Back again with another Monday Message Board.
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John Quiggin 
The world (mainly the West) has made an enormous mistake in letting SARS-CoV-2 run rampant and mutate at high rates. Early on, eradication was possible and the world should have suppressed the virus to eradication. The prices, multiple, for letting the virus run rampant will be paid for decades to come and very likely indefinitely into the future. A new scourge has been unleashed on humanity.
People have the false impression that double-vaccination will be a “once and done” thing. It won’t be. The virus is mutating so fast many people will need boosters within 6 to 12 months. This is at a time when the population of the entire continent of Africa, except for about 2% of Africans, is still unvaccinated. There currently appears to be no way this pandemic can be brought under control globally. Opening Australia back up to the world at this stage will be disastrous. That is my prediction.
Under opening-up conditions, it is almost certain that a variant or variants worse, perhaps far worse, than Delta will be imported back into Australia. We could even breed our own worse variant though that is less likely. It’s well understood by epidemiologists and virologists that the immune escape and vaccine escape of SARS-CoV-2 is already well under way. It’s also understood that in short term to mid term time frames (in evolutionary terms this could be up to one or a few human generations) the likelihood is that SARS-CoV-2 could evolve to be more dangerous, not less dangerous. Evolution to benignity need not happen at all.
The reality for people going into the future will likely be this. Boosters may be necessary every 6 to 12 months. Many vaccinated people will still catch and transmit SARS-CoV-2. It’s not certain yet but it appears possible in the long run that many people, even vaccinated people, will keep being reinfected with COVID-19 multiple times. While vaccination and immunity remain effective, these reinfections may be mild or even completely asymptomatic. But as people age and/or develop health problems, these reinfections will become less and less benign. There is also the possibility of complete vaccine escape.
By letting SARS-CoV-2 out of control we have opened a door into a dark room. There may be no floor in that dark room.
iconoclast, Do you want society to live permanently in lockdown because of a fear that a severe new strain of the virus will emerge? There are 20 million active cases in the world today – it’s useless to argue that we should have eliminated the virus – that possibility is gone.
I’d prefer to risk getting the virus than live in a world where my life is run by troglodyte State politicians and their health mafias. Life involves risk.
If we forget the mistakes of the past we keep repeating them. It was a bad mistake to let a novel zoonosis of the SARS RNA virus family spread. It was always likely that it was going to end up with many deaths globally. It was also likely that it was going to continuously mutate. I am aware there is now no way of stopping it globally any time soon. That’s why I typed, “There currently appears to be no way this pandemic can be brought under control globally.”
In all likelihood we will need to continue with targeted isolations, quarantines and lock-downs in Australia, until if and when we get to at least 95% of people safely vaccinated from age 6 and over. The alternative is much more morbidity and many more deaths. The mafias are the corporations who demanded we open up too early despite the risks. Of course, the LNP governments just do the bidding of the rich mafias.
Governments and people who wouldn’t lock down properly early are those who suffered the most from lock-downs in the end. Those are the clear facts. Those that locked down hard and early avoided most of the COVID-19 and spent less time in lock-down overall. Victoria finally failed at that. It will take a while to fully understand the reasons why Victoria failed but Federal incompetence and even sabotage of its effort (and all state efforts) played a big role in that.
The global pandemic is still in its early stages. All recorded cases are, in round numbers, 235,000,000 existing, 215,000,000 recovered and 5 million deaths. Let’s call that 250 million as a round number. It’s likely that that is an under-count by a factor of 4 at least. Let us call the real number, 1 billion. There are still at least 6 billion humans left to catch it. And who knows how many will re-catch it, perhaps multiple times, vaccine or no vaccine? Vaccine escape and immunity escape are real and getting worse. If we open up too much, too soon, to the rest of the world then we risk new, dangerous variants with possibly much higher death rates and possibly far more lethality towards young people.
