October 20, 2023

A war economy is on us again

Yesterday saw Biden demand more money from the public to fund wars in Ukraine and Israel. Two extremely different conflicts, but with one major component: USA building and supplying the materials of war for one side.

The expansion of the funding available: $100B

The impact this has on the global economy is dramatic, never mind the lives lost in the use of this "aid".

The issue is that the "poly-crisis" phrase has lost all meaning. The world is simply in crisis and the only way out for the elite seems like an increasingly war-focused economy.

Price and wage controls are common elements of a war economy. We are not there yet, but it will arrive if these conflicts start boiling over the edges of the countries they are in.

Apparently, it is about "democracy" again.

The word "democracy" was used a lot for a justification for all this new war money, but of course there is no democracy in war. As one simple example, Israel is moving to shut down Al Jazeera, European countries are banning protests, and US right wing are now suddenly interested in debating capping free speech on campus (and elsewhere) again. Campuses are suffering whiplash where those who were fine defending free speech when it was hate speech against Trans folks are steadfast against criticism of war.

Right-wing legislators and capital are pulling funding from universities that continue to allow students to rally for an end to war.

Not that anyone on the left is surprised by such a situation. There are no principles on the right that cannot be jettisoned when interests shift.

I do not see how university administrators can have "positions" other than the protection of academic freedom and independence and ensuring safety for their community. Universities are a collection of academics and students who disagree on everything because they exist in the weeds of specific specificity of minutia.

University administrators should be collecting academics who study aspects of this crisis into one place and providing space for them to comment to drive democratic debate.

Political letters are good and desired, but not from the president's office. Political positions are what we have democratic unions for.

Administrations are confused too. They cannot shift their positions as quickly as the right-wing, but it is exposing one thing clearly: there is too much private capital involved in higher education.

Something that is becoming clear even to the administration:

Lynn Pasquerella, head of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, said: “There’s a demand for people to pick sides. I’ve talked to many [college] presidents saying we knew we would anger some, but the vitriol is extreme. Doxxing students to never hire them, and threatening to withdraw money because of a viewpoint is antithetical to American higher education which is grounded in the unfettered pursuit of truth and the free exchange of ideas.”

Financial Firms Dropping Net Zero

As Europe waters-down its climate goals, financial companies that were supposed to be the drivers of climate project investment are backing away.

As new rules come online for financial monitoring of financial companies' climate proposals, the heyday of green washing investments is coming to an end.

Turns-out that capital is only interested in climate investments if it means profit subsidies and there is not something dirty to invest in that makes more money. Last month, the UK’s Carbon Trust consultancy stopped offering “carbon neutral” verification, while the EU said it intended to ban companies from using carbon credits to make public claims of being “climate neutral”.

In a sign of the financial industry’s shifting mood towards this subject, Cushon told Moral Money that from today it would no longer offer new clients a “net zero” option. This means ditching a key part of its previous marketing strategy, after previously describing itself as the “world’s first net zero pension”.

Cushon’s “net zero” claim over the past two years has relied on buying carbon credits, which represent one tonne of carbon dioxide emissions being avoided, reduced or captured. (FT)

Instead of leaning on certification of "Net Zero" and the (fraud filled) voluntary carbon market, companies are turning to what is called "insetting". A fancy term for companies targeting producers in their supply chain to drive down emissions reporting.

Carbon insetting is the implementation of nature-based solutions such as reforestation, agroforestry, renewable energy and regenerative agriculture. (WEF)

That's right. It is the same as buying offsets, but because you own the company doing the offset they call it an inset.

Why are they doing this. Basic economics and regulatory avoidance. They can make more money investing in companies being given subsidies to "reforest" a region and then just claim these benefits in their holding company reports.

Ridiculous.

New LNG Projects in Canada

A group of Canada’s largest natural gas producers including Tourmaline Oil Corp. and Ovintiv Inc. is pushing forward with a gas-export project called Ksi Lisims LNG and has filed for environmental approval for the 12 million-metric-ton-a-year facility on the West Coast.

Ksi Lisims LNG is a proposed floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility located on a site owned by the Nisga’a Nation near the community of Gingolx in British Columbia.

  • capacity of 12 million tonnes of LNG per year

The project is claiming to be "net zero" because it uses BC hydro power to run. That is, the terminal is net zero, not the fact that the process releases methane and burning natural gas it releases CO2 is not considered. LNG takes huge amounts of energy to produce from natural gas as it needs to super-cool the gas to form a liquid.

The project also claims to be an "extraordinary economic and social opportunity" because it involves the Nisga’a Nation.

The project is backed by:

Houston-based Western LNG and Rockies LNG Partners, which includes nine Canadian gas producers, including Tourmaline, Birchcliff Energy Ltd. and Paramount Resources Ltd.

Rockies LNG accounts for a third of Canada's current natural gas output. The group has had to cancel other projects that did not meet approval.

A cynic might suggest that aligning with a First Nations community after your projects were cancelled because of First Nation's opposition might be not be because the company has an eye to indigenous community welfare.

However, this is not the first engagement with large natural resources projects for the community. The Seabridge KSM gold mining project is also done in collaboration with Nisga’a Nation. Seabridge is the world's largest undeveloped gold mine, which will also output copper, silver and molybdenum. Molybdenum is not particularly rare, but it is a strategic mineral.

Ksi Lisims LNG is not the only LNG facility being developed right now in BC. Shell has a 14M metric ton project under construction. Two more are seeking permits from Pembina Pipeline's Cedar LNG and Woodfibre LNG by Sukantoo Tanoto.

The supposed export market of all this LNG is to Asia.

Hydrogen