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We must remove each and every ton of CO2 emitted into the air

Category : blog , Divestment , Economy , Energy , Environment , Politics

Geordie Zapalac, October 3, 2019 (revised Jan 22nd 2020)

It has been inspiring to witness many people take to the streets to demand action on the climate crisis, and to direct attention to the deep links between the climate crisis and social injustice. Climate activism in the United State has most recently been focused on implementing Congressional preamble H. Res. 109 called the “Green New Deal” that addresses both the need to reduce CO2 emissions and the needs of marginalized communities after the required shift in the energy system. A more comprehensive Green New Deal had first been a central part of the Green Party’s platform, in 2010 by Howie Hawkins and in 2012 and 2016 with the Jill Stein presidential campaign. For this discussion the “Green New Deal” or “GND” will refer to H. Res. 109.

The GND calls for the transformation of our energy system to reduce CO2 emissions “to the extent technologically feasible.” It specifically recognizes the November 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that asserts that CO2 emissions must be reduced 40-60% by 2030 and 100% by 2050 in order to prevent the average global temperature from rising more that 1.5 oC above the preindustrial temperature. It also recognizes a need to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere “through proven low-tech solutions that increase soil carbon storage, such as land preservation and afforestation.” But does the GND effectively confront the climate crisis, or is it becoming a panacea that distracts us from the real action that is now necessary to save the planet?

Since the industrial revolution the CO2 concentration in the air has increased by about 50% and the global average temperature has increased by 1.1 oC.(1) What have been the consequences of 1.1 oC of warming so far? We have seen the loss of glaciers, the accelerating loss of ice from the Greenland ice sheet, an almost complete loss of sea ice from the Arctic, accelerating ice loss from the Antarctic, devastating and lethal heat waves and wildfires including vast fires in the boreal forests of the Arctic, catastrophic floods, a significant increase in the frequency of category 4 and 5 hurricanes, significant losses of agricultural yields, the death of coral reefs, a 20 cm rise in sea level, and a dramatic loss of life and biodiversity across the planet.

Is the temperature increase of 1.1 oC that we have experienced so far really acceptable? The Greenland ice sheet for example is not going to stop melting and will eventually cause 7 meters of sea level rise – would that be acceptable? And if not, then why should we regard the 1.5 oC temperature rise recommended by the IPCC as acceptable? Haven’t we exceeded our “carbon budget” already? Furthermore the IPCC has not been entirely truthful: they have chosen to simply ignore inconvenient observational data and to report instead the results of their climate simulations. It is well known that these simulations do not adequately account for several feedback mechanisms now in play in the Arctic, therefore they catastrophically fail to predict even the most basic observational data such as the rate of sea ice loss in the Arctic (2) or the climate sensitivity to CO2 measured from ice core samples.(3) Discarding observational data in favor of computer simulations should never provide a basis for policy decisions.

The higher the concentration of CO2 in the air, the higher the global average temperature of the earth, this is a consequence of basic physics.(4) The climate sensitivity measured from ice core samples indicates that if the 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since preindustrial times is sustained, it will eventually increase the global average temperature by 3.5 oC.(3) This implies that another 2.4 oC of warming is yet to come, if the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is not reduced. Today 40 gigatonnes per year of CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere worldwide, sinking us ever deeper into carbon debt.

It is important to realize that the carbon already released into the atmosphere is sufficient to eventually destroy much of the life on the planet, whether due to climate change or ocean acidification, and that this carbon will not be affected by any program we put in place to restrict emissions going forward, including the Green New Deal.

Will planting trees save us? By all means we should plant trees – it can only help. But it takes decades for a newly planted forest to begin removing significant amounts of CO2 – assuming that the forest does not burn down during this period thanks to climate change – and we do not have decades to wait.

The only remaining solution that averts catastrophe appears to be the removal of CO2 directly from the air by chemical means, a technology called “Direct Air Capture” or DAC. There are currently four commercial undertakings for DAC: Carbon Engineering, Climeworks, Global Thermostat, and a collaboration between Silicon Kingdom Holdings and Arizona State University. Ideally this list will expand significantly in the future with additional startups working on improving the technology to build a competitive carbon capture industry. The existing companies currently anticipate costs of roughly $100 to remove one tonne of CO2 directly from the air at scale.(5) This cost should be regarded as an upper bound after a few years of field experience with DAC at scale: convincing arguments predict that the cost of DAC will probably drop to $30 per tonne.(6) For the remainder of this discussion let us assume the conservative cost of $100 per tonne.

