from ‘No’ to ‘Abstention’ on UN Resolution on Palestinian Right of Return

The administration of US President Joe Biden on Tuesday did not vote against a UN General Assembly Resolution affirming the right of return for Palestinian refugees, breaking the voting pattern set by his predecessor Donald Trump, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Under Trump, all such UN texts received an automatic “no” vote, while the Obama administration generally abstained on this particular reaffirmation resolution, which comes up annually before the UN General Assembly.

“This year, the United States returns to a position of abstention on the text ‘Assistance to Palestine Refugees’,” the Jerusalem Post quoted the US Deputy Ambassador Richard Mills as telling the General Assembly’s Fourth Committee on Tuesday.

CBO's Exclusion of IRS Boost Could Help Right-Wing Dems Tank Biden Agenda

The Build Back Better Act includes increased funding for Internal Revenue Service enforcement, which the Biden administration has taken into account when saying that the legislation will raise enough money to fully offset spending, but the Congressional Budget Office is expected to omit the projected boost in tax collection from its forthcoming estimate of the fiscal impact of the 10-year, $1.75 trillion social infrastructure and climate package.

The exclusion could be significant because the more transformative part of President Joe Biden's legislative agenda has been put in jeopardy by five right-wing House Democrats who last week made their support for the Build Back Better (BBB) Act contingent on receiving fiscal information from the CBO that matches existing estimates provided by the White House.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday night:

The Biden administration estimates a better-funded IRS could bring in $400 billion over a decade through more aggressive audits of corporations and the wealthy. But under budget rules set by Congress and the executive branch, the government's nonpartisan analysts can't officially count money that will be spent as also increasing revenue when estimating the cost of legislation.

Andrew Grossman, chief tax counsel for the Democratic majority on the House Ways and Means Committee, suggested Tuesday that the Congressional Budget Office will instead limit its analysis of the IRS plan to a footnote in its official report. That's because revenue expected from that increased funding would not be "scoreable" under rules guiding official government estimates, he said.

Even then, Grossman said, its estimate will likely be well below the White House's projection.

While analyses by the White House, the Treasury Department, and the Joint Committee on Taxation have all shown that BBB is fully "paid for" and may even reduce deficits, the CBO is likely to come to a different conclusion because it won't consider spending that raises revenue in its "score."

The only reason any of this matters is because last week, corporate Democratic Reps. Ed Case (Hawaii), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Stephanie Murphy (Fla.), Kathleen Rice (N.Y.), and Kurt Schrader (Ore.) betrayed a long-standing agreement to pass the bipartisan physical infrastructure bill (BIF) and the more ambitious social infrastructure and climate package simultaneously, insisting at the last minute that they would not vote for BBB until they received fiscal information from the CBO that is consistent with existing estimates.

Given the razor-thin margins in Congress, Democrats can afford only three defections in the House and none in the Senate to pass BBB through the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process.

Ironically, the CBO estimated earlier this year that the $550 billion BIF adds $256 billion to the deficit, a fact that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) drew attention to last Friday.

BIF supporters' lack of concern about such a finding, which was also not lost on Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), prompted critics to suggest that the request for additional fiscal information from the CBO by several right-wing House Democrats was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to tank the more ambitious portion of Biden's agenda.

Rather than ignoring the demand for additional fiscal information or postponing the votes that had been scheduled for both BBB and BIF in order to keep the two pieces of legislation linked, as the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) suggested on Friday afternoon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) acquiesced to the conservative obstructionists—holding a floor vote on BIF and shelving the planned vote on BBB in favor of a procedural "rule for consideration" to set up a future vote on the reconciliation bill.

At the behest of Biden, CPC Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Gottheimer worked out an agreement in which Jayapal would wrangle enough support from CPC members to pass BIF on Friday night and the five right-wing holdouts would vote for BBB "as expeditiously as we receive fiscal information from the Congressional Budget Office—but in no event later than the week of November 15—consistent with the toplines for revenues and investments" projected by the White House.

The fossil fuel-friendly BIF is awaiting Biden's signature after having been passed by the Senate in August and by the House on Friday night, when 13 Republicans joined most Democrats in supporting the measure.