Oops. I failed at simple math above. Let’s call that 500 million as a round number and 2 billion after allowing for the factor of 4 under-count, Let’s assume another 5 billion or more to catch COVID-19 plus who knows how many re-infections. I just had my first Pfizer COVID-19 vax today, Just starting to get some brain fog. Why so late on the vax? I’ve just had a personal 140 day lock-down related to three eye-operations with a fourth to come. So color me not too sympathetic towards people whinging about a mere 100 days lock-down.
You get both.
But it’s not a binary choice between taking risk and not taking risk. It’s a compounding set of choices, interacting with each other to reduce or increase risk by varying amounts in exchange for varying other costs and benefits.
It is a binary choice. Do we continue with lockdowns or not? Iconoclast complains about his 100 day lockdown stint for health reasons. In Melbourne we have had 250 days of lockdown so far and we are now recording 1500+ cases per day. Moreover, Iconoclast seems to suggest that the need to lockdown should continue. How long? Three years, four years, …
Apart from not wanting my life run by politicians and unelected health bureaucrats, I also worry about having a $1T national debt that will need to be repaid from taxes levied on my progeny. Foregone infrastructure, education investments, investments in addressing climate change etc etc – all resulting from the foolish belief that society can function for long periods on the national credit card.
The ” doesn’t matter myth” related to the “private sector doesn’t matter” myth might be one of the more destructive viral consequence of Covid-19.
H.C.,
In fixating on the failed states (NSW and Victoria) we ignore the successes. The rest of Australia has succeeded in keeping COVID-19 morbidity and deaths to an impressive minimum. They have done this with FAR LESS lock-down days overall. We need to consider these successes and analyze why they worked.
Failing to learn these lessons will land us in deeper and deeper trouble. SARS-CoV-2 has not stopped mutating. A “doomsday variant” which significantly escapes vaccine protection is still possible. How would we face that? See “Dr. Fauci warns of possible ‘monster’ variant of COVID-19” – Deseret News.
Also possible are further new or novel zoonoses. They keep arising with greater frequency with the ever higher global human population and our ever greater encroachment on the world’s last remaining wilds. We need to re-tool our whole society and economy, to avoid climate change and novel zoonosis catastrophes. To think that we can return to capitalist consumerism, mindless consumption, is the height of folly.
I don’t think it makes sense to continue lockdowns in Melbourne once the vaccination rates are reached, but it would be insane not to analyse what went wrong and learn from the many mistakes that have been made. Elimination was possible, and in effect has happened many times. This I think proves wrong the contention made by a lot of ignorant “let it rip” people that elimination isn’t possible. The fact that they proved to be correct in this instance has been as much by design as structural and at times wilful incompetence.
Surely doing a better quarantine is now indisputable, both from a moral and an economic perspective. Quarantine is hardly a new idea either. The fact that we couldn’t run it effectively in 2020 indicates something has gone seriously wrong with the way government services function. A lot of COVID deaths and lingering illnesses were entirely preventable, just as some of the lockdowns.
Matters will likely get much worse. Recent research is highlighting the huge dimensions and extensive ramifications of the dangers posed by COVID-19.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/08/04/a-warning-about-the-future-of-covid-19-from-the-scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-of-the-united-kingdom/
Re The SAGE report, Haseltine writes:
“Scenario One: Increased Lethality – The SAGE report considers the development of strains with increased lethality a realistic possibility.”
“Scenario Two: Evading Vaccines – The SAGE report considers the possibility that the virus will develop into what I call “vaccine-busting variants” to be an ALMOST CERTAINTY.” (Emphasis added.)
“Scenario Three: Anti-Viral Drug Resistance – The SAGE report considers the possibility that the virus will develop antiviral drug resistance to be likely.”
Scenario Four: Decreased Virulence – The SAGE report considers the possibility that the virus will develop decreased virulence to be a realistic possibility, ONLY IN THE LONG TERM.” (Emphasis added.)
