Will COP26 Achieve anything Meaningful for the Ecological Crisis?

The next United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), delayed by the Covid 19 pandemic, will take place in Glasgow, Scotland, next year from 1 to 12 November 2021. It is the first time that the UK has hosted the conference, which will likely open against a backdrop of grim evidence that the planet’s ecology is under serious threat. Currently, the facts detail the scale of the looming disaster:

·        A global temperature increase of 0.85C against a 1951-1980 baseline, whilst being on course for global warming of an expected 4.1°C – 4.8°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

·       Atmospheric CO2 at 412.75 parts per million, when CO2 needs to kept to no more 350 ppm to avoid drastically rising temperatures.

·       The Greenland ice mass reduced by -4040 Giga Tonnes since 1992.

·       Arctic ice cover reduced by 2 million square metres since 1979.

·       A rise in sea levels of +69.21 mm since 1992.

Figures above supplied by The Guardian.

·       90% of the global population breathes air exceeding World Health Organisation exposure targets.

·       There are now close to 500 dead marine zones covering more than 245,000 km² globally, equivalent to the surface of the United Kingdom, caused by various pollutants.

·       The average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20%, since 1900.

These statistics point to ecocatastrophe and possibly extinction for humanity and all other species on the planet. And all of this after 25 previous world conferences on these matters, so the chances of anything positive being agreed appear to be slim in the extreme, even with the stakes being so high.

The much heralded COP21 held in Paris in 2015, which was meant reduce CO2 emissions and so keep global temperatures below 2C, was largely a fraud. The Trump administration in the US has now pulled out of the agreement, but even if the US had remained committed to the actions agreed in Paris, it would have had little effect on rising emissions.

Some of the pledges included non-existent (on any large scale) technological fixes, like carbon sequestration, which are entirely meaningless.  

A report written by climate scientists in 2019, “The Truth Behind the Paris Agreement Climate Pledges,” concluded:

“Countries need to double and triple their 2030 reduction commitments to be aligned with the Paris target,” said Sir Robert Watson, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and co-author of the report that closely examined the 184 voluntary pledges under the Paris Agreement.   

The report’s analysis of the 184 pledges found that almost 75 percent were insufficient. In fact, the world’s first and fourth biggest emitters, China and India, will have higher emissions in 2030. The US is the second largest and its pledge was too low. Russia, the fifth largest emitter, hasn’t even bothered to make a pledge. The European Union is likely to exceed its pledges, but not by the margin required for it to be effective.

Given the seriousness of the situation, why is there such reluctance to take the necessary mitigating actions from the worst offenders? And secondly, why do environmental campaigners, especially the large NGOs put so much effort into these useless conferences?

The industrial capitalist states and their corporations that produce most CO2 emissions in their production processes, make a lot money out of the status quo. These processes require huge energy inputs, which mostly comes from burning fossil fuels, as it is the cheapest and most reliable source of this energy.

Fossil fuel produced energy can be produced close to where it is needed too, reducing transmission losses, unlike renewable sources, which in the main need to be produced further away from the point of use, and will lose power on the way, even if enough could be produced for the system’s ever expanding needs. The imperative to grow, or die is inherent to the capitalist system.

As for the environmental campaigners, they really can’t see the wood for the trees, if you will forgive the pun, when it comes to inadequate pledges on emissions reduction, and buy into false techno solutions and ‘market based’ solutions like carbon trading, which have failed wherever they have been tried. The 100% clean energy movement led by the US based Sierra Club with a $80 million donation by billionaire capitalist Michael Bloomberg, has created a renewable front for natural gas.

In the UK, the prime minister, Boris Johnson last week announced a plan to power all UK homes from off-shore wind farms by 2030. It is not clear whether this means replacing natural gas for heating, as well as current electrical demand, but it seems a tall order if it does. Not to mention, other buildings, transport, industry and farming power supplies. At the same time, his government has made fracking licences easier to obtain by businesses that extract shale gas.

All demand for power will grow as it does inevitably under a system that requires ever expanding markets to survive. All those new gadgets and those to come, need energy to operate them, as well that used to produce them.

