"The Joke is Over"

It's almost too much to hope for but The Guardian's Richard Wolffe sees a silver-lining in the Covid-19 pandemic.

For three long years the world has been treated to the sick joke of Donald Trump’s presidency. Some days were more sick than others. But now the joke is over. 

So is the entire facade of the Trump White House: the gold-plated veneer of power and grift will be stripped bare by a global pandemic and recession. 

Of all the obituaries we’ll read in the next several weeks, every one will be more meaningful than the political end of a former reality-TV star. 

But make no mistake. The humanitarian crisis about to unfold will consume what’s left of this president and the Republican party that surrendered its self-respect and sense of duty to flatter his ego and avoid his angry tweets. 

Trump was right about one thing, and only one thing, as the coronavirus started to spread across the world. The sight of thousands of dead Americans will hurt him politically. It will also hurt many thousands of Americans in reality.

Multiple reports have detailed how Trump did not just ignore the growing pandemic; he actively sought to block his own officials’ attempts to track and stop it. Why has there been such a disastrous lack of testing? Because the president didn’t want to know the answer, and because his staff were too busy fighting each other to do the right thing. 

“The boss has made it clear he likes to see his people fight, and he wants the news to be good,” Politico reported one Trump health adviser saying. “This is the world he’s made.”
Never mind a world turned upside down by fear and death. Trump’s world is upended by his gobsmackingly childish comments about how the whole thing will blow over. “It’s going to disappear,” he told one reception inside the White House just two weeks ago. “One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” 

The only miracle of this presidency is that it’s taken so long for this country to wake up to the catastrophe.

Covid-19. We're In It For the Duration.

It's a bit worrisome when our leaders come out with misleading narratives on something as serious as a pandemic. In the case of Donald Trump that's to be expected. Others you might expect to know better, to be more factually grounded.

The message that I'm getting from world leaders is that Covid-19 is a global contagion but it's going to come and then, in some more or less orderly and predictable fashion, go and we'll all get back on with our lives.  Today's recession warning from the Royal Bank assumes the current pandemic "will run its course by the end of the first half of the year."

So, if this pandemic isn't a "slam, bam, thank you ma'am" what is it?

The US Centers for Disease Control, CDC, looks at the deadly Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-19.  That  virus hit in three waves, the second by far the most deadly.

There are many other sites but they all confirm that pandemics aren't over quickly and they come in waves, the subsequent waves usually far more lethal because the virus itself mutates.  In 1918, the first wave hit in the spring but it was the second wave, in the fall of 1918, that was by far the more devastating. The third wave that hit in the winter 1918/spring 1919 was much smaller in deaths and infections.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control sums it up.

The virus has to be novel enough to prevail over the seasonal A viruses, and because of its novelty there can be little specific immunity among humans, except for older people who may have met a similar virus in the past. This new virus can then spread rapidly from human to human all over the world. Because of the lack of human immunity the virus causes a variable amount of severe disease and deaths: this is an influenza pandemic. As immunity increases among humans, and the pandemic virus changes, the pandemic strain becomes part of (and may dominate) the mix of seasonal influenza A viruses, perhaps changing some of the characteristics of seasonal influenza.

It remains to be seen whether Covid-19 will behave as other 'novel' viruses have in the past. If so, it's a 12 to 18-month contagion that will see either two or three waves of infection.

Is Recession in Our Future?

The Royal Bank of Canada figures that, between the Covid-19 pandemic and the engineered collapse in world oil prices, recession is in our near future.

The bank is predicting Canada's economy will grow at an annualized pace of 0.8 per cent in the first quarter, but then contract in the second and third quarters of the year. 

RBC is forecasting an annualized decline of 2.5 per cent in the second quarter and 0.8 per cent in the third quarter. 

Its forecast is based on an assumption that the impact of the virus will run its course by the end of the first half of the year, but an economic recovery will be prevented by persistent low oil prices. 

RBC expects the economy will pick up in the fourth quarter.

The Trudeaus Have Covid-19

Still no word on the prime minister but Sophie Trudeau has tested positive for the coronavirus Covid-19.

How a Pandemic Plays Out. It's Going to Be a While.

I've been wondering when is this Covid-19 pandemic likely to run its course. Two months, three?

Here's the skinny from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.

A pandemic is not a "one time" event and periods of illnesses may come in 2 or 3 "waves" anywhere from 3 to 12 months apart. The total duration of a pandemic is likely to be 12 to 18 months.

18 months. About the same time some experts claim we'll have to wait for a proven vaccine to come on stream.

Two or three waves of recurrence, from 3 to 12 months apart.

Well, it looks like we're in this for the duration. I suppose we'll have to find new ways of doing a great many things. I wonder what we'll look like coming out the other side.

Can We Finally Talk About Resilience?

Never, no, never, 
did Nature say one thing

and Wisdom another."

                                                                              - Edmund Burke

I've been writing about resilience in its many permutations since early 2009.

Resilience is a measure of the health of any nation state, including our own. It is determined not only by what we do in the present but also what we have done in the past and what others have done before us.  A commitment to posterity is a component to the maintenance of a healthy degree of resilience. It causes us to look back to our ancestors and ahead to descendants, including those not yet in existence. It is a stretching of time beyond our typical focus on the here and now.

Many years ago Bill Moyers produced an excellent series on posterity, how it had been expunged by neoliberalism and the prospects of a rebirth.

In that first post I looked at posterity in the context of the Great Recession that still plagued the world.

Posterity doesn't fit into our economic model of maximized production and consumption because it creates a fetter on both. We have lost our understanding of the importance of posterity to our society, to our country. We no longer plan today for generations to come far in the future. We no longer look much beyond the next electoral cycle. 

Protecting posterity is an act of collective consciousness and will. It is acknowledging that we're entitled to our fair share and no more. We can't have it all without depriving future generations of their fair share. 

To try to understand the idea of "fair share" imagine if our great, great, great grandparents had followed our path. 

Imagine if our ancestors had two things - the ability to consume everything they could get their hands on and a blind indifference to the day when it was our turn to populate this country. Imagine if two or three generations had gone on a rapacious binge gobbling up the world's resources; going into serious deficit on renewables (emptying the oceans, logging off the forests, transforming farmland into desert) and fouling the environment. Then consider how their depredations might impact on your life today. I think that's beyond the imagination of all but the best science fiction writers but that's of no real matter. It's enough in any event to make the case for posterity and the concept of "fair share."

These ideas are anathema to neoliberal ideology. The future, including future generations, is discounted to near nothingness. It doesn't have to be this way. It just is. It has become our orthodoxy. The New York Times ran a feature story on how Norway thrives while protecting the interests of future generations.