New data continues to come out which already imply a MASSIVE disease burden will be added to our societies by the sequalae of COVID-19 disease.
See “COVID-19 survivors face increased risk of heart problems: study ” – NY Post.
“Researchers at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System in Missouri found that COVID survivors who weren’t hospitalized had a 39 percent increased risk of developing heart failure in the first year compared to someone who never had the virus, Bloomberg reports.
They also had a 119 percent increased risk of developing a potentially fatal blood clot and a 24 percent increased risk of having a stroke, the study found.
The increased risks were even greater for those who were hospitalized with the virus, with a 482 percent chance of cardiac arrest, 270 percent for heart failure and an 855 percent chance of blood clots.”
There are many other examples of significant serious sequalae rates even among mildly infected children (who subsequently develop serious conditions). This chronic disease burden will break people, break families, break under-funded health systems and in some cases break entire already vulnerable nations and turn them into failed states.
The correct course is still eradication even it is has to be eradication one country at a time. Australia should still commence on the eradication path. A level of 95% vaccination of persons over 12 or even over 5 (if safe) will be necessary. Plus there will be additional measures needed, albeit short of state lock-downs. Without such stringent measures, we face a disease burden which will cost many times more than such measures.
However, of course, none of this will happen. The USA and other powerful neoliberal nations will demand all nations remain open. So prepare for mass morbidity and mass deaths globally on an horrendous scale. Prepare for further crises in Australia much worse than anything that has happened thus far.
Ikonoclast: – “A level of 95% vaccination of persons over 12 or even over 5 (if safe) will be necessary.”
On Sep 28 I included: “Prof Stewart says for best estimates for herd immunity requires at least 85% of Australia’s total population to be vaccinated. That means 99% of eligible Australians (12 years and older) need to be vaccinated. It’s suggested 2% of Australians are difficult to budge anti-vaxxers.”
https://johnquiggin.com/2021/09/21/australias-covid-plan-was-designed-before-we-knew-how-delta-would-hit-us/comment-page-1/#comment-245925
Recently, Pfizer said it asked the US FDA to authorize its Covid-19 vaccine with BioNTech for kids aged 5 to 11.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/07/pfizer-asks-fda-to-authorize-covid-vaccine-for-kids-ages-5-to-11.html
It looks like Australian children aged from 5 to under 12 years may also become eligible for vaccination before the end of this year, if the TGA agrees.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-21/greg-hunt-pfizer-covid-vaccine-under-12-tga/100479928
And there are also various trials for children aged 6 months to under 5 years underway. So next year may see more than 95% of the total Australian population immunised.
But I’d suggest that won’t mean we are all safe. There are questions about waning vaccine effectiveness necessitating periodic and effective booster vaccine rollouts and how effective the vaccines will continue to be. Time will tell.
Not all infectious diseases can be eradicated. Several are controlled successfully by childhood vaccination or annual vaccinations, such as influenza where the virus evolves and vaccines have to be constantly updated (if that is the right word). Let’s hope that happens sooner rather than later with COVID-19 and the (realistic) threat of the medical system being overwhelmed recedes and life can return to normal, whatever that is supposed to be. I am seldom an optimist. This time round I know there are plenty of really clever people all over the world building on impressive scientific advances in molecular biology over recent decades. So far as I can judge, vaccination hesitancy seems to have been yet another beat up by strugglers in journalism with their limited time horizons. Vaccination rates for COVID well over 90 per cent for Australia are on the cards.
Heard on a construction site:
Bruce: Hey Gazza, check this out. It says ” Australia’s national gender pay gap has hovered between 13% and 19% for the past two decades.”
Gazza: “waddya rekon Bruce, we go in strike to make the gender pay equal to us?
Bruce: rofl
*
We scored 4 out of 11 = last.
Australia & UK.
The ‘ladies bar’ is still 14% less. And Julia Gillard, and HRC have posts on this site:
“Researchers scored the countries across 11 indicators, awarding the UK a score of four out of 11 – joint-lowest with Australia.