Just six progressives—Ocasio-Cortez plus Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—voted against BIF in an attempt to prevent the two parts of Biden's economic agenda from being decoupled, which they warned would take away the leverage necessary to advance social welfare and clean energy investments through the House as well as the evenly split Senate.

Now it remains to be seen whether the green public spending contained in BBB will see the light of day.

In response to Tuesday night reporting from CNN warning that a full CBO analysis is unlikely to be ready by November 15, Jayapal issued a reminder that Gottheimer et al.'s demand was for additional fiscal information—not a full score—from the CBO.

However, with the CBO's cost estimate expected to deviate considerably from the Biden administration's previous figures due to the CBO's exclusion of key information, the fate of BBB—already hanging by a thread—is still uncertain.

Trump, GOP To NUKE Reps Who Voted For Biden's Bill

Republicans who voted for Biden’s infrastructure bill threatened with retaliation

A group of congressional Republicans who helped pass the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill last Friday are facing calls for political punishment by their own party, including the threat of having their committee assignments stripped for supporting the president’s agenda, according to reports this week. Several hardline Republicans, including the Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert and former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, have publicly urged retaliation against party colleagues who voted for the $1tn bill.

Some members who were among the GOP rank and file who helped the bill pass the House say they have received death threats.

Many of the Republicans who backed the bipartisan bill have ranking positions on full committees or subcommittees, including the homeland security committee and the natural resources committee.

The bill, which passed 228 to 206, would have failed if no Republicans voted for it in the House late last Friday, prompting widespread fury and intra-party threats, Punchbowl news reported. ...

Before the legislative vote, some Republicans threatened to mount primary challenges to any party members who supported the legislation, according to the Washington Post. “Vote for this infrastructure bill and I will primary the hell out of you,” said Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina.

GOP Billionaire to Hold Fundraiser for 'Great American' Joe Manchin

Although Sen. Joe Manchin's approval ratings in his home state of West Virginia have seen a steady decline in recent years and he's been rebuked over his stonewalling of President Joe Biden's agenda by powerful members of his own party, the right-wing Democrat will have at least one ultra-rich Republican working to make sure he keeps his seat when he's up for re-election in 2024.

Ken Langone, a billionaire investor and longtime donor to Republican campaigns, told CNBC Wednesday that he plans to have "one of the biggest fundraisers I've ever had" for Manchin in light of the senator's refusal to support the original Build Back Better Act.

Langone called Manchin and "great American" and praised his "guts and courage" in torpedoing his own party's effort to pass the legislation, a 10-year investment in social spending that originally included broadly popular provisions including an expansion of Medicare benefits, paid family and medical leave, and tuition-free community college.

Democrats are still debating the package, which is expected to change further before the Senate votes on it. Late last month, the proposal was cut from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion, with numerous programs to help lower- and middle-income households removed or severely weakened as a result of obstruction by Manchin and other right-wing Democrats.

Langone also applauded Manchin's so-called "leadership," which has come in the form of his refusal to back the Clean Energy Performance Program (CEPP), which would work to replace the nation's coal- and gas-fired power plants with solar and wind power infrastructure. Contrary to Langone's claim that Manchin—whose family profits from coal sales in West Virginia—is "leading" the nation with his opposition to the bill, numerous studies have shown that job opportunities are growing in clean energy sectors as oil, coal, and natural gas see losses or stagnation. ...

As Manchin gutted various provisions in the Build Back Better Act in recent months, his reelection committee raised more than $1.5 million, with contributions from JPMorgan Chase, Duke Energy, Southern Nuclear Operating Co., UBS Americas, and PG&E.

Meat, Gas, Rent Inflation SPIKES As Biden Absent

Pressure on Fed to raise interest rates as US inflation surges to 30-year high

Pressure on America’s central bank to raise interest rates has intensified after rising energy costs, supply shortages and increased consumption sent US inflation surging to a level not seen for more than 30 years. Although the Federal Reserve has repeatedly insisted price pressures will prove “transitory”, financial markets were taken aback by a 6.2% increase in the cost of living in the world’s biggest economy over the past year.

