Newsletters

From “Blah, Blah, Blah” to Urgent Climate Action

The nations of the world tried to kick the climate change ball down the road.

Let’s not let that happen.

The Cooperative Society Newsletter
November 2021, Issue 32
by E.G. Nadeau, Ph.D.

This is the last in a four-part series of newsletter articles on the impact of the pandemic on major issues affecting progress toward a more cooperative society. The May article focused on economic concentration and wealth inequality. The July article was about conflict and democracy. The September article analyzed the impact of COVID-19 on global population trends and the quality of life around the world.

This article looks at where we are in addressing the planet’s climate crisis.

What about climate change in the future?

Are we on the verge of dooming ourselves and our planet to an overheated, catastrophe-laden climate in the second half of the 21st century and beyond?

This article first addresses the impacts of COVID-19 on climate change. It then reviews the trajectory, and the major consequences, of the world’s projected temperature increase through the end of the 21st century. The conclusion presents several actions that can be taken to avoid the extreme negative consequences likely to occur as anticipated by current projections.

Minor impact of COVID-19

Unlike the six other issues reviewed in this series of newsletters, COVID-19 has had a relatively minor impact on climate change. There was a short-term reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in 2020. However, “Despite a world economy that slowed significantly because of COVID-19, the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new record.” In addition, “Global CO2 emissions rebound[ed] by nearly 5% in 2021, approaching the 2018-2019 peak.”

The bad news

The 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, held in the first half of November 2021, was intended to forge agreements by the UN’s 198 members to prevent this calamity. It failed to do so.

As summarized by Climate Analytics, “To achieve the Paris Agreement Temperature Goal [1.5°C above preindustrial levels], net zero CO2 emissions need to be achieved globally around mid-century and net zero emissions of all greenhouse gases shortly thereafter. In the near term, global greenhouse gas emissions need to be halved by 2030.”

Climate Action Tracker (2021). The CAT Thermometer. November 2021. Available at: https://climateactiontracker.org/global/cat-thermometer/ Copyright © 2021 by Climate Analytics and NewClimate Institute. All rights reserved.

The Climate Action Tracker provides a detailed analysis of the “lip service” on climate action emerging from the Glasgow conference:

  • “With all target pledges, including those made in Glasgow, global greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 will still be around twice as high as necessary for the 1.5°C limit.
  • “Stalled momentum from leaders and governments on their short-term targets has narrowed the 2030 emissions gap by only 15-17% over the last year.
  • “With 2030 pledges alone – without longer-term targets – global temperature increase will be at 2.4°C in 2100.
  • “The projected warming from current policies (not proposals) – what countries are actually doing – is even higher, at 2.7°C with only a 0.2°C improvement over the last year and nearly one degree above the net-zero announcements governments have made.
  • “Since the April 2021 Biden Leaders’ Summit, the CAT’s standard “pledges and targets” scenario temperature estimate of all NDCs and binding long-term targets has dropped by 0.3°C to 2.1°C, primarily down to the inclusion of the U.S. and China’s net zero targets, now formalised in their long-term strategies submitted to the UNFCCC.
  • “While the projected warming from all net zero announcements, if fully implemented – the CAT’s ‘optimistic scenario’ – is down to 1.8°C by 2100, this estimate is far from positive news, given the quality of the net zero goals and the massive ambition and action gap in 2030.
  • “This ‘optimistic’ pathway is a long way from the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit, with peak 21st century warming of 1.9°C and about a 16% chance of exceeding a warming of 2.4°C.”

We are already experiencing an increase in extreme weather events due to rising temperatures, even though the average world temperature in 2020 was “only” 1.1°C above preindustrial levels. So, in reality, rising temperatures – primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels –  result in a continuum of increasing disasters, which have already begun.

The major culprits

According to a recent New York Times article, “The world’s four biggest emitters – China, the United States, the European Union and India – are responsible for just over half of global greenhouse gas output . . . . “

But these data don’t tell the whole story. For example, Australia, followed closely by Indonesia, are the world’s largest coal exporters; Saudi Arabia leads the world in crude oil exports; Russia is, by far, the world’s largest natural gas exporter. To curb future greenhouse gas emissions, it is important to look at both the sources of fossil fuel production as well as where it is consumed.

Some positive opportunities

The current, anemic greenhouse gas emission goals set by most countries don’t yet mean we’re doomed to exceed the 1.5°C target. There is still time to strengthen the world’s commitment to drastic reductions in emissions by 2030, and to net zero emissions by 2050, that would keep the 1.5°C target in reach at the end of the 21st century.

Following are five major ways in which the world could get on track during the remainder of this decade to save itself from catastrophe. Some of these positive approaches are already underway and should be ramped up in 2022 and beyond. The others should begin in 2022 and expand in future years.

1. Strengthening country-level greenhouse gas emissions goals

Despite the inadequate goals set by many countries at the Glasgow conference, the meeting concluded by strongly encouraging countries with weak goals to strengthen them by November 2022, when the next climate change conference is scheduled. There are a number of factors, discussed below, that should influence these countries to get more serious about their commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Thus far, many developed countries have pledged funds to assist developing countries to reduce carbon emissions and to protect themselves from the ravages of climate change (for example, the effects of rising sea levels on island nations). At Glasgow, there was a renewed commitment by many developed countries to make good on these pledges.

One important example of a new agreement reached at the conference is an $8.5 billion pledge by the European Union, the UK, and the U.S. to help South Africa transition away from coal to renewable energy.

2. Improved measurement, enforcement, and incentive mechanisms

One of the shortcomings of the current International climate change measurement system is that countries are essentially monitoring and policing their own performance. This has created an overestimation of carbon dioxide reductions in some countries. For example, Malaysia claims to be sequestering a huge amount of carbon in forests, but there is no scientific support for this assertion.

Satellite technology related to climate change has improved dramatically in the past few years and is now able to detect carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gas emissions emanating from specific countries. This technology and other measurement approaches can be used in the future to create a “third-party” verification of whether or not specific countries are achieving or misrepresenting their climate change impacts.