We may now answer the question: What is the hidden cost of emitting 1 tonne of CO2 into the atmosphere? It is not necessary to somehow account for the current or future damage from floods, hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, or sea level rise that is caused by climate change. Nor is it necessary to assign a price to the human lives taken by climate change, or a price to the ongoing loss of biodiversity; both of course are priceless. The hidden cost of emitting 1 tonne of CO2 is precisely the cost to remove 1 tonne of CO2 directly from the atmosphere: $100 per tonne.  When fossil fuel prices are increased to account for this hidden cost, then technologies for energy conservation, renewable energy, battery storage, and electric vehicles will become more competitive in the marketplace. It is likely that we will continue to burn fossil fuels, but we will burn significantly less fossil fuels and we will burn them responsibly because the cost of removing the emitted carbon as a ‘carbon removal tax’ will be factored into the cost of doing business for the fossil fuel industry.

We will need to remove significantly more CO2 than we emit to avoid catastrophic climate change, but for the remainder of this discussion let us explore the economic consequences of a carbon removal tax, intended to bring us immediately to zero net emissions so that at least we are not making the problem even worse. It is important to emphasize that a tax of $100 on one tonne of emitted CO2 must be used to remove one tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere: it cannot be diverted to any other cause however admirable such as research on wind turbines, adaptation to sea level rise, climate education for K-12 schools, etc. If the tax proceeds are not directly used to remove the emitted CO2 from the atmosphere then we will have solved nothing: climate physics makes no allowance for alternative causes with good intentions.

How would the U.S. economy respond to a carbon tax of $100 per tonne?  The reader may keep in mind that there are already four countries that have a tax in excess of $50 per tonne of CO2 (tCO2) and their economies are doing fine (7): Sweden ($133/tCO2), Switzerland ($87/tCO2), Finland ($65/tCO2), and Norway ($53/tCO2). The U.S. consumer would experience a tax of $100/tCO2 as an inflation of prices on most goods and services. Probably all prices would be at least slightly affected since in general the production of goods requires energy, but the most direct rise in prices would be for the direct energy costs of gasoline, electricity, and gas heating. We will review each of these costs to estimate its impact on the consumer and its contribution to the increase in the inflation rate, and then compare the total increase in the inflation rate to the inflation rate that we experience today.

  • Burning a gallon of gasoline releases about 10 kg of CO2 which would be taxed at $1.00. This increases the average price for a gallon of gasoline ($4.00) by 25%. The average household spends $368 a month on gasoline (8) to purchase 1104 gallons of gasoline per year, so they would be taxed $1104 each year to remove the CO2 from the air.
  • The average cost of electricity is 12 cents per kWh.(9)  In the U.S. each kWh of electricity produced releases on average 0.5 kg of CO2.(10)  This would incur a carbon removal tax of 5 cents, or a 42% increase in the electricity bill. The average annual electricity bill is $1340 which incurs a tax of $562 to remove the CO2 from the air.(11)
  • Each therm of natural gas releases 0.0053 tonnes of CO2.(12)  The average household burns 755 therms per year (13) releasing 4.0 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere which would be taxed at $400.

The total average annual tax on the direct use of energy is therefore $2066. Because the average U.S. household spends $60,061 per year (14), this additional spending represents an increase in the inflation rate for the average household of 3.4%. Historically, increasing energy costs have had only a slight effect on the inflation of prices that are not direct energy costs.(15)  We will use 7% as a conservative estimate of the total inflation caused by the carbon removal tax: a doubling of the inflation due to the direct costs of energy.

There are four important comments about the inflation rate due to the carbon removal tax:

  1. We must compare this inflation to the true rate of inflation not the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of about 2% that is typically quoted by the press as “inflation.” The CPI is calculated in secret and assumes that consumers will substitute less expensive goods when prices rise: the CPI therefore does not account for the actual rise in prices. Its purpose is to allow the government to avoid indexing government programs to the true inflation rate which is really 7% to 13%.(16)
  2. The carbon removal tax only increases the inflation rate in the year that it is implemented: it is a one-time increase on energy prices, whereas we suffer under the true inflation rate every year.
  3. In many cases the carbon removal tax may be avoided, for example, by driving an electric vehicle, or weatherproofing a house, or installing solar panels. No such options exist for avoiding the true inflation rate, which is created by the banking system and benefits only the extremely wealthy.(17)
  4. There will be a need to address the social justice impact of this increased inflation on low-income people and communities, Although not discussed here, addressing equity will be an important part of implementing any tax.