A labor department report released on Wednesday showed prices rose by 0.9% in October alone – more than double the 0.4% jump in September – to push the annual rate of inflation to its highest level since December 1990, a time when global oil prices had risen sharply due to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The news came after the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve tried to downplay rising costs, arguing they are a temporary phenomena driven by Covid-19’s unprecedented impact on the global supply chain.

The increase was “broad-based, with increases in the indexes for energy, shelter, food, used cars and trucks, and new vehicles among the larger contributors”, the labor department said. “The energy index rose 4.8% over the month, as the gasoline index increased 6.1% and the other major energy component indexes also rose. The food index increased 0.9% as the index for food at home rose 1%.”

Last week Fed chair Jerome Powell warned that inflation had been “longer lasting than anticipated”. Powell said the Fed still expected recent price rises to be “transitory” but added that it was “very difficult to predict the persistence of supply constraints or their effects on inflation”.

Flint water crisis victims to receive $626m settlement

A federal judge has approved a $626m settlement for victims of the lead water crisis in Flint, Michigan, in a case brought by tens of thousands of residents affected by the contaminated water. Announcing the settlement on Tuesday, district judge Judith Levy called it a “remarkable achievement” that “sets forth a comprehensive compensation program and timeline that is consistent for every qualifying participant”.

Most of the money will come from the state of Michigan, which was accused of repeatedly overlooking the risks of using the Flint River without properly treating the water. “This is a historic and momentous day for the residents of Flint, who will finally begin to see justice served,” said Ted Leopold, one of the lead attorneys in the litigation. ...

Payouts from the settlement approved on Wednesday will be made based on a formula that directs more money to younger claimants and to those who can prove greater injury. Michigan’s attorney general has previously said that the settlement would rank as the largest in the state’s history.

White Supremacy Trial: From Rittenhouse in Kenosha to Killers of Ahmaud Arbery, Will They Go Free?

Kyle Rittenhouse lawyers seek mistrial as judge upbraids prosecution

The murder case against Kyle Rittenhouse was thrown into jeopardy Wednesday when his lawyers asked for a mistrial over what appeared to be out-of-bounds questions asked of Rittenhouse by the chief prosecutor. The judge did not immediately rule on the request and is allowing the trial to continue. ...

The startling turn came after Rittenhouse took the stand and testified that he was under attack when he shot the three men. “I defended myself,” the 18-year-old said.

During cross-examination, prosecutor Thomas Binger asked Rittenhouse about whether it was appropriate to use deadly force to protect property. Binger also posed questions about Rittenhouse’s silence after his arrest. At that, the jury was ushered out of the room, and circuit judge Bruce Schroeder loudly and angrily accused Binger of pursuing an improper line of questioning and trying to introduce testimony that the judge earlier said he was inclined to prohibit.

The defense asked for a mistrial with prejudice, meaning that if one is granted, Rittenhouse cannot be retried in the shootings. When Binger said he had been acting in good faith, the judge replied: “I don’t believe that.”

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US Capitol rioter who assaulted police officer given 41-month prison term

A New Jersey gym owner who punched a police officer during the attack on the US Capitol was sentenced on Wednesday to more than three years in prison, a likely benchmark for dozens of other rioters who engaged in violence that day.

Scott Fairlamb, 44, was the first person to be sentenced for assaulting a law enforcement officer during the Capitol riot. His 41-month prison term is the longest among 32 riot-related sentences handed down so far.

Fairlamb’s punishment likely will guide other judges who sentence rioters who clashed with police at the Capitol. US district judge Royce Lamberth said it was significant that his sentencing of Fairlamb was the first for assaulting an officer, with more guilty pleas likely in the coming months. ...

Justice department prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of three years and eight months for Fairlamb, saying he was among the first rioters to breach the Capitol and incited others to be violent.

Other defendants are soon to face sentencing, including the shirtless rioter who called himself the “QAnon shaman”.