3. Carbon border taxes

Carbon border adjustment taxes are being proposed by the European Union and under discussion in the United States. These taxes would be based on calculations of carbon dioxide emitted by imported fossil fuels and the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the production of proposed import goods. For example, potential coal imports from Australia or steel imports from China would be subject to carbon taxes based on their climate change impacts. This would have two main effects: creating incentives for exporting countries to reduce the carbon impact of exported products, and protecting the producers of low-carbon products in importing countries.

4. Increased private sector leadership on achieving carbon reduction goals

There are a number of large corporations that are taking actions to reduce their carbon footprints and produce green energy products. For example, Fortescue, a large Australian company, has ambitious plans to develop and export green hydrogen (produced by renewable energy). There are also a consortia of corporations that are making net zero carbon commitments and focusing their investments on clean energy companies.

Cooperative businesses are particularly well suited to several types of economic activity that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, community solar cooperatives can address the electricity and clean cooking needs of tens of millions of people in developing countries. Sustainable forestry and agricultural cooperatives can increase the amount of carbon sequestered in the forests and land of their members in both developed and developing countries.

5. Grassroots action around the world supporting climate goals and protesting against climate laggards

There were thousands of people who participated in marches in Glasgow and around the world to protest the weak outcomes of the recent climate change conference. Popular pressure can continue to have an impact on moving countries and corporations toward more serious commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the likelihood of keeping the earth’s temperature at or below 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.

Conclusion

So, are we heading to more “blah, blah, blah” for the remainder of the decade, or was Glasgow the beginning of a serious and urgent series of actions that will put the world on course for a livable climate at the end of the century? The jury is still out. But we are all on that jury. The way we conduct our own lives, influence the behavior of those around us, and vote can help bend the curve toward lower carbon emissions and a more habitable planet.

COVID-19’s effect on population trends and poverty   

COVID-19 is disrupting more than 70 years of population trends and setting back poverty alleviation by more than a decade.

The Cooperative Society Newsletter
September 2021, Issue 31
by E.G. Nadeau, Ph.D.

This is the third in a four-part series of newsletter articles on the impact of the pandemic on major issues affecting progress toward a more cooperative society. The May article focused on economic concentration and wealth inequality. The July article was about conflict and democracy. The November article will look at the effects of the pandemic on the climate crisis.

This issue analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on global population trends and the quality of life around the world during the past year and a half.

Population

COVID-19 is affecting the world’s population in several major ways. It is lowering the average lifespan, decreasing the birth rate, and slowing current and projected population growth.

Let’s take a look at each of these demographic changes.

Life expectancy

The number of deaths worldwide from COVID-19 is expected to exceed 5 million sometime in October. This is probably an undercount, because some countries are attributing coronavirus deaths to other causes.

In the United States, there were almost 350,000 COVID deaths in 2020, and another 350,000  by the end of September or early October 2021. Deaths from the coronavirus are estimated to have reduced the average life expectancy of Americans by one and a half years in 2020, the biggest single-year decline in life expectancy since World War II. This reduction in average life expectancy does not include the effects of the 2021 death toll. COVID deaths among Blacks and Hispanics are substantially higher than among Whites in the U.S.

Life expectancy in many other countries has not been as dramatically affected by the coronavirus as it has been in the United States. ”It is impossible to look at these findings and not see a reflection of the systemic racism in the U.S.,” Leslie Curtis, chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine, told NPR. “The range of factors that play into this include income inequality, the social safety net, as well as racial inequality and access to health care,” Curtis said.

Birth rate

The global birth rate has been declining each year since 1964. It is projected to drop off somewhat more sharply in the United States in 2021, and to a lesser extent, in a number of other countries as a result of the pandemic. According to a recent article in New Security Beat, “The pandemic has caused many young people to delay major life events, such as marriage. This delay will likely manifest in lower birthrates in the years to come. Likewise, pandemic-related unemployment and financial insecurity, particularly among young people, women, and marginalized groups, may cause further decline.”

The impact of the pandemic on lowered birth rates may continue for several years as the world economy gradually gets back on track.

Long-term demographic trends

In the remainder of the 21st century, the effect of COVID-19 on population change is likely to be a minor, but painful, blip. Longevity very probably will continue to increase gradually after the brief, virus-related, downward spike. The lower birth rate, however, may have a longer lasting, if modest, impact.

Independent of COVID, however, a group of analysts, writing in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, recently projected a more rapid deceleration and then a downturn in world population growth in the remainder of this century:

Our findings suggest that continued trends in female educational attainment and access to contraception will hasten declines in fertility and slow population growth. A sustained TFR [total fertility rate] lower than the replacement level in many countries, including China and India, would have economic, social, environmental, and geopolitical consequences. Policy options to adapt to continued low fertility, while sustaining and enhancing female reproductive health, will be crucial in the years to come.

Primarily due to the effect of this projected lower birth rate, world population (now at 7.8 billion) is expected to peak at about 9.7 billion in 2064, and then decline to around 8.8 billion by 2100. This pattern of population growth and decline is likely to occur unevenly across the world, with some countries experiencing significant reductions in population, and others, especially many low-income countries, continuing to grow through most of the rest of the century. (The author will not go into an in-depth analysis or discuss the policy implications of these trends here, but will address them in future articles and the next edition of The Cooperative Society.)

Quality of life

There has been a recent slowdown in accom­plishing the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including those directly related to the quality of life of poor people around the world, that began before the coronavirus. The slowdown appears to be the result of reduced commitment by some UN members, an overly ambitious agenda by the UN, and the magnitude of the climate-change crisis overshadowing other SDGs.

The first two sustainable development goals are, “End poverty in all its forms everywhere” and “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.” This section of the newsletter focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on these two goals of ending poverty and hunger by 2030.