1 October 2021
“UK gender pay gap reporting ‘has no teeth’
“Legislation is focused on monitoring the problem but not actually fixing it
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/uk-gender-pay-gap-reporting-has-no-teeth
Bridging the gap – full report (5.59 MB PDF)
Click to access bridging-the-gap-full-report.pdf
*
“Australia’s Gender Pay Gap Statistics
27 August 2021
“The national gender pay gap over time
….
“Australia’s national gender pay gap has hovered between 13% and 19% for the past two decades. [7] There has been an increase of 0.8 percentage points (pp) to 14.2% in the gender pay gap since November 2020 (13.4%). [8]
….
“The full-time total remuneration gender pay gap based on WGEA data is 20.1%, meaning men working full-time earn nearly $25,534 a year more than women working full-time.”
https://www.wgea.gov.au/publications/australias-gender-pay-gap-statistics
*
11 years ago;
“Gillard’s gender pay gap
Posted by John, July 29th, 2010
…
“Or could it be that such a policy would be too costly for her key supporters – business? So she will talk about equal pay for equal work but do nothing. Add equal pay to the mining tax, climate change. WorkChoices Lite, the Australian Building and Construction Commission and many other examples of Gillard and Labor not being prepared to upset their real masters – the rich and powerful.”
https://enpassant.com.au/tag/gender-pay-gap/
And now:
“Hillary Rodham Clinton in conversation with Julia Gillard
“Watch the two former world leaders discuss our global research on perceptions of what helps women to get ahead in life. According to the survey, people in the US and UK think men are less likely to need intelligence to be successful.”
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/giwl
The restrictions which have gone with lockdown have varied substantially in degree of stringency; there haven’t been just two settings of ‘on’ or ‘off’.
Politicans running people’s lives is something that’s been going on for thousands of years–maybe five thousand, maybe six thousand. It’s because of politicians running people’s lives that you drive or get driven (as the case may be) on the left side of the road. It’s not going to stop just because you want it to stop.
Even to the casual bystander it seems obvious that Dan Andrews has become the underserving target of combined conservative forces. Most of the media are now beholden to the LNP and the LNP are learning how to control online criticism. The PM is now outtrumping Trump in avoiding scrutiny and allowing misleading and deceptive comments to become acceptable policy. How the ALP can overcome the weight of these thugs is beyond me.
Harry Clarke says: ” I’d prefer to risk getting the virus [currency?] than live in a world where my life is run by troglodyte State politicians and their health mafias. Life involves risk.”.
J-D replies “Politicans running people’s lives is something that’s been going on for thousands of years”
If nothing else, Snowden nails the fear of digital cash State Treasuries. Cash & Cryoto vs State Panoticon. This has not been technically nor polictically possible for thousands of years – until now.
We are all going to have to answer Snowden’s question, or be forcibly CBCD’d;
Central Bank Digital Currency’d
ES… “This is the question that I’d like Waller, that I’d like all of the Fed, and the Treasury, and the rest of the US government, to answer:
“Of all the things that might be centralized and nationalized in this poor man’s life, should it really be his money?”
From:
“Your Money AND Your Life
Central Banks Digital Currencies will ransom our future
…” was of a transcript of a speech given by one Christopher J. Waller, a freshly-minted governor of the United States’ 51st and most powerful state, the Federal Reserve.
The subject of this speech? CBDCs—…the acronym for Central Bank Digital Currencies—the newest danger cresting the public horizon.
…—whether it’s a minority report or just an attempt to pander to his hosts, the American Enterprise Institute.
“But given that Waller, an economist and a last-minute Trump appointee to the Fed, will serve his term until January 2030, we lunchtime readers might discern an effort to influence future policy, and specifically to influence the Fed’s much-heralded and still-forthcoming “discussion paper”—a group-authored text—on the topic of the costs and benefits of creating a CBDC.