Report finds Pompeo broke law by delivering 2020 convention speech from Israel

Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo violated US federal law when he delivered a convention speech from Jerusalem last year, a watchdog group said in a report released Tuesday.

The US Office of Special Counsel said Pompeo violated the Hatch Act, a 1939 law that limits political activity by executive branch personnel, when he delivered a Republican National Convention speech from Israel in support of former US president Donald Trump’s reelection. The office is an independent federal investigation agency.

The report also said former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman violated the law on a separate occasion.

Pompeo violated the law by changing US State Department policy to allow himself to speak at the event, and by using his official authority to campaign for Trump’s reelection, the report said.

AOC's 'Woke' Language Will NEVER Win Working Class

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China and the US announce plan to work together on cutting emissions

China and the US announced a surprise plan to work together on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the crucial next decade, in a strong boost to the Cop26 summit, as negotiators wrangled over a draft outcome. The world’s two biggest emitters had been trading insults for the first week of the conference, but on Wednesday evening unveiled a joint declaration that would see the world’s two biggest economies cooperate closely on the emissions cuts scientists say are needed in the next 10 years to stay within 1.5C.

The remarkable turnaround came as a surprise to the UK hosts, and will send a strong signal to the 190-plus other countries at the talks. China and the US will work together on some key specific areas, such as cutting methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – and emissions from transport, energy and industry. “Both sides recognise that there is a gap between the current effort and the Paris agreement goals, so we will jointly strengthen our Paris efforts and cooperation … to accelerate a green and low carbon transition,” said Xie Zhenhua, China’s head of delegation. “Climate change is becoming an increasingly urgent challenge. We hope this joint declaration will help to achieve success at Cop26.” ...

The draft text, published early on Wednesday morning by the UK as president of the talks, set out the probable outcome of the Cop26 talks, including a potential requirement for countries to return to the negotiating table next year to beef up their national plans on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The text also set out the scientific case for limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, and expressed “alarm” that emissions were far higher than the levels needed to stay within safe temperature thresholds.

How Wealth Inequality Fuels the Climate Emergency: George Monbiot, Scientist Kevin Anderson on COP26

Car firms agree at Cop26 to end sale of fossil fuel vehicles by 2040

Twenty-four countries and a group of leading car manufacturers have committed to ending the era of fossil-fuel powered vehicles by 2040 “or earlier”, in a major new commitment set at Cop26. The agreement to sell only zero-emissions vehicles from this time, unveiled at the UN climate summit in Glasgow on Wednesday, includes Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK, which had already agreed to phase out new petrol and diesel car sales by 2030.

Ford, Mercedes, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz are among the carmakers to sign the accord, pledging to reach the goal by 2035 in “leading markets”, as have numerous cities and regional governments, including New York, London, Barcelona and the Australian Capital Territory. A further group of countries, including India and Kenya, have agreed to “work intensely towards accelerated proliferation” of zero-emissions vehicles, while a group of financiers and fleet owners have also vowed to phase out fossil fuel-powered cars.

But the agreement is also notable for its absences, with the US, China and Germany, the behemoths of the global car industry, all declining to sign. Volkswagen and Toyota have also not put their name to the deal, along with BMW, which told the Financial Times there was still “considerable uncertainty about the development of global infrastructure to support a complete shift to zero-emissions vehicles”. Toyota said: “Although we refrain from joining the statement, we share the same spirit and determination to address climate change and remain open to engage and work with stakeholders. Toyota will continue to contribute by making the best efforts to achieve carbon neutrality.”

Australia vows to keep mining coal despite climate warning

Cop26: Oceanographer Sylvia Earle calls for industrial fishing ban on high seas

World leaders gathered for Cop26 must ban industrial fishing on the high seas to have a chance of preserving the ocean, the Earth’s “largest carbon-capturing and oxygen-generating system”, the deep-sea explorer and oceanographer Sylvia Earle has said. ... Stopping industrial fishing in international waters, Earle said, was as important as curbing fossil fuel use.