Poverty

Extreme poverty, defined as, “Living below the international poverty line of $1.90 a day,” rose for the first time in over 20 years in 2020 as approximately 100 million people were pushed back into extreme poverty, bringing the total number of the world’s population in this category to about 730 million. Even though the World Bank recently projected that there will be a decrease of about 20 million people in extreme poverty in 2021, it will take several years to get poverty reduction back on its pre-COVID track. Despite the overall upward trend in 2021, many low-income countries in Africa will continue to experience an increase in extreme poverty this year, and thus suffer through a longer time period before they return to pre-COVID trends of extreme-poverty reduction.

Despite these grim data on COVID-related poverty around the world, there was actually a decrease in poverty in the United States in 2020. A headline in The New York Times recently reported that, “Poverty in U.S. declined last year as government aid made up for lost jobs.” The percentage of people living below the poverty line dropped from 11.8% in 2019 to 9.1% in 2020. This decline in poverty may not continue in the coming years if Congress doesn’t pass several anti-poverty measures this fall.

Hunger

The COVID-related story for world hunger is much the same as that for poverty. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations:

The number of people in the world affected by hunger continued to increase in 2020 under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. After remaining virtually unchanged from 2014 to 2019, the PoU [prevalence of under nourishment*] increased from 8.4 percent to around 9.9 percent between 2019 and 2020, heightening the challenge of achieving the Zero Hunger target in 2030.

The above percentages mean that about 120 million more people were undernourished in 2020 than in 2019, bringing the world total to about 768 million. More than 80% of undernourished people live in Asia and Africa.

The conclusion that the FAO draws related to world hunger applies equally well to extreme poverty:

With less than a decade to 2030, the world is not on track to ending world hunger and malnutrition; and in the case of world hunger, we are moving in the wrong direction. This report has shown that economic downturns as a consequence of COVID-19 containment measures all over the world have contributed to one of the largest increases in world hunger in decades, which has affected almost all low- and middle-income countries, and can reverse gains made in nutrition. The COVID-19 pandemic is just the tip of the iceberg, more alarmingly, the pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities forming in our food systems over recent years as a result of major drivers such as conflict, climate variability and extremes, and economic slowdowns and downturns. These major drivers are increasingly occurring simultaneously in countries, with interactions that seriously undermine food security and nutrition.

The United Nations recently held a world summit on food systems, in which, “. . . more than 150 countries made commitments to transform their food systems, while championing greater participation and equity, especially amongst farmers, women, youth and indigenous groups.”

But the summit was not without controversy. For example, in an article entitled, “The UN summit on food systems took two years to plan. It’s offered nothing to help feed families,” Michael Fakhri, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, made the following comment:

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted what we have known for decades – hunger, malnutrition and famine are not caused by inadequate amounts of food. They are caused by the political failures that restrict people’s access to adequate food.

Conclusion

COVID-19 has significantly contributed to a global reduction in longevity and the birth rate. It has also increased poverty and hunger around the world. The effects of these negative impacts are projected to last for a number of years. In particular, poor people, especially in Africa and Asia, will continue to experience economic hardship and undernourishment well beyond 2021. The optimistic UN goals of ”No poverty” and “Zero hunger” by 2030 will almost certainly not be realized.

It would be a mistake, however, to throw up our hands in despair at these recent setbacks. Since the UN Millennium Development Goals , the predecessors to the sustainable development goals, were first established in 2000, there have been dramatic improvements in the social, health-related, economic, and environmental well-being of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

The recent setbacks related to COVID-19 and other factors mentioned above can be overcome, especially through universal access to coronavirus vaccines, and a recommitment to the 17 sustainable development goals by the international community.

__________

* Prevalence of undernourishment is “an estimate of the proportion of the population whose habitual food consumption is insufficient to provide the dietary energy levels that are required to maintain a normal active and healthy life.”

The threat of Trump’s “long con” to American Democracy

The Cooperative Society Newsletter
August 2021, Issue 30
by E.G. Nadeau, Ph.D.

A simple dictionary definition of a “long con” is: “An elaborate confidence game that develops in several stages over an extended period of time.” 

For a long con to work, there have to be gullible people susceptible to it. Sad to say, we have an overabundance of them in the United States today.

“There’s a sucker born every minute.” Often attributed to P.T. Barnum of circus fame, the origin of this aphorism is disputed. But the meaning and usage are not. The phrase has long been used by confidence tricksters to explain their success in defrauding unwitting victims.

Most of you have already figured out where this article is headed. Donald Trump, the previous (and in his pronouncements, the current) president of the United States, is perpetrating one of the biggest and most dangerous long cons in history.

And, so far, it’s going very well for him. Looking at just one indicator, his political action committee has raised over $100 million since he started pretending that he won the election.

This is a very dangerous game. As many commentators have pointed out, our very democracy is at stake.

It’s one thing to fleece investors in Atlantic City casinos; undiscerning enrollees in Trump University; the victims of dozens of other scams perpetrated by Trump since the late 1960s; or, U.S. taxpayers as a result of his, allegedly, fraudulent avoidance of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax payments.

It’s quite another to falsely claim massive election fraud in November 2020, and, in pushing this bogus narrative, set the stage for actual, massive election fraud in the 2024 presidential election.

Here are the key elements of Trump’s long con:

  • “The big lie” about the stolen election
  • The repetition of this big lie ever since Trump’s loss in November 2020 – and, in fact, the teeing up of this lie with the mantra of “massive fraud” through much of 2020
  • More than 60 baseless legal challenges and other nefarious actions in states in which he lost the election by relatively small margins (e.g. trying to strong-arm the secretary of state of Georgia to “just find 11,780 votes,” and the over-the-top, prolonged, bogus audit of Maricopa County election returns in Arizona)
  • The attempted January 6 coup – an attack on the U.S. Capitol that has seen hundreds of arrests so far, is the subject of congressional hearings, and may result in criminal charges filed against legislators and members of the Trump White House
  • The legalization of “election subversion,” already on the books in Georgia and under consideration in other states, that attempts to give state legislatures the power to overturn “fraudulent” election results from their states and reassign them to the presidential candidate of their choice – potentially, the most dangerous of all the long con components
  • Gerrymandering, soon to come to your state or one near you using the 2020 census results as a pretext
  • And the financial part of the con mentioned above, the amassing of Trump’s and other right wing zealots’ political war chests, largely donated by low- and moderate-income dupes

We should remember that this anti-democratic long con is not just Trump’s creation. It is aided and abetted by other Republican federal, state, and local leaders, and various other right wing nut jobs.