Norway’s relative frugality stands in stark contrast to Britain, which spent most of its North Sea oil revenue and more during the boom (Thatcher) years. Government spending rose to 47 percent of G.D.P., from 42 percent in 2003. By comparison, public spending in Norway fell to 40 percent from 48 percent of G.D.P. 

“The U.S. and the U.K. have no sense of guilt,” said Anders Aslund, an expert on Scandinavia at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “But in Norway, there is instead a sense of virtue. If you are given a lot, you have a responsibility.” 

Eirik Wekre, an economist who writes thrillers in his spare time, describes Norwegians’ feelings about debt this way: “We cannot spend this money now; it would be stealing from future generations.”

Neoliberalism is at odds with progressivism generally. Government in Canada is decidedly neoliberal. It is not progressive, despite its trappings.

Part of the problem is that the ‘now’ commands so much more attention. We are saturated with knowledge and standards of living have mostly never been higher – but today it is difficult to look beyond the next news cycle. If time can be sliced, it is only getting finer, with ever-shorter periods now shaping our world. To paraphrase the investor Esther Dyson: in politics the dominant time frame is a term of office, in fashion and culture it’s a season, for corporations it's a quarter, on the internet it's minutes, and on the financial markets mere milliseconds. 

Modern society is suffering from “temporal exhaustion”, the sociologist Elise Boulding once said. “If one is mentally out of breath all the time from dealing with the present, there is no energy left for imagining the future,” she wrote in 1978. We can only guess her reaction to the relentless, Twitter-fuelled politics of 2019. No wonder wicked problems like climate change or inequality feel so hard to tackle right now. 

That's why researchers, artists, technologists and philosophers are converging on the idea that short-termism may be the greatest threat our species is facing this century. 

...What these thinkers from myriad fields share is a simple idea: that the longevity of civilisation depends on us extending our frame of reference in time – considering the world and our descendants through a much longer lens. What if we could be altruistic enough to care about people we might never live to see? And if so, what will it take to break out of our short-termist ways?

Are we colonizing the future?

 According to the social philosopher Roman Krznaric, failing to value the lives of all these descendants is akin to ‘colonising’ the future – essentially deciding that future generations have no ownership rights there, or any say over how it evolves. “We treat the future as a distant colonial outpost where we dump ecological degradation, nuclear waste, public debt and technological risk,” he told attendees at a recent event in London organised by The Long Time Inquiry, an initiative to encourage long-term thinking in the cultural sector.

Our petro-economy is a profoundly stupid attempt at meeting today's needs to the impairment of future generations of Canadians. The environmental havoc our bitumen production creates today won't be our problem but theirs and they will pay dearly for our indifference to their future. We know our descendants will not enjoy the ease and comfort we have known. We are not leaving Canada a better place than we found it.

The wisdom of the Iroquois guides some futurists: 

...a principle called ‘Seventh Generation’ stewardship, defined by the leaders of the Native American Iroquois Confederacy many centuries ago. “Every decision they took had to keep in mind seven generations hence.” 

...They propose that the prevalence of short-termism is entwined with our attitude to death. “We’ve got a hunch that our inability to deal with the future of the world beyond our lifespan is wrapped up with our inability to deal with the fact that our lives will end,” they write. “Our denial of our own mortality prevents us from engaging with the long-term future.”

The defence of posterity spans the political spectrum. Edmund Burke and Theodore Roosevelt. centuries apart, shared a high regard for the role of posterity. Progressivism should not be the exclusive preserve of the left and centre-left.

Burke, the 18th century political philosopher, wrote of posterity as the glue that connects future generations to the past but also the present:

All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust. 

...one of the first and most leading principles on which the commonwealth and the laws are consecrated, is lest the temporary possessors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their ancestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should act as if they were the entire masters; that they should not think it among their rights to cut off the entail, or commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying at their pleasure the whole original fabric of their society; hazarding to leave to those who come after them a ruin instead of an habitation—and teaching these successors as little to respect their contrivances, as they had themselves respected the institutions of their forefathers."

In Burke's view, each generation has a life estate in our land but no more and that life estate, bequeathed to us by our ancestors, is in the nature of a trust. We are trustees of the land for the generations that will follow us. I would like to think he had the current neoliberal contagion or something like it in mind when he writes of "floating fancies or fashions" that undermine the continuity of the commonwealth and prevent one generation from linking with the other.

 
Roosevelt wrote of "skinning the land."

"I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer here behaves with reference to his own children. That farmer is a poor creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing of a nation."

I'm sure he was speaking plainly and pointedly when he talked of one generation robbing future generations, skinning the land and leaving it worthless to those who will follow. I wonder how he might have phrased that in this, the age of climate change and the threat of mass extinction?

Today we face near apocalyptic threats, challenges. We can expect to be stressed to the breaking point especially if we continue to neglect the essential resilience of our nation, our provinces and our communities.  Thomas Homer-Dixon addressed our predicament in his book, "The Upside of Down."

...we really do have some ability to choose our future. But we have to recognize what kind of forces we're up against, we have to have courage, and we have to be smart - not only at the time of the social earthquake and the moment of contingency that follows but well in advance. Specifically, if we're going to have the best chance of following a different and positive path, we must take four actions. First, we must reduce as much as we can the force of the underlying tectonic stresses in order to lower the risk of synchronous failure - that is, of the catastrophic collapse that cascades across boundaries between technological, social and ecological systems. Second, we need to cultivate a prospective mind so we can cope better with surprise. Third, we must boost the overall resilience of critical systems like our energy and food supply networks. And fourth, we need to prepare to turn breakdown to our advantage when it happens - because it will.

...

Alas, humankind's track record when it comes to proactive policy, especially in response to slow-creep problems, doesn't inspire much confidence that we will succeed in these tasks. Today, most of us are simply too deep in denial, and our political and economic systems are too hobbled by powerful vested interests for real change to happen in the absence of a sharp push or shock from outside. With colossal effort by the relatively small numbers of people today engaged in trying to do something about these problems, and perhaps with a good deal of luck, we might divert or somewhat weaken the tectonic stresses. But we're unlikely to weaken them enough to reduce significantly the danger we face, so we'd better get ready for social earthquakes.

...