The problem to a large extent is that people just can’t imagine a world run other than by capitalism. This is what Joel Kovel, the ecosocialist writer refers to as the ‘force-field’ of the system, and so all attempted solutions to climate change and other ecological ills, have to fit with capitalism. Which in turn means they will not be effective, and tend to be piecemeal or green washing fantasies.

Perhaps another recent announcement by the UK government reveals that the ruling classes are only too well aware of this. Government tells English schools not to use anti-capitalist material for teaching leaves me with the impression that they don’t want the young, who are most likely to have ecological concerns, to join up the dots and reveal the truth about how the world is run. Censorship never works, especially in these days of the world wide web. These dots will be joined, or we will have no future worth living.  

The Cambridge Analytica Scandal Is a Drop of Water Trickling Down the Visible Top of an Iceberg

Written by Juan Ortiz Freuler and first published at Common Dreams

Cambridge Analytica is on the cover of every newspaper. The company managed to get hold of millions of data points of very sensitive data from Facebook users. Most reporters focus on the meaning of consent in the digital age and Facebook's inability to enforce it. Most reporters covering the Cambridge Analytica story are missing out on the big picture. 

The scale of the operation was only possible because Facebook has too much data about too many people. Cambridge Analytica is a cautionary tale about the risks of centralizing data and control over the flows of information. The internet and the web were designed to decentralize data and power. Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook is an example of what a system with a single point of failure leads to.

Many claim the internet is broken. As I’ve argued in these articles – here and here – these claims are often examples of misdirected anger. The social contract is broken. Inequality is rising, and the tensions associated with injustice are spilling into online space. Since the internet facilitates the collection of structured data and statistical analysis, it allows us to measure and reveal the overarching social tensions as never before. Media and unsavvy researchers often take a narrow focus that places the blame on the messenger, instead of talking about the broader problems that underpin the symptoms of the sick society their investigations reveal. Many claim the internet is broken… The social contract is broken.

The internet, with its capacity to facilitate communication, aggregate opinion, and coordinate by the thousands in real time, is arguably the most powerful tool at our disposal to solve the social issues at hand. The internet has made it easier for women to coordinate around the #MeToo movement, as it has enabled the growth of Black Lives Matter, to mention two recent examples. Rape, misogyny and racially targeted police violence are not new issues, but the internet provided a platform for these covered-up conversations to take place.

From the development of written language to the printing press; from the telegraph to the web, accessing and sharing knowledge has fuelled humankind’s progress and development.  Much of what was considered revolutionary only decades ago is mistakenly taken for granted today.

The problem with misdirected anger is that it leads to misdirected policies that could undermine the internet’s capacity to catalyze much-needed social change. We need to ensure that when we think about internet policy we think about it with a political lens: how can we ensure the internet will enable us as citizens to share ideas freely, coordinate around common interests, and act in defense of our rights and interests? 

How can we ensure that people are afforded these conversations as a right today and in the future? How can we ensure these protections even in scenarios where the powers-that-be feel profoundly challenged by people’s capacity to coordinate? How can we ensure these protections even in scenarios where the powers-that-be feel profoundly challenged by people’s capacity to coordinate?

If we accept that the internet has become a key tool for politics in this broad sense of the term, we can see the internet is indeed facing a problem. A problem that is often neglected for being less tangible, but that underlies much of what concerns the public about the internet. A problem that not only reflects but can reinforce current social problems, and frustrate the goal of ensuring meaningful political participation: centralization.

Centralization and decentralization

Centralization is the process through which intermediaries have reshaped the internet and the web, placing themselves as gatekeepers of information. In the context of an increasingly centralized web the ethos of “move fast and break things” that promoted and spurred bold innovations a decade ago has become deeply problematic. Each ‘mistake’ on the centralized internet of today causes harm to thousands if not millions.  And technological developments are increasing the powers intermediation affords the corporations that now employ what used to be a crowd of free-coders.

We the people cannot afford the risks this entails to the internet of tomorrow, and its ability to deliver social change. Decentralization is about creating architectural barricades to this process so that power remains distributed across the network.