To summarize, H. Res. 109 Green New Deal cannot possibly avoid catastrophic climate change because it minimizes the significance of the carbon already released into the atmosphere and only calls for reducing emissions “to the extent technologically feasible.” We must unequivocally demand the removal of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere. It will cost at most $100 to remove one tonne of CO2 from the air after a few years of field experience while DAC is being deployed at scale. The hidden cost of emitting one tonne of CO2 is precisely the cost of removing one tonne of CO2 from the air. This leads immediately to a carbon removal tax of $100 per tonne of CO2 in order to reduce net emissions to zero. This cost would be experienced by consumers as an increase in the inflation rate of at most 7% and mostly only the first year that the carbon tax is implemented. This inflation rate should be contrasted with the current inflation rate of about 10% that we must endure today,(16,18) year after year.

Therefore a carbon removal tax is a reasonable, an accessible, and – most importantly – a responsible first step towards avoiding a climate catastrophe.

Geordie Zapalac is a physicist working in Santa Clara, CA in photovoltaics.   He is an active member of the Green Party of Santa Clara County.

References

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
  2. Peter Wadhams (2017), A Farewell to Ice. Oxford University Press, pp. 88-9.
  3. J. Hansen et al. (2008). Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim? The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2, pp. 217-231.
  4. Peter Wadhams (2017), A Farewell to Ice. Oxford University Press, pp. 47-52.
  5. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-carbon/scientists-say-cost-of-sucking-carbon-from-thin-air-could-tumble-idUSKCN1J325H
  6. K. S. Lackner (2009). Capture of carbon dioxide from ambient air. Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics, 176, pp. 93-106.
  7. https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-pricing-popular
  8. https://money.cnn.com/2011/05/05/news/economy/gas_prices_income_spending/index.htm
  9. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/10/27/141766341/the-price-of-electricity-in-your-state
  10. https://blueskymodel.org/kilowatt-hour
  11. https://smartasset.com/personal-finance/how-much-is-the-average-electric-bill
  12. https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calulations-and-reference
  13. https://www.howellsac.com/blog/cost-of-gas-heat-vs.-electric-heat
  14. https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/budgeting/how-much-average-american-spends-daily/
  15. https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2018-10/07-21-energy-dist.pdf
  16. ttps://www.businessinsider.com/if-people-knew-the-actual-inflation-rate-it- would-crash-the-economy-2016-8
  17. Many classic texts are devoted to this topic. A clear and concise introduction is provided by “The Case Against the Fed” by Murray N. Rothbard.
  18. https://medium.com/@bgschust/true-inflation-exceeds-7-8dced84ae05

Report on the Venezuelan Crisis

Category : blog , Energy , Politics

By: Geordie Zapalac, March 4, 2019, [En Español]

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King

This essay represents a snapshot of my own understanding of the Venezuelan crisis. It started as a very limited effort to better educate myself in order to write my representatives and argue against a U.S. military invasion of Venezuela, however I soon uncovered far more than I had anticipated when I began, and furthermore discovered that most of this information flatly contradicted what we are reading in the mainstream press and hearing from most politicians. All of the opinions expressed are my own and they are based upon reading the references provided for the reader in this report.

Venezuela has the largest proven reserves of oil on the planet, as well as enormous reserves of natural gas, gold, diamonds, iron ore, and bauxite: the source of aluminum. About 98% of the Venezuela’s income is from oil. The oil industry was nationalized into the state company PDVSA in 1976, long before Chávez was elected.

To obtain a better understanding of the perspective of the poor and disenfranchised in Venezuela before and after Chávez was elected in 1998, I highly recommend reading “Cowboy in Caracas: a North American’s Memoir of Venezuela’s Democratic Revolution” by Charles Hardy.

To obtain a better understanding of Venezuelan politics from a source independent of the corporate media, I recommend the site: https://venezuelananalysis.com

I. Venezuela has been the target of economic warfare

Venezuela has been struggling to survive under the burden of economic warfare that has been waged against it ever since the beginning of the Chávez regime in 1999, and very intensively waged since 2012. After Guaidó illegally declared himself president Venezuela has also been suffering under sanctions as the United States and its allies attempt to completely shut down a 30 billion dollar economy and literally starve the population into submission. As I write something similar to the Berlin Airlift appears to be taking form, with Russia recently delivering 300 tons of humanitarian aid to the Caracas airport. Perhaps we should call it the “Caracas Airlift.”

It is not possible to pass judgment on the efficacy of the economic policies of any government that is the target of economic warfare. This is because the usual rules of macroeconomics that would form the basis of informed government policy are simply no longer applicable.