A prudent way to cope with invisible but inevitable dangers ...is to build resilience into all systems critical to our well-being. A resilient system can absorb large disturbances without changing its fundamental nature. ...in an increasingly uncertain and dangerous world, we should sometimes give up extra efficiency and productivity in order to gain resilience - especially to improve our ability to prevent foreshocks from triggering synchronous failure. We can do this in many ways. One involves loosening some of the coupling inside our economies and societies and among our technologies ...We can gain resilience, too, by increasing the buffering capacity or slack in our economies. Industries can rely less on just-in-time production - a particular obsession of the past two decades - and instead build up inventories of feedstocks and parts so they can keep running even when supplies of essential inputs are temporarily interrupted. 

...

Of course, many of these recommendations fly in the face of the ideology of today's globalized capitalism. In its most dogmatic formulation, this ideology says that larger scale, faster growth, less government, and more efficiency, connectivity and speed are always better. Slack is always waste. So resilience - even as an idea, let alone as a goal of public policy - isn't found anywhere on the agendas of our societies' leaders. ...And because our leaders hardly ever think about resilience, we keep doing things that make our lives progressively less resilient - we pile on more debt, build tract housing over the finest cropland, develop addictions to distant sources of energy, become so specialized that we can't take care of ourselves when everyday technologies fail, and fill every nook and cranny of our days with so much junk information and pointless running around that we don't have time to reflect on what we're doing or where we're going.

In other words we must get ourselves, our society, out from under this ultimately destructive, even suffocating neoliberal ideology that our political leadership is so determined to perpetuate. That will be an act of unplugging from a system in which we've become tightly integrated. Think of it as leaping from the car of a runaway train after you spot the bridge out just ahead. You're choosing a somewhat slim chance over no chance at all.

Neoliberalism expunges posterity and saps our resilience, leaving us vulnerable to disruption and chaos. We are placing the very continuation of a habitable future in jeopardy. What prevents us from seeing that? When we do see it why do we succumb to complacency?

Last October The Guardian ran a lengthy essay exploring our "environmental vandalism" and how we betray future generations. It's about how we have made ourselves "bad ancestors" in waiting. The article discussed Greta Thunberg and the contemporaries she has inspired to take their claims against us to the courts.

The youth lawsuits and school strikes dramatise a crucial aspect of the threat to democracy posed by climate emergency: the question of intergenerational responsibilities and ethical duties across decades and centuries. 

To put it another way: what is the relationship of democracy to time? This question may seem abstract but is actually foundational. We are all born into a world we did not make, subject to customs and conditions established by prior generations, and then we leave a legacy for others to inherit. The project of self-government invariably requires navigating the tension between short- and long-term thinking, our immediate circumstances and what is to come, the present and the future. Nothing illustrates this more profoundly than the problem of climate crisis, which calls into question the very future of a habitable planet. 

When individuals like me take multiple flights a year and buy food imported from halfway around the world, we can rest assured that we won’t meet the people who will, down the road, be most gravely affected by our carbon-intensive lifestyle. But don’t we have democratic obligations to them regardless? If we expect justice from our predecessors, don’t we owe this debt to future generations? Right now the world’s relatively affluent are on the way to being bad ancestors, the kind who think only of themselves in the here and now.

The writer stresses that climate breakdown is the greatest problem requiring collective action ever faced by humanity but the advantaged (that's us) prefer to look the other way.

Since 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that developed countries must make a radical break with fossil fuels, which means lowering consumption and switching to renewable energy sources while also shifting our diets away from meat and dairy, as animal agriculture is a massive source of emissions. A proposal for curbing emissions from the developed world so that the billion individuals who live without electricity can enjoy its benefits would probably pass in a landslide in a world referendum, but it would likely fail if the vote were limited to people in the wealthiest countries.

Resilience without social justice has a dim future. Collective action means all of us, all in.

“The Earth is fast becoming an unfit home for its noblest inhabitant, and another era of equal human crime and human improvidence … would reduce it to such a condition of impoverished productiveness, of shattered surface, of climactic excess, as to threaten the depravation, barbarism, and perhaps even extinction of the species.”  - US Congressman, George Perkins Marsh, 1847.

A century later, two pioneering climate scientists issued the following statement in a 1957 coauthored paper, bolstering Marsh’s case for urgent action with carefully marshalled evidence: “Human beings are now carrying out a large-scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future. Within a few centuries we are returning to the atmosphere and oceans the concentrated organic carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of years.”

The Covid-19 coronavirus is rocking the world and provides a rare opportunity to examine just what in hell we're doing to our planet and to ourselves. It invites us to undergo societal "stress tests" that we might discern and accurately measure our strengths and our vulnerabilities. It may be our last chance to restore resilience to our nation. It's time we had a conversation.

Oil Wars - The Saudis Aren't Done With Russia Yet.

Saudi Arabia has targeted Russia's EU oil market share. The Saudi plan is to flood Europe with "Arab Light" crude oil at deeply discounted prices.

The Saudis, OPEC’s de facto leader and top producer, are aiming to grab market share from Russia in the oil price war it launched on Moscow to punish it for refusing to back deeper OPEC+ production cuts last week. And Europe is a key battleground in the new oil wars as Russia’s Urals crude has traditionally been a popular choice among European refiners.

Saudi Arabia hasn’t seen Europe as a core market in recent years because it has prioritized continuously growing demand in Asian markets. But in the war of market share, the Kingdom is now looking to squeeze Russian oil out of Europe by offering deep discounts which make its Arab Light crude priced at as low as $25 a barrel at Rotterdam, much lower than the price of Urals. 

If prices of Urals and other crude grades going into Europe don’t drop to match the Saudi discounts, Saudi Arabia is set to “push out” the Urals grade from the refiners’ diet, Energy Aspects’ chief oil analyst Amrita Sen said in a note, as carried by Bloomberg.

Russia, meanwhile, says production cuts are a non-starter, fearing one cut could lead to further spiraling cuts. However Russia is planning to counter Saudi Arabia's increased production by increasing its own.

Russia plans to boost its production by between 300,000 and 500,000 bpd from next month, which would bring the total to 11.8 million bpd. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said it will boost its production by more than 3 million barrels daily from current levels, to 12.3 million bpd, which is more than its production capacity. To be able to maintain this production rate, the state energy company Aramco has been told to boost its production capacity to 13 million bpd.

What Are the Chances?

Four old dudes in their mid to late-70s. At least three of them with compromised respiratory systems from decades of heavy smoking. The four of them decide to travel the world with stops, every few days, in major cities. Their itinerary includes appearing in the midst of crowds of tens of thousands of excited people at each stop.

Just askin'. I've got tickets.