The battle for the net takes place today and everyday. There are no straightforward solutions. Every turn implies hard choices. It is therefore time to involve as many people as possible in this process about thinking about solutions. Unsurprisingly, we need to be aware not only of the power these intermediaries exercise over politics, academia, and the private sector, but how delving into certain of these topics havs become interestingly and unacceptably taboo. Decentralization is about creating architectural barricades to this process so that power remains distributed across the network.

If we hope to protect the citizens of tomorrow from expected and unexpected scenarios we need to get creative and bold today. And we need the mass of netizens on board. We need open and robust debates. We cannot afford anything less than this. Too much is at stake.

If the reason for much of the misdirected anger is that the centralization process is less tangible than the symptoms it might trigger, perhaps a first step must be to make this underlying layer more visible and part of our public discourse.

The closed environments in which technology is being developed by private companies, and its metaphors – such as “the Cloud”– which have been used to over-simplify the internet’s architecture, have done nothing but obscure the key political battleground of this century. The intermediaries have the upper hand unless we can shed some light over this structure.

The Neutrality Pyramid

The pyramid below has the humble purpose of re-stating the physical existence of intermediaries, and their power. It shows some of the distinctive layers in which gatekeeping is being exercised today, and which could affect users’ ability to share ideas and produce meaningful change tomorrow.

The pyramidal structure suggests that, from a user perspective, different actors exercise various types of control over our ability to deliver a message.  Re-aligning incentives for these intermediaries to work in favour of society’s goals might require developing a multi-pronged strategy, with tailored and targeted approaches for each level of the pyramid.

If an ISP decides that no data packets containing certain keywords should be delivered, then it doesn’t matter what device we have, or what platform we rely on: the message will not be delivered. If a device does not allow the use of certain apps, then certain tools may become unavailable, and so on. The lower an actor is placed on the pyramid, the greater the risk that they pose to the open internet and the open web as tools for social change.

1.    Seeing the pyramid: As users and responsible consumers we need to be aware of exactly who each of these intermediaries are and how they manage their role as intermediaries. If they do not respect our rights, we should shift to more decent providers or services.

2.    Observing behaviors within each layer: As a community we need to promote enforceable rules to ensure that each level of the pyramid will be kept from abusing its intermediary powers. Public committees should be set up to assess the degree of horizontal integration and its impact on innovation and competition. Control over personal data and public discourse is increasingly in the hands of a few private companies, and this tendency unchecked leads towards an even bleaker future.

3.    Observing dynamics between layers: As a community we need to ensure each intermediary stays within its segment of the pyramid, ruling out any further vertical integration, and promoting the re-fragmentation of companies that have integrated across these layers over the past decades. Public committees should be set up to assess the degree of horizontal integration and its impact on innovation and competition.

This is not a new fight. A handful of avant-garde activists and innovators are already onto it. But it is ultimately up to us (the mass of citizens, users, and consumers) to signal to representatives and markets alike that we want change.

Personal control over personal data

On the one hand, new blockchain-based platforms like Filecoin, Sia, Storj and MaidSafe seek to decentralize data storage by offering crypto-coins for players who put their latent storage capacity on the market. On the other hand, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, is developing Solid (Social Linked Data), through which he seeks to complete the original web ideal by decoupling data from the applications that silo it today. Data will be owned and stored by the people, and applications will compete on how they visualize the data, and enhance user experience. An effective implementation would automatically create cross-platform interoperability, making platform neutrality less of a problem.

Think about how you can send emails from a Gmail account to an Outlook one, but you can’t tweet to a Facebook user. Silos are socially inefficient but continue to exist because they allow big companies to ensure we don’t leave their walled gardens. You social graph should be yours to keep.

Platform neutrality

Last year the EU fined Google for giving unfair and prominent placement of their own comparison shopping services. India has recently followed this decision, and fined Google based on the same behaviour.

Device neutrality

Whereas in Russia Android was fined for continuing to pre-install its associated Google Apps, in 2014 South Korea ruled pre-installed apps should be removable, and the EU started studying the effects of pre-installed apps in 2016.

More recently, a Member of the Italian Parliament, Stefano Quintarelli, has been promoting a bill since 2015 that would grant users the right to use any software they like, from sources other than the official – vertically integrated – store. Now the French telecom regulator seems to be picking up that idea as well.