For example, as I write this, there are at least three Republican governors who are eager to compete with Trump on the 2024 Republican presidential ticket – Ron DeSantis of Florida, Greg Abbott* of Texas, and Kristi Noem of South Dakota. In addition to flaunting their purported loyalty to Trump, they are also trying to outdo each other in their opposition to mask-wearing and their lackluster support for vaccines. They apparently see this championing of suffering and death as part of a strategy to win the White House.

Perhaps the best way to conclude this article is to cite another famous Barnum quote, this one really his. In order to accelerate the flow of people through his museum in New York (and money into his pockets), he had signs put up saying, “This way to the egress”. Egress is a fancy word for exit. And that’s exactly where we should be ushering Trump, his shills, enablers, and wannabes before their long con destroys our democracy.

* Governor Abbott recently tested positive for Covid-19.

Conflict and democracy in the COVID era

The Cooperative Society Newsletter
July 2021, Issue 29
by E.G. Nadeau, Ph.D.

This is the second of a four-part series of newsletter articles on the impact of the pandemic on major issues affecting progress toward a more cooperative society. The May article focused on economic concentration and wealth inequality. Upcoming articles will look at effects on population change, quality of life, and the climate crisis.

An overview of conflict and democracy

During the course of the 20th century, we made significant progress in reducing conflict and increasing democracy. There has been a dramatic reduction in deaths from war-related violence since the end of World War II and a rapid increase in the number of democratic governments beginning about the same time. Historical data also indicate that the rate of homicides has been decreasing for centuries.

But in the past 15-20 years, these positive trends have faltered. This has been especially true in the erosion of democracy in some countries; an increasing incidence of wars, within-country violence, and terrorist activities; and a wide divergence in homicide rates from country to country. These patterns are chronicled in our book, The Cooperative Society (2nd edition, 2018), and “The Cooperative Society 2020 Report.”

How has violence been affected by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021?

The simple answer is that there has been a mixed pattern of violence in the past year and a half.

ACLED, an international organization that monitors global violence, reports a small decrease in fatalities caused by violent events between 2019 and 2020, and then an upsurge in the first half of 2021 that returned the death rate to the 2019 level. These data suggest a temporary reduction in conflict deaths caused by the virus, but a return to “business as usual” in 2021.

An example of peaceful protests accelerated in the early months of the pandemic, resulting from George Floyd’s murder by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020. Under the banner of “Black Lives Matter,” Floyd’s death sparked protests across the United States and in many other countries. According to the Washington Post, over 96% of protest marches in the U.S. were peaceful. The reaction to Floyd’s death and the conviction of Chauvin for murder appear to have initiated a broad movement to decrease violence by police against Blacks and other minorities.

Homicides and domestic violence appear to have increased during the pandemic.Some analysts have concluded that economic disruptions and restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus increased these kinds of violence. More data on these kinds of violence will be forthcoming in the next year or so.

Has democracy eroded at a faster pace during the pandemic?

Two well-known, annual reports on the state of democracy in the world conclude that there was a significant decline in democracy in 2020.

The Economic Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2020 reports that:

Democracy was dealt a major blow in 2020. Almost 70% of countries covered by the Index … recorded a decline in their overall score, as country after country locked down to protect lives from a novel coronavirus. The global average score fell to its lowest level since the index began in 2006.

Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2021 sounded a similar theme.

As a lethal pandemic, economic and physical insecurity, and violent conflict ravaged the world in 2020, democracy’s defenders sustained heavy new losses in their struggle against authoritarian foes, shifting the international balance in favor of tyranny. Incumbent leaders increasingly used force to crush opponents and settle scores, sometimes in the name of public health, while beleaguered activists—lacking effective international support—faced heavy jail sentences, torture, or murder in many settings.

These withering blows marked the 15th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. The countries experiencing deterioration outnumbered those with improvements by the largest margin recorded since the negative trend began in 2006.

The chart shown above is a screenshot from the Freedom House website: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2021/democracy-under-siege

As both of the excerpts from these reports indicate, part of the increase in anti-democratic tendencies during the pandemic may be temporary. That is, government efforts to enforce mask wearing, social distancing, and other actions to reduce the coronavirus infection rate limit freedom of action in the short term but may not signal a long-term increase in repression. Thus, in the latter half of 2021 and beyond, freedom of action may very well show a rebound.

Not all of democracy’s troubles in 2020 and the first half of 2021 can be attributed to the pandemic. For one thing, both of the above reports indicate a long-term trend in the weakening of democracy going back to 2006. The pandemic may have exacerbated anti-democratic tendencies, but the gradual erosion of democracy around the world has been occurring for well over a decade.

Democracy is under threat in the United States, not primarily because of COVID-19, but because of the anti-democratic words and actions of Donald Trump and his followers. In particular, he, many Republican elected officials at state and federal levels, and some rank-and-file GOP members have refused to acknowledge the reality of his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s continued promotion of “the big lie” led to the January 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C., in which over 500 rioters have been arrested so far.

As part of this Trump and Republican-led effort to undermine democracy in the U.S., more than 20 state laws have been passed as of May of this year that make it harder for Americans to vote. President Biden and others have excoriated these and other proposed voting restrictions as the biggest threat to American democracy since the Civil War.

What changes should we expect?

What changes should we expect in conflict and democracy in the next couple of years?

It is difficult to predict future changes in conflict levels. The number of deaths from violent events around the world will depend on reforms in international and national policies and actions related to these events. At this time, there are no apparent trends, either positive or negative, that are likely to cause a significant change from the status quo.