A report outlining the economic warfare waged against Venezuela was presented by independent expert Alfred de Zayas to the 39th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council during September 2018. This report describes the regular practice of planned shortages, hoarding, exchange rate manipulation to induce inflation, and the unfair assessment of lending risk to create the false impression that the economic policies of the government must be failing. De Zayas emphasizes that all of these means violate the U.N. Charter, which strictly prohibits political coercion of a country by economic means. https://chicagoalbasolidarity.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/just-released-official-un-report-on-venezuela-by-alfred-de-zayas/

The mainstream media and many politicians in the United States have supported the economic war waged upon Venezuela by simply refusing to acknowledge that it even exists, then choosing instead to blame Venezuela’s concomitant economic difficulties on mismanagement by the government.

De Zayas communicated extensively with Venezuelan economics professor Pasqualina Curcio Curcio who wrote the book “The Visible Hand of the Market: Economic Warfare in Venezuela.” This book is available online and in English and it is written in a pedagogical style that makes her arguments accessible to the layperson; it provides the reference for the remainder of this section: http://www.15yultimo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/THE-VISIBLE-HAND-OF-THE-MARKET.-ECONOMIC-WARFARE-IN-VENEZUELA.-PASQUALINA-CURCIO-C.pdf

The economic war against Venezuela is conducted largely by proxy using transnational companies that operate in Venezuela or banks that extend credit to Venezuela. The three most important tools used for economic warfare against Venezuela, listed in order of their importance, are manipulation of the foreign exchange rate to induce inflation, planned shortages, and the assessment of country-risk by financial institutions. The drop in oil prices, often touted in the press as the primary factor for the collapse of the Venezuelan economy, is believed by Prof. Curcio to be of marginal importance compared to the three tools of economic warfare listed above.

Venezuela is very vulnerable to economic warfare. Imports represent 35% of the economy, and foreign exchange is only provided to 3% of the economic entities in Venezuela to manage these imports. This invites oligopolies and monopolies of large transnational companies to fix the prices of imported goods. The dependence of Venezuela’s economy on oil to acquire foreign currency also makes Venezuelans very vulnerable to the recent sanctions on oil.

A. Planned shortages

In Venezuela there are frequently shortages in retail stores for food staples, medicines, toiletries, and household products. There have also been shortages of spare parts for cars. These shortages require people to stand in long lines, or to search through many stores to find what they need, or to buy the item at a greatly inflated price on the black market. The shortages generally spike during important elections and at other times of political tension.

The food items that experience shortages share several noteworthy characteristics: they are high-consumption and indispensable items in the Venezuelan diet and culture, the production and distribution of these products is in the hands of a small number of businesses, and the items are non-perishable and easily stored for long periods of time. Examples of foods that experience shortages are pre-cooked corn flour, rice, pasta, coffee, and black beans. Examples of foods that do not experience shortages are locally grown fruits such as plantains and guavas, and meat products that are expensive to preserve such as chicken and beef.

Opposition parties and the corporate media argue that shortages occur because the government has not supplied sufficient foreign exchange to private companies for them to import the required goods and parts that are not produced in Venezuela. This causes a lack of supply and a drop in production which both induce the high shortages and inflation in Venezuela. Hence – their argument goes – shortages and inflation demonstrate that the socialist government is a failed model that is incapable of taking appropriate action to bring an end to the economic crisis.

Professor Curcio demonstrates in her book that examination of the economic data easily refutes this argument. For a shortage to exist, there must either be an expansion in demand or, if the demand has not increased, a contraction in supply. The shortages experienced in Venezuela were for basic staples so there has not been an increase in demand, therefore there must have been a contraction in supply. This contraction may come about in several ways: a decrease in imports due to insufficient foreign exchange available to companies (as the opposition has argued), a decrease in production, or a decrease due to a failure in distribution: by hoarding the goods in warehouses instead of putting them on the shelves, or by to smuggling the goods out of the country.

To help select among these possible explanations for the contraction in supply in Venezuela one may compare the economic data from earlier years such as 2004, a year of low shortages (7%), with later years such as 2013 through 2015, when the annual average shortages were severe (>20%).

Shortages have not been caused by insufficient foreign exchange allocated by the government to private companies and shortages were not caused by falling imports. For example, foreign exchange allocated by the government for imports totaled 16 billion dollars in 2004 when shortages were low but doubled to 30.9 billion dollars in 2014 when shortages were severe. Food imports were 2.1 billion dollars in 2004 but had increased to 7.7 billion dollars in 2014. Imports of medicines increased even more dramatically, from 0.6 billion dollars in 2004 to 2.4 billion dollars in 2014.