Meanwhile, Since Government is Hell Bent on Clearing the Way for a Foreign-Owned LNG Plant

To hear creeps like Jason Kenney and John Horgan tell it, Canada is being undermined by environmentalists and First Nations protesters working hard to sabotage our fossil energy economy.

About British Columbia's natural gas scam. Something doesn't add up. The first clue was when Chevron, which holds a half interest in the Kitimat LNG operation took a $2 billion (USD) write down on the asset which it seemingly cannot find a buyer to take off its hands.

We know that oil markets are collapsing due to a glut of even low-carbon oil. However oilprice.com reports that, chaotic as world oil prices may be, methane markets could be in even bigger trouble.

Excess production, depressed demand, and weak prices: this sums up the natural gas market right now even better than it sums up the oil market. Unfortunately, with the China coronavirus outbreak on track to become global, things for gas may well get worse before they get better. And while oil is suffering, at least it’s got a cartel to attempt to balance things out. Gas doesn’t, putting it at an even greater disadvantage.

The global oversupply of natural gas is nothing new. A combination of new LNG and pipeline capacity and milder winters in some parts of the world combined to tip the market into oversupply that persists to date. However, demand has been worsening thanks to the outbreak that some are already calling a pandemic in the making. As a result, gas prices in Europe, Asia and the United States are falling. 

In Europe, the benchmark has lost 27 percent since the start of the year after losing close to 50 percent last year. In the United States, Henry Hub futures prices are currently below $2 per million British thermal units until July, when the futures price tops $2 per mmBtu. According to Richard Soultanian, president of energy consultancy NUS Consulting Group, prices in the U.S. could weaken further, to $1.50-$1.60 for near-month contracts, before they begin improving later in the year.

What could possibly help gas prices? Europe is full of gas to the gills. So is Asia. The Energy Information Administration has forecast that U.S. gas inventories will hit a record later this year, at 1.935 trillion cu ft, which would be 12 percent above the five-year average. Production shows no signs of slowing mostly because a lot of the gas produced in the United States is associated gas from oil wells in the shale patch. There seems to be no way up for prices, and this means more pain for some gas producers, especially pure-play upstream companies in the U.S.

Two dollars per million BTU. BC's break even price for LNG delivered to Asia is nine dollars per.  I know the BC government, the former Liberal government, put the province's neck in the noose years ago when it boasted of a trillion dollar bounty but, surely, the game is up now.

NBA Cancels Season

A setback for hoops fans everywhere.

The NBA has suspended the 2019-20 season after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday. 

The NBA made the decision after a game between the Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder was postponed, then eventually called off. 

According to a statement from the NBA, the test result was reported shortly before tip-off. ESPN's Royce Young reported that a team doctor was seen sprinting onto the floor to talk to officials before the game tipped off. 

According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, both teams are still quarantined in the arena in Oklahoma City. Wojanrowski said Wednesday night will be the final night of games for the foreseeable future as the NBA enters a hiatus.

He Said It Was a Hoax. Now Trump Suspends Travel to Europe

This is starting to border on the absurd. Trump, who was initially dismissive of the coronavirus threat - until he worked out how to blame it on Obama - has now suspended travel between Europe and the United States.

President Trump said he would be suspending all travel from Europe for the next 30 days starting Friday. The restrictions will not apply to Britain.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump called the coronavirus a “horrible infection” and said he was addressing the nation to talk about the “unprecedented response to the coronavirus outbreak.” 

Mr. Trump also said health insurance companies had agreed to waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments and extend insurance coverage to cover coronavirus treatments.

The rare evening address by Mr. Trump was his most public acknowledgment of the severity of the coronavirus crisis after repeatedly playing down its seriousness even as his own public health officials contradicted him.

That sound you hear is a bouncing ball, rattling inside this president's cranium.

In other comedic news, Sean Hannity of Fox News has also been labeling Covid 19 a hoax. It so happens that the average age of Sean's audience is 65 which puts them right in the crosshairs of the group most at risk from the contagion.

This is apparently how Italians now queue:

Do Your Bit - Now, Go To Your Room

If it isn't one damn thing it's another.

Reduce your carbon footprint. Reign in needless consumption. Do this, do that and, when you're finished doing that, do this other thing. It ain't the freewheeling 80s any more.

So now we're being asked to wash our hands several times a day. Sporting events, concerts - give 'em a pass. Those who can, work from home. The Guardian has a helpful piece on how to convert that corner of your apartment for office Skype sessions. That'll come in handy when they start shutting down the schools (Seattle did that today) and somebody has to mind the kids.

It's not so much that you're going to keel over if you don't. It's that this virus business is going to put an immense strain on our healthcare system. It too is structured for optimal efficiencies. Whether it meets them or not is another matter. However it's not particularly resilient and it can break down. When it does, it's not just virus victims in jeopardy.

That was the message last week from Dr. Daniele Macchini, an Italian physician whose lengthy Facebook post was published in a local newspaper, translated into English and circulated on social media.

"And there are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopedists; we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us," he wrote. 

Three professors from the University of Milan also sent a letter warning doctors in the rest of Europe to "get ready," because 10 per cent of patients who test positive for COVID-19 end up needing intensive care.

"This situation is like a bomb that explodes, and you're simply overwhelmed by an incredible number of patients," another Italian physician, Dr. Giacomo Grasselli, told the CBC News Network this week.

Since we're losing the war to staunch the spread of Covid-19, the focus becomes on managing the problem, "flattening the curve."

"If you can slow it down enough and flatten the curve, so the same number of people get infected, but over a much longer period of time, then ... what you're allowing is that the capacity will not be exceeded," said Dr. Anand Kumar, a critical care physician at Winnipeg's Health Science Centre.

"And that protects the community, so that an ICU bed will be available when it's needed."

...Most healthy people will experience a mild COVID-19 infection because their immune system will protect them. But so far, the experience in Italy and China suggests that as many as 10 per cent of people infected can require critical care.

That creates an urgent need for beds in intensive care units, along with ventilation, dialysis and other life support technology. It also requires qualified health-care specialists to manage patients — excess capacity that Canadian hospitals just don't have.

You aim to modulate the population infected so that you don't have too many people in need of finite medical assistance at any one time. Covid 19 is a threat to your health but it may be an even greater threat to the resilience of Canada's healthcare system. Precautions that, at first blush, may seem excessive, even alarmist may be anything but.

Miami-Dade Commissioner "Tired" of Hearing About Coronavirus

I thought they had already made this movie:

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe Martinez during an emergency coronavirus meeting yesterday praised county officials for refusing to cancel outdoor events owing to the novel coronavirus outbreak. Then he complained he's sick of hearing about this darn virus already. 