Future trends in homicide are also unclear. On the one hand, there appears to be pent-up anger and frustration caused by the pandemic that have raised the worldwide level of homicides and assaults. On the other hand, as we gain more control over the pandemic, these sources of violence may subside. One hopeful note may be that in the United States and possibly in other countries, police violence against minorities may be reduced as a result of strong public protests against such violence. However, continued easy access to guns in the United States and gang activity in Central and South America are likely to increase homicides in the near future.

As stated above, some of the reduction in democratic freedom during the pandemic may disappear as restrictive measures intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus are eliminated. But this change is a separate issue from the erosion of democracy during the past 15 years or so. Future trends in this long-term pattern are not readily predictable.

Then there is the anti-democratic cult of Trump and his sycophants in the Republican party. What will happen in the U.S. between now and the 2022 elections? Will we restore democratic norms or move increasingly toward authoritarianism?

Stay tuned. Or, better yet, play an active role in exposing “the big lie” and championing free and fair elections.

The impact of Covid-19: The pandemic’s effects on progress toward a more cooperative world society in 2020 and 2021

The Cooperative Society Newsletter
May 2021, Issue 28
by E.G. Nadeau, Ph.D.

We have been writing about whether or not humans have been moving toward or away from a more cooperative society since 2016. The pandemic, which began in December 2019, has had a profound effect not only on our health and mortality, but on the world’s economy, political landscape, social well-being, and the environment. That impact is continuing in 2021, and very probably will have significant consequences in subsequent years.

We will talk about the effects of Covid-19 on our lives in three installments of The Cooperative Society Newsletter, beginning with this May issue and continuing in July and September.

First, a little background on The Cooperative Society Project.

There are three core premises to the Project:

  • We have reached a point in human history at which there are adequate resources for all human beings to experience a decent quality of life. Similarly, humans are now able to establish and maintain a sustainable relationship with nature. The problem is: We are not yet achieving these goals.
  • It is important to measure the extent to which we humans are moving toward a sustainable quality of life for all and a sustainable environment, and, when we are falling short, to take corrective action.
  • Achieving these goals does not depend on forces outside of our control. We have the power to shape the conditions of our lives and those of future generations. We are the agents of history, not its powerless subjects.

The 2018 edition of The Cooperative Society: The Next Stage of Human History and “The Cooperative Society 2020 Report” both review progress (or the lack of it) related to seven measures: economic power, the distribution of wealth, conflict, democracy, population, quality of life, and the environment.

Following is an update on the first two of these variables – economic power and wealth distribution. The other five measures will be addressed in the next two newsletters.

Economic Power

Key questions
To what extent has the pandemic affected the concentration of corporate and country-related domination of the world’s economy in 2020 and so far in 2021? Are checks and balances, along with alternative forms of business, being applied and planned to reduce the nega­tive consequences of this concentration?

Importance of this measure
As long as economic decision-making is dominated by the few, the rest of us are dependent on the choices that they make. This concentrated economic power is the primary cause of periodic, large-scale disruptions to the economy (for example the Great Recession of 2008-2010). It also has a significant impact on how we deal with crises such as those precipitated by the pandemic and global warming.

Major trends in economic concentration in 2020 and 2021:

  • The largest, publicly traded corporations in the world increased their combined market value by 47% between mid-April 2000 and mid-April 2021 – from $54 trillion to $80 trillion.
  • The United States and China are headquarters for the world’s corporations with the largest combined market values. As of April 2021, the U.S. accounted for 35% and China 7% of the market value of the top 100 corporations in the world.
  • Due to the pandemic, the world gross product (WGP) – the combined value of the goods and services produced by all countries – declined by a little over 4% in 2020. The only other time in the last 50 years there has been a decline in WGP was in 2009 during the Great Recession, and the drop that year was only .1%.
123RF.com: Fabian Plock

Analysis

These data indicate that the world’s most powerful corporations and the countries in which they are located became even more powerful during the pandemic. This was at a time when the rest of the world economy made a significant downturn.

Corrective action

The biggest factors that would reduce the power of these corporations are changes in the policies of International bodies such as the United Nations and the world’s most developed countries toward them. Tighter international anti-trust policies and enforcement of these policies, concerted efforts to thwart tax evasion by large companies, and progressive corporate taxa­tion systems could reduce their inordinate influence on the world economy. Taking actions to strengthen small- and medium-size businesses, and including cooperatives and social enterprises, would also make a huge difference. These approaches to creating a fairer world economy in the post-pandemic era are increasingly being discussed by world leaders, including President Biden, but so far, there has been little action.

Wealth distribution

Key question
Is the distribution of wealth becoming more or less unequal around the globe?

Importance of this measure
The concentra­tion of wealth has consequences for everyone’s economic and social well-being. Large differ­ences in wealth and income mean that many of us earn less, receive fewer social benefits, and have less influence over the political decision-making that affects our day-to-day lives than we would have in a more equi­table society. Inequality also leads to social unrest and conflict.

Major trends in wealth inequality during the pandemic:

  • According to Oxfam:
    • We could face the greatest rise in inequality since records began, with the pandemic increasing economic inequality in almost every country at once. 

    • It could take more than a decade for billions of the world’s poorest people to recover from the economic hit of the pandemic while the 1,000 richest people recouped their COVID-19 losses within just nine months.

    • Just 10 people – the world’s richest billionaires, all men – have seen their combined wealth skyrocket by half a trillion dollars since the pandemic began. That’s more than enough to pay for a COVID-19 vaccine for everyone and to prevent the pandemic from pushing anyone into poverty.
  • The World Bank estimates that the number of people living in extreme poverty – defined as $1.90 per day or less – increased by between $119 and $124 million in 2020 because of the pandemic. This is the first increase in extreme poverty in 20 years.

  • The World Food Programme estimates that the total number of acutely food-insecure people increased to 272 million in 2020, compared to 149 million people in 2019.