Shortages have not been caused by a decrease in production. The GDP in 2015, when the level of shortages was 30%, was 34% higher then in 2004, when the level of shortages was 7%. Unemployment has also decreased over this period; that would not be consistent with the picture of businesses and factories shutting down and massive layoffs.

Finally, economic data shows that the consumption of basic staples in Venezuela has actually been flat over this period. The Venezuelans are eventually obtaining the goods, either by waiting in long lines or by paying much higher prices in the black market. Therefore the goods must have been imported or produced. Because Venezuelans are paying higher prices they have had to reallocate more of their household budgets to obtain the indispensable (inelastic) goods such as food, medicine, and hygiene products. Hence there has been much less demand for other more dispensable (elastic) goods and this lack of demand has harmed businesses that import and produce these items.

The Johnson & Johnson Consortium runs several companies in Venezuela and provides a concrete example. These companies provide infant and nutritional formulas, personal care products, and healthcare supplies. Between 2004 and 2011 there were no shortages of these products on the shelves and the consortium received on average 2.8 million per month in foreign exchange. In 2014 the consortium received 11.4 million per month in foreign exchange – four times the amount between 2004 and 2011 – yet there were shortages for all of its products. Furthermore Venezuela experienced great political unrest with violent opposition demonstrations during 2014.

The specific examples mentioned above and in the remainder of this discussion are supported by numerous charts of economic data provided in the book “The Visible Hand of the Market” that reflect general economic trends after 1999 when the Chavez government began. I highly recommend interested readers to review this data for themselves.

B. Induced inflation

The most effective tool of economic warfare against Venezuela has been induced inflation. Economic theory teaches than inflation depends upon liquidity – the amount of money in the marketplace that is available to chase a fixed quantity of goods – and also upon demand. Professor Curcio argues that in Venezuela inflation has no relation to these two variables. Instead, inflation is tied to an exchange rate that is fixed by an illegal parallel or black market. The black market itself is affected by the planned shortages that were described in the previous section.

The value of the black market exchange rate has increased gradually and linearly together with the fixed exchange rate between 1983 and 2012. But beginning in 2012 the black market exchange rate has increased exponentially, with no relation to the fixed government exchange rate. This catastrophic increase in the black market exchange rate is highly abnormal.

Under normal market conditions the exchange rate should be controlled by two variables: the size of international reserves and the liquidity of bolivars in Venezuela. Higher foreign reserves provide a higher supply of dollars and hence a lower exchange rate by the law of supply and demand. But if there are more bolivars in the hands of the public – or a higher liquidity of bolivars – then there is more demand for foreign currency and the exchange rate increases.

Under normal circumstances we would expect an exponential increase in the exchange rate after 2012 to be accompanied by either an accelerated increase in liquidity of bolivars in Venezuela or by an accelerated decrease in international reserves. Neither of these trends is observed. Apparently the mechanism driving up the exchange rate on the black market has no relation to standard macroeconomic principles. What then is actually happening in Venezuela?

When large transnational companies exchange bolivars for dollars from the Venezuelan Central Bank they obtain dollars at a low exchange rate that is fixed by the government. The low exchange rate enjoyed by these companies is an attempt by the government to subsidize costs of imported goods for the population such as food and medicine. These companies pay for overseas goods in dollars, import the goods to Venezuela, and then price the goods in bolivars based not upon the government exchange rate, but instead upon the far higher illegal black market exchange rate. Notably the illegal exchange rate spikes during elections and other events that cause political unrest.

The black market exchange rates used on the books for these companies are published on websites. Perhaps the most infamous website is called “DolarToday”. This site is run by Gustavo Díaz, a hardware salesman who works at a Home Depot store in Hoover, Alabama. Before he obtained asylum in the United States he was in the Venezuelan military and involved in the short-lived 2002 coup that replaced Chavez for two days until the population rose up and rebelled: https://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuelas-nemesis-is-a-screw-salesman-at-a-home-depot- in-alabama-1479672919

The site DolarToday has been sued by the Venezuelan government: https://www.scribd.com/document/286783980/Venezuela-Central-Bank-v-Dolar-Today- USDC-Delaware-23-October-2015?mod=article_inline

This is the manner by which oligopolies of large transnational companies operate as proxies for the economic war against Venezuela. Once the black market exchange rate has been artificially boosted to an exorbitant level – a level with no basis at all in sound economic principles – it affects the entire chain of production. 79% of imported goods are not directly consumed but serve instead as parts or raw materials for production in Venezuela. The increased cost of production produces a contraction in supply of the finished goods which are now offered at much higher prices. This phenomena is known as “aggregate supply shock” and is the origin of induced inflation.