"I'm glad we're not at this point even considering canceling any events," Martinez said from the dais. He joked that his own county commission meeting ought to be canceled too. "Because if not, let's cancel this one. Let's cancel the Legislature. Let's cancel Congress."

The commissioner's comments came after the City of Miami canceled the popular Calle Ocho Festival and organizers nixed the popular events Ultra Music Festival and Winter Music Conference. Multiple commissioners at the meeting, including Rebeca Sosa, whose district includes Miami International Airport, sounded outright uninformed about the virus that could strike their constituents any day now. Sosa, for example, claimed doctors don't know yet if the disease is "airborne" but was swiftly corrected.

But it's not just Florida's local pols who are throwing a hissy  fit. The cruise ship lines are fighting back also.

In the wake of the epidemic, a Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) employee in South Florida tells New Times some managers have asked sales staff to lie to customers about COVID-19 to protect the company's bookings.

These discussions take place every day. And even during our department meetings, managers tell us that it isn't a big deal, that more people die from other things," says the employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. "[They're] constantly underestimating it." 

Emails leaked to New Times show that a senior sales manager at NCL's Miami office came up with canned responses for the sales team to use if potential customers expressed concerns about COVID-19. 

"Team," the email reads in part, "these are one liner's [sic] to help you close your guests that are on the fence. DO NOT USE THESE unless the coronavirus is brought up."
Some of the lines in the script pressure a fictitious customer to book a cruise immediately to avoid paying more later. 

"Mr Becker," the line reads, "due to the Coronavirus we have cancelled all of our Asia cruises on the Norwegian Spirit. This has caused a huge surge in demand for all of our other itineraries. I suggest we secure your reservation today to avoid you paying more tomorrow." (News reports, on the other hand, suggest cruise lines are suffering from a spate of canceled trips rather than experiencing high demand. NCL's stock price has fallen more than 35 percent in recent days.)

Other script lines simply reassure customers not to be afraid. 

"The only thing you need to worry about for your cruise is do you have enough sunscreen?" one of the suggested talking points reads. 

Some of the recommended responses are blatantly false. For instance, cruise bookers were instructed to tell potential customers that coronavirus is not a concern in warm Caribbean climates. 

"The Coronavirus can only survive in cold temperatures, so the Caribbean is a fantastic choice for your next cruise," one talking point reads. 

"Scientists and medical professionals have confirmed that the warm weather of the spring will be the end of the Coronavirus," reads a second. 

Another line says coronavirus "cannot live in the amazingly warm and tropical temperatures that your cruise will be sailing to."

WHO Says the "P" Word

The World Health Organization has at last declared the coronavirus, Covid-19, a "pandemic."

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, made the announcement at a press briefing on Wednesday. Since first being detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in Dec. 2019, the virus has spread to every continent except Antarctica and infected more than 121,000 people, causing 4,300 deaths.

The WHO has, in the past, defined a pandemic as "the worldwide spread of a new disease." The coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, spread to over 110 countries within three months. On Jan. 30, the WHO announced the coronavirus outbreak was a "public health emergency of international concern" around the time almost 8,000 cases had been confirmed across 18 countries and the death toll was approaching 200.

The WHO was reticent to call the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic in an attempt to prevent panic and suggested containment measures were helping control the spread, but experts suggested the conditions were met in late February as case numbers in Italy, South Korea and Iran began to rapidly climb. On March 9, Tedros announced "the threat of a pandemic has become very real" but reiterated the spread of disease was still under control.

No, That's "23 and You" Harvey

The Daily Beast reports that disgraced movie mogul, Harvey Weinstein, has been handed an all-expenses paid, 23 year stay in the Greybar Hotel for rape and sexual assault.  His counsel had argued he should receive the minimum, 5-year sentence but - no such luck.

Weinstein, 67, was convicted last month of sexually assaulting former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haleyi and raping former actress Jessica Mann. The Oscar-winner—who was handcuffed to his wheelchair as he was removed from the courtroom—faced a minimum of five years and up to 29 years in prison.

Handcuffed to his wheelchair?

Weinstein did himself no favours when he rambled in court about how it really wasn't that bad for his victims and, after all, he was "a builder" and a gazillion little people depended on him for their jobs, including a lot of people he didn't even get around to - in a Biblical sense - because he was just too damned busy creating their jobs.

“I am a builder. I know how to build and I know how to generate and pass my success forward,” he said, claiming that his victims would say he’s “generous in that part of the relationship.”

“I am just feeling for the thousands of men and women who are losing due process,” he said. “I am worried for this country.” 

“People are losing their jobs over the fact that they testified,” he continued. “This is the United States of America. This is wrong. I had no great powers in this industry. At the height of it’s power, Miramax was a small business.”

So, it's Uncle Harvey, the 'generous rapist.'

Next up, Harvey flies to LA for round two of the Weinstein Rape-a-Thon.

Bernie Supporter, Michael Moore, Said it Best

Last night on CNN, Michael Moore seemed resigned to the idea that Joe Biden will be the Democratic choice for president. Moore has been an ardent supporter of Bernie Sanders but now accepts that Sanders' supporters can't have it both - ousting Trump and cleaning the stables of the Democratic Party.

When it comes down to it, sending Trump packing is the priority. Overhauling the Democratic Party apparatus can be left, for now, to working on reform from within.

C.D.C. to Seniors - "Hoard Baby, Hoard."

The US Center for Disease Control warns those over 60 should stock up on food and meds and avoid forays outside.

People who are over 60 years old, as well as those with underlying health conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease, are most vulnerable to getting sick or even dying from the novel coronavirus, and should take particular precautions to help protect themselves, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a media briefing Monday. 

... 

Messonnier also recommended people at higher risk and their families stock up on "enough household items and groceries so that you will be prepared to stay home for a period of time."

She reiterated advice to avoid close contact with people who are sick, wash your hands often and well, steer clear of "high-touch" surfaces in public places, and avoid crowds, particularly those in poorly-ventilated spaces.

... 

"This weekend, the federal government made a very specific recommendation in this context that travelers, particularly those with underlying health issues, defer all cruise-ship travel worldwide," she said, adding that people at higher risk should also cancel or reschedule "non-essential travel, such as long plane trips."

Messonnier pointed out that it's important for family members and neighbors to look out for folks who are in these higher-risk categories by, for example, making sure you're familiar with their medications and helping them get necessary food and supplies.

The goal of stocking up, she emphasized, is so more vulnerable people "can minimize trips to the store" and "stay close to home."