  • According to the United Nations, the pandemic could force almost a billion people into destitution by 2030 “unless nations introduce energy, food and climate reforms.”
123RF.com: takkuu

Analysis

The above data clearly indicate that the pandemic has “made the rich richer and the poor poorer.” Although there has been a long-term pattern of increasing concentration of wealth around the world, the level of extreme poverty had been dropping dramatically during the two decades prior to 2020. But the pandemic reversed the long-term trend in the decrease of extreme poverty.

Corrective action

This projection of widening inequality in the decade ahead is not a foregone conclusion. It can be addressed in two primary ways: by increasing taxes on the wealthy, and by implementing reforms to drive down the poverty rate.

Along with an increase in corporate taxes, President Biden is proposing more progressive taxes on individuals and families that would particularly focus on the very wealthy. Other developed countries have instituted such tax reforms, or are considering doing so.

International economic reforms could get the world back on track in reducing extreme poverty between now and 2030. According to the United Nations Development Programme,

“These measures include investments aimed at changing patterns of food, energy, and water consumption and increasing internet access as well as supporting low-carbon economies.    

Rich nations also face calls to look beyond their own economic woes and support developing countries by increasing foreign aid, cancelling debt, and financing affordable vaccines.”

123RF.com: Herman Lumanog 

Conclusion

Both the trends of increasing economic power of large corporations and increasing inequality between the wealthy and the rest of us accelerated as a result of the pandemic in 2020 and the first half of 2021. In addition, the progress that had been made in reducing extreme poverty during the past 20 years suffered a significant reversal.

But, progressive policies during the next decade can reduce the power of large corporations and decrease the wealth gap between the rich and the poor.

Announcing the publication of Strengthening the Cooperative Community

The Cooperative Society Newsletter
March 2021, Issue 27
by E.G. Nadeau, Ph.D.

How can we reduce inequality, combat global warming, and become more democratic?

One answer is through cooperatives. The one billion leaders and members of these member-owned and democratically controlled businesses throughout the world can be part of the solution to creating a better, fairer society.

From my 50 years of experience spent researching, developing, teaching, and writing about cooperative businesses, I describe in my new book, Strengthening the Cooperative Community, why and how co-ops succeed or fail. I also propose 16 specific, practical recommendations on how co-ops can become an even more dynamic force for positive change that benefits people and the environment in the 21st century.

The book first presents a historical review of a variety of cooperative sectors including insurance cooperatives that emerged around 1700; grocery, financial, and agricultural co-ops that originated in the 1800s; and electricity, employee-owned, and social services co-ops that began in the 20th century.

The book then focuses on examples of, and lessons from, my experience as a researcher and developer of dozens of cooperative projects in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

The third section of the book describes six “building blocks” of cooperative development that have proven to be key factors in creating successful co-ops and a thriving International co-op industry. The final section presents opportunities for cooperative development in the 21st century that have the potential to generate jobs and services for hundreds of millions of new co-op members and employees.

Readers will discover that we, especially when acting cooperatively with others, really CAN make a difference. Strengthening the Cooperative Community can be ordered for $10 through local bookstores and, Amazon, or download the PDF at Book: Strengthening the Cooperative Community – The Cooperative Society

Trump’s true believers. How many will see the light of reason by 2022?

The Cooperative Society Newsletter
January 2021, Issue 26
by E.G. Nadeau, Ph.D.

“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.” Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

Hoffer could easily have been talking about Donald Trump, except that he wrote these words 70 years ago.

The purpose of this article is to understand why so many Americans became true believers in Trump’s skewed view of the world during the past five years, and how some of them may get back in touch with reality prior to the 2022 elections.

Why?

The “why” issue is a tricky one. There are many paths to becoming a true believer, defined as, “One who sticks to one’s dogma … irrespective of the facts.”

Some people are more susceptible than others to putting their preconceptions of the world ahead of reality. This predisposition itself requires a rationale, one for which I have an incomplete explanation.

Some people who feel angry, alienated, oppressed, and/or beaten down by the world around them turn to faith in something or someone that gives them hope, purpose, and a sense of belonging. This transformation is often accompanied by finding like-minded groups of people who share and reinforce the same fervor of distrust, hatred, and/or shared belief in a cause.

Who?

Regardless of an incomplete understanding of the “why,” these true believers need a “who” to pin their hopes and aspirations on. Along came presidential candidate Donald Trump to fill this role of validator of their discontent.

Trump’s true believers don’t need to share the same detailed set of beliefs to swear their fealty to him. Some see him warding off the waves of migrating brown people from Latin America. Some identify with his antipathy to Muslims and/or Blacks. Some are reinforced by his promise to drain the swamp of deep-state politicians and bureaucrats in Washington. Some identify with his disdain for the scientists involved in battling COVID-19 or climate change. In any case, they coalesce around his promise to vanquish these “others” whom they distrust, fear, and hate.

In the unfettered world of social media, Trump and his followers find “enablers” who reinforce their beliefs regardless of the lack of facts supporting them. Lies repeated often enough become the truth, particularly for those who seek information only from sources with which they agree. Trump, his disciples, and their enablers in social media use the term “fake news” to characterize mainstream (“lame stream”) media in an Orwellian disparagement of factual information.

Another crucial set of enablers has been Republican leaders, particularly in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, who, for the most part, have kowtowed to Trump, despite his false and often bizarre pronouncements and actions. (Remember his musings on injecting bleach to cure COVID-19?)

The Washington Post’s mind-numbing chronicling of Trump’s 30,000-plus lies during his four years in office have affected his true believers like water off a duck’s back.

So, back to one of the original questions of this article: Can Trump’s true believers see the light of reason by 2022?

Recovering Trumpaholics

More than 70 million Americans voted for Trump on November 3, 2020. Most of these voters continue to believe that Trump won the election. They hold this belief in the face of overwhelming evidence that he lost by a significant margin.

Trump’s false claims about election fraud began in April 2020, more than six months before the election. He publicly repeated these claims more than 150 times before November 3. The expectation of a stolen election that he instilled in his followers culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

But this time, his egging on of violent protesters received condemnation by most people across the country and resulted in his unprecedented second impeachment. As a result, he ended his presidency with his highest disapproval rating since taking office.