C. Arbitrary assessment of country-risk

Another important weapon of economic war against Venezuela is the international financial blockade. This is a blockade of international credit to both the government and domestic companies, most notably the nationally owned oil company PDVSA. This blockade is not an outright denial of loans to Venezuela: it works by portraying Venezuela unfairly as a credit risk so that interest rates on loans become increasingly costly. When interest rates for credit become too costly for a country to manage the country may need to turn to the International Monetary Fund for low interest loans, but this requires the country to submit to a set of “macroeconomic stabilization” or austerity policies.

Country-risk is an index intended to measure the ability of a country to fulfill its financial commitments. Country-risk is assigned in points: every 100 points increases the interest rate by 1% over the interest rate assigned to a United States Treasury bond. Country-risk is calculated by the following banks: Credit Suisse, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank. These are private entities that notably hold stock in large companies and in the mass media. The country-risk index assigned to Venezuela is the highest in the world: 2323 at the time of publication of “The Visible Hand of the Market”. The second highest country-risk index was assigned to Ecuador at 745.

The country-risk index would be expected to decrease with a higher compliance on the payment of foreign debt, but for Venezuela, increasing compliance with payments on foreign debt has been associated with an increased country-risk. For the case of Venezuela one might expect the country-risk to be correlated with the price of oil because most of Venezuela’s foreign exchange comes from the sale of oil, but instead the country-risk has shown no correlation with the oil price. There is also no correlation of country-risk with the level of foreign reserves, although we would expect country-risk to decrease with increasing foreign reserves. There is also no correlation between country- risk and production or the GDP.

There is however a strong correlation of country-risk with inflation, and as noted earlier both the black market exchange rate and shortages are highest during elections and other periods of political tension.

II. Maduro is the democratically elected president of Venezuela

It has been repeated ad nauseam in the press and by politicians that the Venezuelan presidential election in May 2018 was a complete sham, however all of the evidence that I have been able to find has demonstrated exactly the opposite. I do not regard a simple statement or accusation by an opposition party member or by the press or by any politician to provide valid evidence about the integrity of an election. However the report of an impartial expert assigned to monitor the election is a different matter entirely.

Elections are normally held in December in Venezuela, but the last presidential election was held early, in May 2018, at the request of the opposition. Two popular opposition party leaders were prohibited from participating in the election: Leopold López and Henrique Capriles. Leopold López was under house arrest for inciting extremely violent protests against the government during 2014 where 43 died: https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-violent-past-of-venezuelan-opposition-leader- leopoldo-lopez/229679/ 

López leads the party Voluntad Popular, a far right-wing party that was founded by Juan Guaidó. The deadly protest tactics and callous disregard for human life of the Voluntad Popular party have helped to fragment the opposition against the Maduro government. Guaidó himself did not participate in the May 2018 presidential election even though López could not run. Perhaps this is not surprising: 80% of Venezuelans had never even heard of him until January 23 when he declared himself to be President. The phenomena of Guaidó is discussed by Professor Aline Piva in the video at the link below, including other relevant topics to the present crisis such as the circumstances that forced the creation of the Constituent Assembly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRwrHO4Zi1g

It is worth adding here that although Guaidó was virtually unknown to Venezuelans, he was apparently well known to the United States government. This link discusses the history of Guaidó and discusses how he had been groomed by the United States to implement regime change in Venezuela by a CIA funded group known as CANVAS: https://grayzoneproject.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime- change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/

Henrique Capriles was involved in a violent attack on the Cuban Embassy during the 2002 coup attempt against Chavez and has also played a central role in organizing violent protests, especially in 2014. He has been charged with corruption for misappropriation of government funds. For these reasons he was prohibited from participating in an election for 15 years: https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Venezuela-Bans-Capriles-From-Running-for- Office-for-15-Years-20170407-0019.html

If these two opposition leaders – Leopold López and Henrique Capriles – had committed the same crimes in the United States, I cannot imagine that they would have been allowed to run for office in the United States.

In 2012 the Carter Center observed the Venezuelan election where Hugo Chávez defeated Henrique Capriles. President Carter commented that the Venezuelan elections were the “best in the world” out of the 92 elections that the Carter Center had observed. https://www.globalresearch.ca/former-us-president-carter-venezuelan-electoral-system- best-in-the-world/5305779

The opposition to the present government is divided into several political parties. In general the opposition is supported by wealthier Venezuelans while the government is supported by the poor. During the May 2018 presidential election many of the opposition parties including Voluntad Popular boycotted the election. Although an election boycott displays contempt for the democratic process it certainly does not impugn the integrity of an election.