Finally, she said, caretakers should make a plan in case their loved-ones do get sick, as well as a plan for if they become ill themselves, like having backup caretakers.

There it is. The Center for Disease Control. No editorial musings added. I don't fashion the advice, they do. What I think doesn't matter one whit. What you think, however, does.

No, Say It Ain't So. Not That!

It's enough to make an Irishman's heart break into wee pieces. No St. Paddy's this year. No parades - not in Cork, not in Dublin. nowhere in the Republic.

The St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin draws nearly 500,000 people and it is the latest in a series of large public events to be cancelled. The celebrations were expected to generate €73 million for the economy. 

The last time St Patrick’s Day parades were cancelled was due the foot and mouth restrictions in 2001.

Hoof and Mouth, that's one thing. But a virus named in honour of a beer? That's intolerable.

I'll Bet Teck Isn't Crying Now

If anything, Teck Resources should be breathing a sigh of relief that it chose not to proceed with its $20 billion Frontier mine project.

While the usual suspects - Kenney, Scheer, the Calgary Petroleum Club and Canada's petro-cheerleader, Post Media - will be blaming it all on Justin Trudeau, the jig is up and JT doesn't wear this one.

There's just way too much lower-carbon oil on the market, a glut. That's always bad news for high-cost/high-carbon/low-value bitumen, the oil market's red-headed step child.  Good oil, cheap; crap oil, cheaper. Can't be helped.

Now, Trudeau isn't off the hook entirely. He did get a lot of hopes up when he made his pilgrimage to Houston to assure the oil posse that no country would find 173-billion barrels of oil in the ground "and just leave it there." No, no, no - he told those hombres that Athabasca was in Mardi Gras mode and they could count on us.

I wonder if Justin would repeat that same boast today? I'm thinking not so much.

As for Teck, I guess they didn't want to commit seppuku - ritual suicide, Japanese style. Only a few months earlier Teck had to take a $900 million write down on its one-fifth share of the flailing Fort Hill mine.  They knew that financial markets were turning their backs on bitumen and coal. Even Captain Austerity, Jason Kenney himself, was musing about his all-but-broke government becoming a last resort/life support lender to the Tar Sands operators. That's almost as dumb as Trudeau buying that pipeline.

And just how bad is it? It's bad enough that the Post Media gang stubbornly insist that the West Texas Intermediate price is somehow valid for Athabasca bitumen. No mention whatsoever of Western Canadian Select which is the price for prairie bitumen. So how's that going? Brace yourselves. Dave Climenhaga of AlbertaPolitics.ca offers this:

Last night when I last looked on my handy-dandy cell phone app, West Texas Intermediate was down to $27.69 US, and Western Canadian Select, our tarsands special, was trading at $14.43.

Hardly makes a man eager to dig that 173-billion barrels of tarry sludge out of the ground, does it?

It's enough to make a grown man weep or, in the case of the Calgary Herald's Chris Nelson, wonder if Jason Kenney's policies were lifted from The Wizard of Oz.

Heck, we’ve seen more five-year plans than Joseph Stalin. It’s more of the same, rosy, budget-balancing revenue projections: another $8 billion in revenue, 55,000 more jobs, 2.8 per cent GDP growth and a $700-million surplus in the 2022-23 financial year? 

What an absolute crock. Look, if politicians are going to do the heavy lifting that balancing this budgetary mess entails, they’ll do so in the first 18 months of their mandate. They aren’t going to do the nasty stuff close to another election. 

Yet in the year ahead, we’ll be borrowing almost $7 billion. Of course, after that, the money will pour in and save us all. Really? Are we Munchkins here?

... 

Kenney placed his own head on the platter when bragging the budget would be balanced without affecting front-line services in key areas. 

That promise is like one of those tattoos you get in Vegas. Never forgotten but always regretted. 

Sure, well-paid consultants can browse the provincial books before pointing out the bleedin’ obvious: that we pay more per head for public services, yet this doesn’t translate into better outcomes. That’s simple number-crunching.

...Humans don’t like change. We’re lazy critters. The way we currently do things is the way we like ‘em. Therefore, if funding cuts are imposed to reduce the billions we now borrow, don’t expect any re-evaluation of how services are delivered. 

Not a chance. Instead, those cuts will be borne by front-line services. It’s the simple way, because it leaves the system itself intact. Plus it annoys the public, which helps pressure the politicians to back off. 

A final word on Teck Resources. There was a time, not that long ago, when the Teck controversy might be a thing for a couple or three weeks at least with accusations and recriminations and finger-pointing aplenty. It seems that time is over, prematurely consigned to our "past."

There are other things to grab our attention, bigger things, and they're coming on hot and heavy. Teck, who cares?

Oil Wars or How's That Pipeline Comin'?

Russia and Saudi Arabia are duking it out and it has sent world oil prices plummeting.

The Saudis have been trying to close the taps on oil production in hope of ending the worldwide glut that has depressed prices. On Friday Russia, which is not an OPEC member, said it wouldn't play along.

The Saudi decision to cut prices by nearly 10 percent on Saturday was a dramatic move in retaliation for Russia’s refusal on Friday to join the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in a large production cut as the coronavirus continues to slow the global economy and, with it, demand for oil. 

The break in a three-year alliance between the Saudi-led oil cartel and Russia to support prices may be temporary. The moves over the weekend may well have been part of a negotiating chess game, and the Saudis and Russians can still reach a compromise. But if the collapse is lasting, oil executives say there is nothing to stop oil prices from tumbling to the lowest levels in at least five years.

“If a true price war ensues, there will be plenty of pain in the oil markets,” said Badr Jafar, president of Crescent Petroleum, a United Arab Emirates oil company. “Many will be bracing for the economic and geopolitical shocks of a low-price environment.”

Business Insider has reported that, as of the end of business today, world oil prices have dropped 31 per cent.

Oil futures tumbled 31% in a matter of seconds overnight on Sunday, their sharpest decline since the Gulf War in 1991. The losses are being fueled by sinking demand due to coronavirus concerns, which has in turn sparked a series of price cuts. 

Saudi Arabia slashed its prices by the most in at least 20 years over the weekend. A price-cut free-for-all has broken out globally following the collapse of an OPEC+ alliance last week.

Business Insider contends this is the biggest world oil price crash since the Gulf War of 1991.

Gee, this sounds like a great moment to be doubling down on expanding production of the high-cost/high-carbon/low value Athabasca bitumen, eh? 

Trust But Verify

Net zero by 2050. Sure, but do they mean it?

When a politician assures you his government is committed to making your country carbon neutral by mid-century how are you supposed to believe that?