Even many of the Proud Boys and QAnon fanatics have disavowed him.

Will this erosion of support continue? There are several indications that it will. Trump has lost much of his access to social media. He is now shunned by many of his previous business donors.

There is a split in the Republican Party between those who retain loyalty to him and those who are trying to distance themselves from him. He is facing numerous civil and criminal charges and huge financial debts that must be repaid in the next couple of years. The reality of Biden’s victory is gradually sinking into the minds of some “forever” Trumpers.

Trump’s true believers seeing the light of reason won’t happen all at once. And it won’t happen to all of them. Perhaps 40 million or so of Trump’s true believers will see the light of reason in time to put America’s democracy back on a solid track in the next two years. Many will not suddenly become moderates or liberals, but they have the potential to improve their ability to differentiate truth from lies, and to keep their political beliefs and actions within the bounds of a democratic society.

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Announcing a new book from The Cooperative Society Project

I’m pleased to announce that Strengthening the Cooperative Community will be available starting Monday, March 1, as a free PDF on this website and as a print book through Amazon and local booksellers. Many of the case studies and recommendations in the book are based on my 50 years of international cooperative research and development experience.

Some comments on the advance review copy include these perspectives:

“Anyone interested in concrete ideas for reducing inequality domestically or internationally should read this book, . . . —Dave Grace, Managing Partner, Dave Grace and Associates

“Thank you for this lively, agile, and accessible introduction to the cooperative world, . . . ”— Gianluca Salvatori, CEO, Euricse

“E.G. has made a major contribution to the history and future impact of cooperative enterprise . . . I hope the 16 recommendations in this narrative will be given serious consideration by cooperative leadership at the global, regional, national and local levels across all sectors.”—Dr. Martin Lowery, Executive Vice President Emeritus, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, International Cooperative Alliance board member and Chair, ICA Cooperative Identity Committee

See our press release here.

Liberty Mutual, get your head out of the tar sands!

The Cooperative Society Newsletter
November 2020, Issue 25
by E.G. Nadeau, Ph.D.

Those of you who live in the U.S. are probably familiar with a series of inane TV ads featuring an emu and his intellectually challenged human partner. The ads are for Liberty Mutual, a Boston-based insurance company that is one of the largest in the world.

It turns out that the company not only insures coal, tar sands, and other fossil fuel projects. It also owns at least one coal company in Australia. Among environmentalists, Liberty Mutual is considered both a bad actor and a sleazy one. Bad because for years it has contributed to worldwide carbon emissions, and sleazy because it pretends to be “sustainable” while continuing major involvement in fossil fuel projects.

As many of you know, I am a big proponent of cooperatives. Mutual insurance companies are close cousins of co-ops because they are (in theory) democratically controlled by their policyholders, very much like the one-member, one-vote control that cooperators have over their cooperatives. Thus, I am reluctant to badmouth members of the co-op family.

But, Liberty Mutual is no longer a mutual, and hasn’t been since 2001. At that time it changed its corporate status to a mutual insurance holding company. Without going into the down-and-dirty details, the company is no longer controlled by its policyholders but rather, primarily, by corporate executives and stockholders.

Mutual insurance companies can’t own non-insurance businesses, but mutual insurance holding companies can. Thus Liberty’s ownership of the Mount Ramsay Coal Company in Australia, which is drawing major criticism from local community residents for its environmental irresponsibility.

Closer to home, Liberty is also under fire for insuring Keystone XL, Trans Mountain, and other tar sands pipelines. In both the Australian and the North American projects, Liberty is not only a climate change villain, it is also harming indigenous people through its fossil fuel projects.

While a number of other major financial institutions and insurance companies have made commitments to cease their support for fossil fuel projects, Liberty continues to engage in greenwashing rather than meaningful action.

So, until Liberty’s egregious behavior ceases, I recommend that we all ignore the entreaties of the emu and his partner and buy our auto, home, and other insurance products elsewhere.

Violence in the Year of COVID-19

The Cooperative Society Newsletter
September 2020, Issue 24
by E.G. Nadeau, Ph.D.

The Cooperative Society Project tracks a variety of measures that indicate whether life is improving for people and the planet. One of these measures is “conflict.” The purpose of this newsletter is to take a look at how things are going related to this measure during the coronavirus.

Has violence increased or decreased in the world during the pandemic in 2020?

This is not an easy question to answer, partly because there is not a lot of reliable current data. The answer is also complicated by the varying impacts of the virus on different types of violence.

This newsletter sorts out some of the main things that we know and don’t know about violence besetting the world in 2020, and what can be done about it.

Several types of violence

In the case of domestic violence, there appears to be clear evidence that COVID-19 has caused a spike in violence to women and children. It is easy to believe these data because hundreds of millions of people around the world have lost their jobs, and in many cases are under stress from lack of money and food, the threat of infection, and uncertainty about the future. On top of this, many families are confined to staying at home in crowded conditions.

Homicides are a more difficult problem to analyze this year. Deaths from homicide appear to be up in a number of major cities in the United States. But these data can be misleading. The long-term trend in the U.S. and other countries is a decrease in the number of homicides per year. So, the increases observed this year may be a temporary blip rather than a longer-term trend. In addition, we have only partial data because homicides in rural areas and smaller cities are usually not aggregated and reported until the following year.

Protest-related data

ACLED, a well-respected data source on international violence, reported on September 3 that 93% of almost 8,000 Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the United States between late May and late August were non-violent. These numbers are far different from the stereotypes about the summer’s protests.

ACLED also reports worldwide data on conflict events and fatalities on an ongoing basis. As of September 19, the organization indicated that between mid-September 2019 and mid-September 2020, the number of “battles, riots, explosions/remote violence, and violence against civilians” had decreased by an average of a little over 20% per month during this time. During the same time, fatalities from these events decreased by over 10%, while protests increased by 33%.