In spite of the boycott, 46% of the registered voters participated in the election. Maduro won the election for a second term as President with 67.8% of the vote or 31.7% of all registered voters. I believe it is worth comparing these numbers to the 2016 presidential election in the United States: Trump won 46% of the vote or 27.3% of all registered voters. The best-known opposition candidate who did participate was Henri Falcon who won 21.0% of the vote.

Impartial observers were invited to the election and about 150 international observers from over 30 different countries and international organizations participated in observing the May elections in Venezuela. These impartial observers pronounced the elections to be clean, fair, and well executed, reflecting the will of the voters. The conclusion of three different groups’ findings on election integrity were presented in this article: https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13849

The fact that all three of these reports are highly favorable comes as no surprise following the comments of President Carter in 2012. Based on the links provided above, I am now convinced that the 2018 Venezuelan presidential election was definitely not a “sham”, and that Nicolás Maduro is indeed the democratically elected president of Venezuela.

III. Guaidó is not the legitimate president of Venezuela

Guaidó has been recognized as the president of Venezuela by the United States and many other countries including Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Spain, Germany, Canada, France, Australia, Israel, and Great Britain. In spite of this grand consensus – and also quite shockingly – Guaidó cannot possibly be the president or the interim president of Venezuela according to the Venezuelan Constitution. The Venezuelan Constitution is posted in English here: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Venezuela_2009.pdf

If the reader chooses only a single reference to review out of all the references listed in this report, please choose this one: the constitution instructs on the replacement of the president in Article 233 (p. 62). These instructions are clear and concise. If the president permanently vacates his post before the inauguration, then the president of the National Assembly becomes interim president and must hold elections for a new president within 30 days. But if the president vacates his post after the inauguration, then the vice president – not the president of the National Assembly – becomes the interim president and must hold elections within 30 days.

A historical example of Article 233 was the death of Chavez on March 5, 2013. During that period Maduro was vice president, so he became the interim president and elections were held on April 14, 2013. This missed the constitutional deadline, but only by a few days. Maduro decided to run in that election and he was elected to complete the remainder of the Chavez term.

Because Maduro has not vacated his post in any way, he cannot be replaced under Article 233. Suppose for the sake of academic argument that Maduro had died a day before the inauguration on January 10, 2019. Then Guaidó as president of the National Assembly would have become the interim president and Article 233 would have required elections for the new president to be held on or before February 9. Next suppose, for the sake of argument, that Maduro had died on January 23 – the same day that Guaidó declared himself to be president. Then the vice president would have become the interim president – not the president of the National Assembly – and the vice president would have scheduled a presidential election for February 22 or earlier.

There is simply no defensible argument that Guaidó is the legitimate president or interim president of Venezuela: his declaration that he is president is illegal, and recognition of Guaidó as president by the State Department is also illegal.

IV. Conclusions and Recommendations

I have presented all of the references and most of the arguments that have convinced me that much of what we are hearing from politicians and the mainstream press about Venezuela is simply false: Guaidó cannot possibly be the legitimate President or interim President of Venezuela, Maduro is indeed the democratically elected President, and Venezuela is the target of an economic war campaign so intense that it is impossible today to pass any judgment on the efficacy of the government’s economic policy.

As Alfred de Zayas has written in his report to the U.N., coercing any government by overt or covert economic means violates the U.N. Charter. The United States is a signatory to the U.N. Charter and therefore obligated to comply by the constitution. Venezuela is a sovereign country and Venezuelans must manage their own resources, their own economy, and their own system of government. It has been reported in a recent poll that 86% of Venezuelans oppose military intervention. https://www.globalresearch.ca/86-of-venezuelans-oppose-military-intervention-81- against-us-sanctions-local-polling-shows/5666962

V. Possible solutions

The people of the United States are overwhelmingly against the U.S. entering more wars, as demonstrated in many polls and surveys. As our government unfolds the narrative of regime change once again in Latin America, many people are starting to reject this narrative and are supporting the people of Venezuela for their right to self-determination.

The United States Government must rescind recognition of Guaidó as president of Venezuela, end sanctions on Venezuela, and return the assets it has stolen from Venezuela to the Venezuelan government.  The Venezuelan constitution allows for recall elections midway (3 years) into the presidential term; this provides an opportunity for the Venezuelan people to legally replace Maduro, if they so choose to, with a democratically elected opposition candidate.