“That is, on the costs and benefits of creating an American CBDC, because China has already announced one, as have about a dozen other countries including most recently Nigeria, which in early October will roll out the eNaira.
…
“But let’s return to close with that bank security guard, who after helping to close up the bank for the day probably goes off to work a second job, to make ends meet—at a gas station, say.
“Will a CBDC be helpful to him? Will an e-dollar improve his life, more than a cash dollar would, or a dollar-equivalent in Bitcoin, or in some stablecoin, or even inan FDIC-insured stablecoin?
“Let’s say that his doctor has told him that the sedentary or just-standing-around nature of his work at the bank has impacted his health, and contributed to dangerous weight gain. Our guard must cut down on sugar, and his private insurance company—which he’s been publicly mandated to deal with—now starts tracking his pre-diabetic condition and passes data on that condition on to the systems that control his CBDC wallet, so that the next time he goes to the deli and tries to buy some candy, he’s rejected—he can’t—his wallet just refuses to pay, even if it was his intention to buy that candy for his granddaughter.
“Or, let’s say that one of his e-dollars, which he received as a tip at his gas station job, happens to be later registered by a central authority as having been used, by its previous possessor, to execute a suspicious transaction, whether it was a drug deal or a donation to a totally innocent and in fact totally life-affirming charity operating in a foreign country deemed hostile to US foreign policy, and so it becomes frozen and even has to be “civilly” forfeited. How will our beleagured guard get it back? Will he ever be able to prove that said e-dollar is legitimately his and retake possession of it, and how much would that proof ultimately cost him?
“Our guard earns his living with his labor—he earns it with his body, and yet by the time that body inevitably breaks down, will he have amassed enough of a grubstake to comfortably retire? And if not, can he ever hope to rely on the State’s benevolent, or even adequate, provision—for his welfare, his care, his healing?
“This is the question that I’d like Waller, that I’d like all of the Fed, and the Treasury, and the rest of the US government, to answer:
“Of all the things that might be centralized and nationalized in this poor man’s life, should it really be his money?”
https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/cbdcs
Groan. $700m lost opportunity.
“KEPCO to seek leave to appeal Bylong Valley coal mine refusal in High Court
….
“The project was refused by theIndependent Planning Commission in 2019, and subsequent appeals in the Land and Environment Court, and Court of Appeal were dismissed.
“As of January 2018, the company had spent more than $700 million attempting to secure approval for the project.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-14/kepco-to-take-bylong-valley-coal-mine-fight-to-high-court/100539144
“The Fight Over Tenure Is Not Really About Tenure
“Why should universities guarantee jobs to a bunch of elitists who study esoteric subjects and brainwash students with left-wing politics? This critique of tenure in higher education is as old as tenure itself, and it’s gaining ground. In recent years, governing boards and legislators in several states have attempted to ban tenure or curtail its power — sometimes succeeding, as in Wisconsin. In the American labor market, where employers have unusually wide latitude to hire and fire at will, it’s not hard for politicians to channel popular resentment toward a small class of workers with relatively strong protections.
“That class is getting even smaller.”…
The current lockdown worked in wider Victoria but has failed in Melbourne .This is because of non compliance due to lockdown fatigue and the NSW policy choice to allow the virus to become established in their community .
Melbourne had just beaten a Delta outbreak in 3 weeks when two more outbreaks were seeded simultaneously from NSW into super spreader type settings .Knowing that vaccines were being rolled out and that Conservative elites had decided to allow the virus to spread in NSW people have not complied with lockdown rules .Movement data confirms this ,as does everyones eyesight .
We never had proper quarantine ,the federal government shirked its constitutional responsibility .Decades of neoliberal reform meant that states couldnt do proper quarantine and that public health systems are too weak. NSW allowed this whole outbreak to develop from a quarantine driver for international flight crews who was not required to be vaccinated or to wear a mask .This 12 months after Victorias big outbreak review of quarantine which established best practice for hotel quarantine.