If the government has been around for a while, a full term in office should be plenty, you can go by its track record. Has it been honest or dishonest? Has it been open or secretive? Has it kept its promises or reneged on them? Has it put the country ahead of its own partisan interests first?

If these questions set off a few alarm bells you have no business taking this "net zero by 2050" pledge at face value. If they'll lie to you, conceal the truth, renege on promises and pursue partisan advantage over the wellbeing of the nation in the short-term, why would they tell you the truth about something they tell you will happen in three decades from now, after they're long gone?

They want you to trust them but trust is earned. Has this government really earned your trust, anyone's trust?

Here's the deal. If the government is committed to a zero by 2050 Canada then it should already have a plan on how we're going to get there. It should be something they can document so that we can understand it and agree or disagree with it.

This is no time for manana politics - manana - tomorrow, eventually. Those 30 years are going to be gone in a flash.

We've been told we must cut by half our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Ten years. Ten years to cut half, a further twenty years to cut the other half. Why ten and then twenty? Because the first half are the easy cuts. That doesn't mean they won't be painful or won't require sacrifice. They will just be easier to achieve than the final half. We'll have to work much harder to achieve the second half, to reach net zero.

Our government has never accepted the target of slashing our emissions by half by 2030. If they're not planning to do the easy part, they've got no credible plans for laying the groundwork for net zero by 2050.  They're just screwin' with you, hoping we'll be good little Gullibillies until all of this becomes the next government's problem.

It's time we asked our government where Canada's emissions will be by 2030. Does the government have any plan for cutting emissions by half by then? If not, why not? What do they want for Canada? What are they prepared to do for our grandkids?

I don't want to be a Gullibilly, do you?

Covid-19's Latest Victim - Jim Bakker

Greaseball ex-con Televangelist, Jim Bakker, just loves to monetize his faith because Jim truly believes in the divinity of money.

It came as no surprise then when Jimbo was quick off the mark to hawk his latest snake oil, "Silver Solution," as a fix for the corona virus. It can be yours for just a $300 "donation." And, just in case you've got HIV or the plague or a nasty case of mangrove swamp crotch rot, no worries. Silver Solution fixes those too.

Well it seems the New York attorney general got wind of Bakker's coronavirus claims and sent the scurvy bastard a "cease and desist" order. Somehow I don't think the deterrent of $5,000 is going to cut much ice with Jimmy.

Wash Your Hands, Dammit!

Wash early, wash often. That's said to be the best way to minimize your chance of contracting Covid-19.

But how much is enough? Ask Round Rock:

I think that's pretty clear. Questions?

Then There Were Two

Elizabeth Warren has dropped her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Yesterday the rumour mill circulated the story that Warren had decided to endorse Bernie Sanders. If so, she hasn't announced it yet.

"Hamsterkauf" - Trust the Germans to Have a Word For It.

The common hamster is known for its ability to stuff extra food into its cheek pouches.

In Germany this has inspired a word for panic buying when there's some sort of public scare such as the coronavirus. Hamsterkauf.

Panic buying is perhaps part of the German angst that crops up once in a while. The question is: If angst made it into the English language long ago, isn't it time for hamsterkauf to follow suit and join the likes of dachshund, blitzkrieg, kindergarten, realpolitik and hinterland? Probably not, as compound words stand a far lower chance of ever being incorporated, but never say die in this crazy lexiconic world. 

Be that as it may, there's no denying the fact that a number of English-language publications have explicitly mentioned and explained the German expression for hoarding as they seem to like it quite a bit.

In a daily email newsletter called Morning Brew, which says it covers the latest news from Wall Street to Silicon Valley and beyond, hamsterkauf made into the "beyond" section this week.

"They say there's a German word for everything, so obviously, there's one for hoarding during times of widespread panic," the newsletter points out. "Hamsterkauf has a connection to hamsters, which store food in their cheeks," it continues. It even suggests using the German word in sentences such as "German grocery stores have been experiencing a wave of hamsterkauf during the coronavirus scare."

Monbiot Declares "Open Lawfare" on the British State

Guardian eco-scribe, George Monbiot, is in a mood to litigate an end to fossil energy power generation in the UK.

Far from building new fossil power plants, the survival of a habitable planet means retiring the damaging projects that have already been built. Electricity plants burning coal and gas and oil will not secure our prosperity. They will destroy it. 

But everywhere special interests dominate. Construction projects are driven, above all, by the lobbying of the construction industry, consultancies and financiers. Gigantic and destructive schemes, such as the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway, are invented by lobbyists for the purpose of generating contracts. Political support is drummed up, and the project achieves its own momentum; then, belatedly, a feeble attempt is made to demonstrate that it can somehow become compatible with environmental promises. This is what destroys civilisations: a mismatch between the greed of economic elites and the needs of society.

Monbiot et al are energized by last week's decision of the Court of Appeal to nix the long-awaited third runway at Heathrow airport.

The Heathrow decision stands as a massive and crucial precedent. Now we must use it to insist that governments everywhere put our survival first, and the demands of corporate lobbyists last. To this end, with the Good Law Project and Dale Vince, the founder of Ecotricity, I’m pursuing a similar claim. In this case, we are challenging the UK government’s policy for approving new energy projects. 

On Tuesday, we delivered a “letter before action” to the Treasury solicitor. We’ve given the government 21 days to accept our case and change its policy to reflect the climate commitments agreed by parliament. If it fails to do so, we shall issue proceedings in the high court to have the policy declared unlawful. We’ll need money, so we’ve launched a crowdfunding appeal to finance the action.

It sounds far fetched, almost wild-eyed, but it's really not. Eventually, albeit perhaps too late, we will have what Schellnhuber called an "induced implosion" of the fossil energy industry. Government will at some point begin shutting down the carbon economy and pushing the transition to alternative, non-carbon energy.  It'll be a "we can't go on like this" divorce and it could be protracted and ugly.

Bloomberg is Out

They're falling like flies. What's left - Biden, Sanders and Warren? Mayor Mike has withdrawn. Bloomberg just kissed goodbye the half-billion dollars he wasted on his presidential bid but not before giving his Billionaire Boys Club endorsement to - Joe Biden.

A  lot of Bernie supporters will be licking their wounds this morning but, seriously, does anyone imagine that Sanders could set a policy agenda for America's deeply "bought and paid for" Congress? There are still many primaries to go between now and the beginning of June but it's now a come from behind race for Sanders.

As for Elizabeth Warren, the future is not looking rosy either. She came in third in her home state of Massachusetts last night. Biden came in first.