Net Neutrality

Perhaps the most well known of all the layers of the pyramid. Regulators in India, EU and elsewhere have effectively pushed against the pressure exerted by ISPs to keep the owners of the infrastructure from discriminating between the content that travels through the network. As the basis of the pyramid, failure to ensure neutrality of the net would arguably collapse the rest of the layers.

Silos are socially inefficient but continue to exist because they allow big companies to ensure we don’t leave their walled gardens.

The battle to ensure the internet remains a tool for citizens to create a more just society will be our constant companion throughout the next decade. The battle is uphill. With each day that goes by without a thorough debate on our rights, the odds of winning the battle get slimmer.

The sketch outlined here, and elsewhere this series, suggests difficult trade-offs. Many questions remain. Yet we should not feel paralyzed by the grave asymmetry of information between us and the intermediaries. Intermediaries rely on the opacity of their systems strategically, and continuously leverage it, to stall conversations about the risk they represent to us and our political system. I hope these pieces illuminate a space around which we can gather and think out loud.

Big UK Left Independent Media Censors Small Left Independent Media Sites

Some of the biggest names in the UK independent left media have joined forces to promote their very own news narrative. Skwarkbox, The Canary, Evolve Politics, Another Angry Voice, Media Lens and Real Media are amongst them. This consortium has recently set up a Facebook group titled ‘Independent Media UK’ which has grown quickly in members. I was aware of this initiative from reading a post on Skwarkbox, but later in the day someone ‘joined’ me into this group.

I assumed that this person thought it was worthwhile me joining the group, as an independent left blogger, and posting links to my blog posts. I did indeed post a link into the group, but a day later a new rule was introduced that only the admins could now post on the group. I think these admins are connected to the above mentioned media outlets.

With not the slightest trace of irony, a pinned post from The Canary introduces the group thus:

Welcome, to what will become the largest progressive FB group in the UK. Facebook is making changes that reduce the amount of truly independent media and campaigning journalism you see in your news feed. So we have come together to ensure you never miss breaking news, analysis and opinion on the issues that matter to you.

Spread the word!

They then immediately shut down any posts from outside of their consortium, blaming this on Facebook, then set up err… a Facebook group which censors outside postings. One commenter did call it ‘controlling the narrative,’ and I think this is right. Another way of describing it is censorship for those not in the gang. There were a few more comments against the move but most group members appeared to be in favour. They may have been friends of the admins though, I don’t know.

One of these comments was ‘we are all in this together, that’s for sure….filthy rotten platform it is, Facebook.’ I’ve had my own problems posting onto Facebook, mainly because of too many posts, or posts too quickly added to various groups. They don’t seem to like you getting something for nothing, but it is not as though I make any money from my posts. The irony of the situation, banning other independent media in the group, was again lost on this commenter.

This consortium of large media sites are to a greater or lesser extent commercial sites, they earn money through advertising and reader donations, whereas my blog, and many mostly quite small outlets are non-commercial, and operate on a share a like commons licence, which is the most ethical way for independent left media to operate.  

I twice posted a link to my blog in the comments thread, but both times they were quickly removed, with no explanation offered as to why. Obviously the people who have set up this group can do what like in terms who can post and what, but then to claim that this is a truly independent media site is disingenuous. It is filtered media, and exclusive to the biggest independent left media sites.   

I think it also very arrogant of these big sites to insist on being the only on-line word of truth and interest, and rather un-comradely. The Green Left Facebook group for example allows posts from all of these left media sites, but maybe in light of what they are doing on their group, perhaps we should respond in kind, and ban them? Maybe other groups would follow suit?

It is not as though these big sites need much extra publicity and feeds as they are available on many feeds, many of which I subscribe to, so apart from anything else it just looks greedy and vindictive. I intend to boycott these sites in future.

Maybe us smaller left media outlets should get together and start our own media Facebook group? But I would suggest that it is not exclusive like Independent Media UK, but encourages other small outlets to join and post into the group? It is worth thinking about I think. What do other bloggers think?

I’ve quit the Independent Media UK Facebook group now, and will leave them to their echo chamber discussions. How quickly these alternative media outlets turned into an establishment of their own. Some independent media sites are more equal than others, it seems.