This whole stuff up is intentional. Conservatives have been open about their intentions from the start – no conspiracy needed. We need to plan for future pathogens ,we will need proper quarantine facilities .Even now the lower cost course of action may be to build them and try again to eliminate Covid .Excess death analysis suggests Covid may have killed more than 15 million already. The way we are going we will have restrictions and Covid for many years to come.
Because Snowden released some state secrets (and that’s fine by me) it doesn’t make him an expert on anything else. Why is Snowden bellyaching about the problems of centralizing and nationalizing “the man’s” money? He seems to assume that only when state money is turned into a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) is it centralized and nationalized. Fiat money IS centralized and nationalized, in the legitimization sense, by the state and this has been so for about 4,000 years in functional states with state run money systems.
“The State, therefore, comes in first of all as the authority of law which enforces the payment of the thing which corresponds to the name or description in the contracts. But it comes in doubly when, in addition, it claims the right to determine and declare what thing corresponds to the name, and to vary its declaration from time to time – when, that is to say, it claims the right to re-edit the dictionary. This right is claimed by all modern states and has been so claimed for some four thousand years at least.”(Keynes 1930, p. 4).”
Hat tip to J.Q. for pointing out this passage in Crooked Timber in “Modern Monetary Theory: Neither modern, nor monetary, nor (mainly) theoretical?”, 1 June, 2020.
Snowden wants neither corporations nor states to issue money. The alternative is pirate money issued by virtual pirate confederacies. While there is money I want my money issued by the state, particularly when the state is my democratic state.
sunshine,
I absolutely agree with everything you said. “This whole stuff up is intentional. Conservatives have been open about their intentions from the start – no conspiracy needed.” This is absolutely true. The sabotage of public health and preventative medicine in Australia, by business groups and the LNP was wholly intentional from day one. This was always the goal. Business had to be permitted to open up no matter what the human costs.
The pathogen SARS-CoV-2 was easily eradicable with proper measures well before the evolution of the far more infectious Delta variant. Even Delta is eradicable, with effort. However, the task becomes much harder when one is seeking eradication in one country. The US and EU by their extreme incompetence (the incompetence of neoliberalism) have forced the whole world including the third world down a very dangerous path.
We are now wholly committed to the vaccine “Hail Mary”. It IS a Hail Mary strategy. Just like a Hail Mary pass in American football, it can stick and lead to a touchdown. But the chances are poor. Indeed, the chances are very poor because the virus is being left to mutate in almost the entire third world. The chances for immune escape, vaccine escape and even a leaky vaccine doomsday variant have become very significant.
But this is what big business wants. They wanted money-making to trump all other considerations and they have won. They have got what they wished for. These are mostly rich and/or politically powerful men in their fifties or older who we are talking about. How many bouts of ever-worsening COVID-19, which is escaping vaccines and escaping monoclonal treatments, do think they are going to survive? I ask this because everyone (who doesn’t isolate indefinitely) will catch COVID-19 multiple times over the next couple of decades. Many, many over-fifties will die from it sooner or later, vaccination or no vaccination.
This is going to get a whole lot worse. That’s my prediction. From November 1, NSW is opting for open international travel, for Aussie citizens and residents, and zero quarantine. That is a recipe for disaster. It’s odds on that variants worse than Delta will be introduced to Australia. This could get really nasty. All it takes is a vaccine-escaping variant which has a 20% or 30% mortality rate or, for example, a variant which targets babies and young children and kills them at a higher rate than adults. I imagine that could be an emotive issue. Then there is the cost tail of so much death and morbidity (“long covid”). The human, health and economic costs will be enormous. Add in climate change and we have combined forcing at nation-degrading levels, meaning nation-collapsing levels. But this is what the elites want. This is what they wished for and manipulated for. Let’s see if they really like the full outcomes.