“It’s the No 1 priority, because we have the chance, in a stroke, to safeguard the blue heart of the planet,” she said. “It’s where most of the oxygen that comes from the ocean is generated. It’s where most of the carbon is taken up.” The exponential growth in industrial fishing is blamed for an alarming drop in marine life in the last half century. A third of commercial fish populations are being harvested at biologically unsustainable levels, according to a 2018 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

“All of that wildlife taken out of the ocean not only affects biodiversity and fosters extinctions at an accelerated rate. It breaks the carbon cycle – the nutrient chain that maintains the fabric of life on Earth,” she said. ...

Earle noted that just five nations were “benefiting disproportionately on an industrial scale from the wild animals that live [in international waters]”. China and Taiwan account for 60% of distant-water fishing, while Japan, South Korea, and Spain make up about 10% each, according to a 2019 report by the Stimson Center.

She argued that the coastal communities who survived on fishing could do so within national waters, and compared fishing the high seas to killing elephants for ivory or rhinoceroses for their horns. Industrial fishing was “cutting slashes in the web of life” by destroying fish populations around the world, she said.

Canada: Indigenous people fished sustainably for 1,000 years before settlers arrived – study

A First Nations community on Canada’s west coast practiced the sustainable harvest of wild salmon for 1,000 years, before the system was largely destroyed after the arrival of European settlers, a new study has concluded. ... New research published on Wednesday shows that the Tsleil-Waututh used sex selection when harvesting spawning salmon, releasing the females to ensure the population would remain healthy for future use. ...

“People were harvesting the same sort of fish consistently, probably from the same places, for 1,000 years,” said Jesse Morin, archeologist for the Tsleil-Waututh Nation and an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, to the Canadian Press. “Here we are, 150 years later, 150 years’ worth of industrial harvesting, and we’ve really destroyed these resources.” ...

In recent decades, wild salmon populations have collapsed. Half of Canada’s mighty Chinook, many of which spawn in the region, are considered endangered. All other species of Pacific salmon are in precarious decline. By some estimates, in just 100 years, 75% of sockeye have been wiped out.

The crash of salmon – exacerbated by overfishing, poor watershed management and a changing climate – has significant effects on the region’s ecosystems. The endangered southern resident killer whale relies on healthy Chinook salmon populations, as do grizzly bears in coastal regions. The Tsleil-Waututh practices highlight the importance of properly managing a fishery as governments scramble to find a way to save the troubled salmon populations. In recent years, members of the Nation have not fished on their traditional territory, despite a treaty right to do so, in order to help rebuild ailing stocks.

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Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Preserving Out-of-Control Power

The U.S. Is Reneging On Its Climate Commitments

Lies, Damn Lies, And CBO Statistics

Found in Translation: New York Times Says Democrats Shouldn't Challenge Oligarchy

The EU Needs To Get Clear On Its Interests

Jerome Powell and Jamie Dimon Met Privately on September 30. Weird Stuff Followed.

Why Joe Biden Will Soon Talk With Mohammed Bin Salman

Survivors braced as search begins at Canada’s oldest residential school

‘What if we just gave up cars?’: Cop26 leaders urged to dream big

Barack Obama has a nerve preaching about the climate crisis

Make extreme wealth extinct: it’s the only way to avoid climate breakdown

Adam Schiff CALLED OUT LIVE On The View For Russiagate Lies

Krystal Ball: Starbucks Execs PUBLICLY FREAK Out Over Growing Union Drive

Ryan Grim: A Maniac In Riyadh Is Why Your Gas Tank Costs So Much To Fill

The Populist Case For Inflation: Banks And The Super Rich Get Hit the Most

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A Little Night Music

Little Smokey Smothers - 43rd Street Blues

Little Smokey Smothers - Soft Winds

Little Smokey Smothers - Why Are You So Mean To Me

Little Smokey Smothers - Travelin' Shoes

Little Smokey Smothers - Remembering

Little Smokey Smothers - I Better Go Now

Little Smokey Smothers - Stomp

Legendary Blues Band (w/Little Smokey Smothers) - Having A Hard Time

Paul Butterfield w/ Little Smokey Smothers - Mojo Workin'/One Room Country Shack

Little Smokey Smothers - You Don't Love Me

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