Ms. Warren lost after liberal voters split sharply between her and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who flew into the state last weekend to campaign in hopes of dealing her a powerful setback. But instead it was former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. who came in first place in Massachusetts, winning voters over 50, moderates, black voters and even some liberals. 

The result represented her worst-case scenario. Ms. Warren had already finished in third place or worse in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. That left her on the sidelines after Mr. Sanders and Mr. Biden picked up momentum and dominated the 16 Super Tuesday contests, which included delegate-rich states like California, Texas and North Carolina, as well as Democratic strongholds like Massachusetts.

Covid 19 an "Act of God"?

It's not just the health care system fretting about the Covid-19 virus. Commerce is also affected especially in the modern-era of global supply chains.

A lot of western concerns are dependent on products and components sourced from China or elsewhere in Asia. Many other industries, especially in the resource sector, get a lot of their revenue selling to China. China may sell more than it buys but it still buys. Just look at how we target China as a prospective major market for bitumen and LNG.

Commercial contracts often have a "force majeure" clause that exempts the parties from liability (i.e. claims for damages) for non-performance caused by unforeseeable consequences beyond the party's control. Let's say that ISIS overruns your refinery, for example, or a flood of Bibilical proportions swamps your mines, something rising to the standard of an "Act of God."

Where problems can arise is that different countries can have different interpretations of these terms. Not surprisingly, Chinese authorities are a little more cooperative with Chinese industries in issuing force majeure certificates.  Your country, however, may have a more narrow interpretation, a tougher standard established in your nation's courts. You might not have an enforceable claim against your supplier for failure to perform but that might not take you off the hook for claims from your customer arising out of the very same failure to supply.

It's a complex area of law that rarely offers ideal solutions.

Bloomberg offers a look at a related problem, the "price majeure."

Illness is a very unusual reason for declaring force majeure, but coronavirus isn’t a common ailment. It has quarantined entire cities in China, overwhelming hospitals while leaving streets and workplaces empty. Some commodity contracts won’t include epidemics, Perrott said, although a case could still be argued. “The more the measures to contain the virus prove to be unsuccessful,” he said, the stronger the case. However, it’s a brave trader who turns to the legal system to take on China. In practice, those doing business with the world’s fastest-growing economy may find it easier to negotiate a solution that works for both sides.

Traders often talk about “price majeure,” which isn’t a legal term but a joke about Chinese buyers using any excuse available to walk away from a contract when prices have moved against them. Take LNG: long-term cargoes are often priced as a percentage of the oil price, meaning that they cost about $6 per million per British thermal units. In the meantime, the LNG cargoes can be bought in the spot market for as little as $3 per million British thermal units. The trick for a buyer is to declare force majeure in the long-term supply contract, and turn around and buy cheaper cargoes in the spot market. If that happens, that’s when the sellers call their lawyers.

Well, This Is Not Auspicious

When I checked the news this morning there were six reported deaths due to Covid-19 in Washington State.

At 11:11 I received an email bulletin from the Seattle Times of another Covid-19 fatality, seven in all.

Then, at 12:27 the next Seattle Times bulletin pegged it at two more, up to nine so far.

How an Irishman Views the Coronavirus

From the Irish Times:

A wise teacher once told me that humans have two basic responses to threat: panic and complacency. Neither response is helpful and both are in evidence today, albeit about two different kinds of threat: panic about coronavirus and complacency about other, apparently less dramatic problems, including, most notably, climate change. 

In fact, there are plenty of people who are responding calmly and efficiently to coronavirus, and plenty who are appropriately exercised about climate change. But my teacher had a point. If even 10 per cent of the panic about coronavirus was shifted to climate change, the world would be a substantially better place and our fight against coronavirus would be none the weaker.

- Brendan Kelly

The Ghosts of Auschwitz

In January a group of politicians and dignitaries gathered to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Auschwitz death camp. They joined 200 of the last survivors of the Nazi hellhole. Henry Giroux writes that several of the survivors openly asked if we're not witnessing a return to that darkness.

Calls to never let such crimes happen again were mixed with impassioned indignation and a “warning against the complicity, apathy and demagoguery that paved the way to the mass slaughter of about 11 million people.” Several survivors spoke not only to the terrifying criminal nightmare and systemic ethnic cleansing undertaken at Auschwitz, but also to the conditions that made it possible, warning that the lessons there have not been learned by existing generations.

A number of the survivors expressed alarm at our current moment in history when authoritarianism is on the rise once again. They argued that indifference and the failure to hold power accountable provide the moral abyss and political foundation that makes mass murder possible. Many, such as 91-year-old Elza Baker, warned that, “There are signs to look out for, if you don’t watch out one day you wake up and it’s too late.” The toxic shadow of Auschwitz and the collective repulsion against bigotry, discrimination, racism and racial purity appear to have been forgotten as fascist forces long kept at bay in the margins of society have moved to the center of power. For instance, in Poland almost a 100 municipalities have adopted resolutions declaring themselves as “LGBT-Free Zones.” This anti-LGBT rhetoric echoes a sordid genocidal moment in Poland’s history. It makes the familiar claim of passing homophobic resolutions which exclude those considered disposable from public space in the name of defending Christian values and “children, youth, families and Polish schools from sexual depravity and indoctrination.”

Under demagogues such as Donald Trump in the U.S., Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Recep Erdoğan in Turkey, Narendra Modi in India and Viktor Orbán in Hungary, a moral abyss has emerged in which state violence, widespread repression and a surge of lawlessness against those considered disposable have become the hallmark of an updated fascist politics.

...
Repressive apparatuses associated with fascist politics are further normalized through a culture of fear and a language of demonization, depravity and racism long associated with fascist ideas and culture. For example, in the United States, the Trump administration appeals to the racist sentiments of neo-Nazis, ultra-nationalists, white Christian fundamentalists and white supremacists. This is evident not only in his relentless racist taunts, policies and discourse, but also in his various appointments of white supremacists such as Stephen Miller, an avowed white nationalist who serves as Trump’s senior aide and is the architect of Trump’s immigration policy. As Rebecca Gordon observes, Trump’s racism and embrace of white supremacy has emboldened individuals, groups and authoritarian politicians such as Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who share Trump’s views.

We are witnessing the rise of evil men elevated to high office. So far it seems that our policy has been to ignore their vile ministrations in the blind hope they're a passing contagion that will run its course and go away. History has shown that's a terrible bet.

Gallows Humour

 I saw this on the weekend:

In the United States, conservatives use the word "socialist"

to describe everything to the left of hunting the homeless for sport.

Yikes!