Visa is worth arround 500 billion, mastercard some 300, American express 100, Adyen 90, square 100, Paypal 300…. a proper digital currency could remove at least some of those rather anoying monopolies. Absolutly for it. It won´t happen, precisly for that reason. We would still have printed money for the transactions we´d rather not want to be traceable and government regulation might actually improve our data security on the digital side. Digital central bank money in general and all digital central bank money in particular only exists in the immagination of the same people that claim covid is the flue and the vaccines kill more people. AFD (the German far right party) style campaigning.
KT2,
Thanks for the ‘heads up’ on KEPCO seeking leave to appeal the Bylong mine refusal.
EDO Managing Lawyer Rana Koroglu said:
https://www.edo.org.au/2021/10/14/bylong-community-heads-to-high-court-as-kepco-seeks-coal-mine-appeal/
The High Court may refuse leave for hearing the appeal, and then it’s game over for KEPCO.
If the High Court grants leave to hear the KEPCO appeal, then the High Court may still uphold the IPCN refusal, and then it’s game over for KEPCO.
It seems KEPCO still won’t take no for an answer.
The Korea National Assembly Budget Office (NSBO) has revealed KEPCO had so far lost US$405 million pursuing the mine. KEPCO’s board marked down the value of its Bylong mining rights from AU$642 million to zero in a report to the South Korean stock exchange last year.
Meanwhile, Bylong Valley locals have been urging the NSW Government to facilitate the buyback of rich agricultural land that KEPCO has been seeking to mine.
https://www.theland.com.au/story/7430995/bylong-community-wins-as-coal-mine-appeal-is-dismissed/
Yep, better stop that coal mine or it will by Bygone Valley. The capitalists can’t help themselves can they? It’s the theory and practice of sacrifice zones. Every rich community essentially requires sacrifice zones elsewhere.
“A sacrifice zone or sacrifice area (often termed a national sacrifice zone or national sacrifice area) is a geographic area that has been permanently impaired by heavy environmental alterations or economic disinvestment, often through locally unwanted land use (LULU). These zones most commonly exist in low-income and minority communities. Commentators including Chris Hedges, Joe Sacco, and Stephen Lerner have argued that corporate business practices contribute to producing sacrifice zones.” – Wikipedia.
Jason Hickel tweeted Oct 16 with graph:
Hickel further tweets that the chart is based upon emissions data from 1850 to 2015, with consumption-based emissions from 1970 onwards.
Another Hickel tweet includes a chart showing 31 countries that have already exceeded their carbon budget for +2 °C global mean warming, in per capita terms.
#01 Qatar: _ _ _ 489%
#02 Luxemburg: 478%
#03 UAE: _ _ _ _442%
#04 Kuwait: _ _ _432%
#05 Hong Kong: 370%
#06 USA: _ _ _ _307%
#07 Singapore: _ 267%
#08 Bahrain: _ _ 250%
#09 Canada: _ _ 225%
#10 Australia: _ _196%
#11 Andorra _ _ _193%
#12 Kazakhstan _190%
#13 Estonia _ _ _ 189%
#14 UK _ _ _ _ _ _185%
#15 Bahamas _ _ 184%
#16 Czech Rep. _ 157%
#17 Belgium _ _ _ 155%
#18 Germany _ _ _150%
#19 Brunei _ _ _ _ 147%
#20 Iceland _ _ _ _136%
#21 Netherlands _ 130%
#22 Israel _ _ _ _ _129%
#23 Denmark _ _ _128%
#24 Turkmenistan _123%
#25 Norway _ _ _ _122%
#26 Slovakia _ _ _ 120%
#27 Russian Fed. _117%
#28 Saudi Arabia _ 110%
#29 Finland _ _ _ _ 108%
#30 New Zealand _ 107%
#31 Switzerland _ _ 104%
Rich nations have already used-up their carbon budgets and want to gobble-up everyone else’s fair share.