One could speculate at length about what is behind these divergent statistics. So here are a couple of speculations from me: Crises like the pandemic may cause combatants and violent protesters to back off a bit on their violence because of disruptions created by a greater, more immediate crisis. On the other hand, non-violent protesters may increase their activity in reaction to the immediate crises and other grievances. Such a ramping up of non-violent protest is consistent with the Black Lives Matter demonstrations this summer.

The pandemic
Back to the pandemic, COVID-19 itself can be used as a form of violence, knowingly, through ignorance, or a combination of the two.

For example, we have recently learned from Bob Woodward’s new book Rage and the tapes from interviews between Woodward and Trump that the President was aware of the severity of the virus in early February 2020 but played down its importance to the general public – and continues to do so to this day.

The result of Trump’s deception as well as his incompetent leadership in fighting the virus is a form of violence against the American people, tens of thousands of whom have needlessly died of coronavirus, with tens of thousands more to come in the months ahead. To put this in perspective, the results of one analysis indicate that Trump’s bumbling of the War on COVID-19 has killed more than twice the number of Americans who died in the Vietnam War.

Antidotes to the virus

So, what are the primary antidotes to the violence related to COVID-19?

In the U.S., the precursor to addressing the problem is to defeat Trump in November. After that, the Biden administration will need to put together an effective national strategy to get the coronavirus under control through rigorous enforcement of wearing masks; promoting social distancing; and widespread, rapid testing, tracing, and where necessary, quarantining. 

In parallel to gaining control of the virus, the new administration will also need to provide economic security for those who have been harmed by the financial effects of the virus. This will take the form of a combination of unemployment compensation supplements, rent and mortgage protection, other stimulus financing, small business grants and loans, and guaranteed healthcare coverage for those with inadequate or no health insurance.

The coup de grace will be an effective vaccine, which is likely to begin to be distributed in early 2021 and will be ramped up to cover the entire population, probably by the third quarter of the year. Of utmost importance in its distribution is that, in addition to those fighting the virus on the front line, the rollout of the vaccine should equitably reach all Americans.

Africa is managing COVID-19 very well so far

The Cooperative Society Newsletter
July 2020, Issue 23
by E.G. Nadeau

Why an article on the coronavirus in Africa? Two reasons: I have spent much of my 50-year co-op career living and working in about 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, so I have a personal interest. Secondly, there is not a lot written in the Western press about the impact of coronavirus on the continent, and much of that is ill-informed.

Slogging through the morass of data and conflicting projections of the impact of the coronavirus on deaths, poverty, and hunger in Africa is a daunting task. This is a brief report of some findings.

Here is what we know, or think we know, about the impact to-date of the virus on this continent of 54 countries and 1.3 billion inhabitants – a population that exceeds that of Europe and North America combined.

  • As of July 27, there were almost 850,000 cases of the virus and almost 18,000 deaths attributed to it in Africa.* (The State of New York alone has almost 33,000 coronavirus deaths – approaching twice the number for all of Africa.) The level of infection in Africa is far less than many international organizations projected back in April. For example, one UN report stated that there could be up to 3.3 million deaths within a year.
    * Note that some observers believe that Africa’s cases and deaths are being undercounted.
  • Those deaths still may happen, but it is highly unlikely given the current trend. Africa has the lowest rate of infection of any continent except Antarctica. About one in 1,500 Africanshave been infected so far, compared to almost one in 75 Americans – a rate about 20 times that of Africa.
An African farmer takes her goods to market.  iStock/gaelgogo
  • Most African countries have done a good job since March of imposing travel restrictions, sheltering in place, and enforcing other measures to reduce the spread of the virus. In the two-week period from July 13 through July 26, 21 African countries and territories experienced an increase in the number of new coronavirus cases, 13 decreased the number, and 17 were stable or had no cases.In contrast, during the same time period, 32 U.S. states had increasing numbers of cases, 16 maintained approximately the same level, and two had decreases.
  • COVID-19 has not spread as widely in Africa as originally predicted, primarily as a result of the public health policies mentioned above, but also for a variety of other reasons, including limited travel into the continent by people from infected areas of the world, and the high percentage of rural residents in many African countries. 
  • Despite the relatively gradual trajectory of the virus in most of Africa to date, it is nonetheless taking a big toll on the economy of the continent. For example, the International Monetary Fund projects that gross national product will drop by over 4% in 2020.
  • Food shortages are already an issue in some countries, for example in Zimbabwe. The United Nation’s World Food Program is stocking up on food supplies to meet what could be a food crisis in Africa.
  • There is plenty of uncertainty and disagreement about what is likely to happen in the next year. Some sources suggest that Africa is experiencing a lag in the spread of the pandemic, and that it is still going to face a large increase of cases and deaths in the months ahead, while others are more sanguine about the continent’s prospects for avoiding such a disastrous near-term future.
  • The availability of a vaccine within the next six months to a year may be the biggest factor in containing the pandemic and resuscitating the economy in Africa.

To conclude this brief review of the coronavirus in Africa, it’s good news that the continent has had as few cases and deaths as it has thus far. But, it is way too soon to predict that these low rates will continue during the next year.

If you want to keep an eye on what’s going on with the coronavirus in Africa, I recommend this BBC website.

Unfortunately, I don’t recommend the WHO website on Africa. For some reason that WHO doesn’t clearly explain, the site covers 47 African countries and not the entire continent, and thus its data are incomplete and misleading.

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A heads-up on an upcoming book from The Cooperative Society Project

The working title of the book is Strengthening the International Cooperative Community. It is scheduled for publication late this fall. Many of the case studies and recommendations in the book are based on my 50 years of international cooperative research and development experience. The book will be available through The Cooperative Society website, Amazon, and local booksellers.

E.G. with colleagues, working on a cocoa co-op project in Madagascar in 2008

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The Cooperative Society 2020 Report is available as a PDF on our website. We encourage you to read the report, share it with colleagues and friends, and send us a note about your own observations and interpretations as to how to make our world a better place.

We appreciate your interest in and support of The Cooperative Society Project. Thank you.
—E.G. Nadeau and Luc Nadeau