I have had a brief communication with U.N. independent expert Alfred de Zayas.  He tells me that he agrees with the following legislation recommendations as potential solutions to help end the illegal economic war against Venezuela:

  • Audit American companies and subsidiaries when they import goods to Venezuela: the price for imported goods in Venezuela must be a reasonable markup (< 15%) using the official foreign exchange rate, not the black market exchange rate
  • Make it illegal for DolarToday and similar websites to publicly list the black market exchange rate of another country
  • Banks must publicly justify the assignment of country-risk indices based on a standard formula
  • American companies must publish warehouse inventories and distributions of products in Venezuela and these results must be made available to the government of Venezuela

YOUTH VS. THE “LEFT”

Category : blog , Divestment , Economy , Energy , Politics

Youth Vs. the “Left”

by – Jake Tonkel & Christen Corcoran

Originally published in TheBridgeConvo.org

When it comes to the topic of climate change, nearly everyone on the millennial left (and a lot of the right) seems to be on the same page. Scientific evidence has demonstrated, our teachers have educated, nature itself is giving us the warning signs, and Al Gore has spread the word: climate change is real, it’s happening and it is the greatest challenge the human race has ever seen—infinitely more complex than WWI and WWII combined. This is the starting point that we must have in climate discourse. So why do we not see this reflected in politics? Why isn’t the liberal left doing more to reflect what our generation is demanding?

Climate change has already had devastating consequences, especially for the already-marginalized communities of our country and our world. Big oil, big business, the transnational elite and others have a vested interest in preventing policies directed towards combating climate change: they would lose money or like whitefish, stand to gain during the recovery effort. Furthermore, they will either be dead or as rich as King Midas by the time ultimate disaster strikes. We stand up time and time again (Keystone, DAPL, etc), but the DNC couldn’t even rule out fracking in its official 2016 platform. In fact, according to ClimateHawksVote, an organization that ranks representatives on their action on climate issues, Dems scored an average of just 23.25pts out of 100! With 6 of 44 scoring in the negatives!

That is a really, really tough pill for us to swallow as millennials. With Congress at an average age of 57, we don’t have much, if any representation. It’s ironic really, being told your whole life that with age comes wisdom only to have those that touted the saying literally destroy our world. Politicians empirically care more about the money in their pocket than working towards a solution.

As the world tries to collaborate, our government makes sure the deals are non-binding, cheering “compromise” between business and consumer, developed and developing.

It is devastating that the US is no longer party to the Paris Agreement, but in reality—we were the reason it was weak to begin with. The US follows the money, not policies that will protect humanity. This is a gross corruption of our fundamental values—by the people, for the people—which puts the market above society, and greed above human lives.

This is a somber “Left” because this is not a problem of “getting the word out”; the word is already out. Politicians know the consequences of inaction. Yet they are not following through. Terrorist attack, Congress passes legislation, gun violence, the Blue team gets all frustrated at thoughts and prayers, 3 or 4 natural disasters hit the U.S., exacerbated by a warming planet, and only the Pope seems to give it the time of day.

National Priorities

Category : blog , Economy , Politics

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.” – Eisenhower, Chance for Peace, 1953. Our last US president to have been a career military general.

When it comes to National Priorities, we hear lots of talk, but where are we walking? The way to judge a politician is not their speeches or their website, as Joe Biden said, “don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget and I will tell you what you value.”

Budgets are usually met with an understandable anxiety and boredom. Mix in congressional politics and the cocktail for an apathetic un-involved citizen is perfected. The problem is, those un-involved citizens are the ones at the bar, paying the tab.

The US budget is a bit out of control. About 7% of all US spending, both discretionary (think movable) and mandatory (think social security specific taxes), is set aside to pay interest on our debt. That’s $283 billion. Pundits come on TV every year and talk of wasteful spending, welfare abuse and where to trim the fat. But if we cut the Departments of Education, Housing, Energy, Environment, Science, and Transportation entirely, the savings is only $277 billion—less than the interest on our debt. Focusing on any of these programs to solve our debt ignores the big fat armored elephant in the room.

Military spending doubled from 1998 to 2011, as of two weeks ago, the senate approved over $700 billion for 2018. The new National Defense Authorization just passed the senate last week, 89 – 9, approving an extra $80 billion the administration didn’t even ask for. Only 3 Republicans, 4 Dems and an Independent voted No. 41 blue guys, including Warren, Harris and Booker (our “progressive senators”), fell in toe. He must be doing one heck of a job to warrant such a bonus check.

Reducing the military budget is damn hard, and one reason for starters is we can’t even talk about it–not in any rational, civilized, way at least. “ISIS, Russia, Iran, N. Korea!… Support our troops!?” It’s like we have no other choice but to boost defense funding or die.

But budgets are a choice and if the progressives are going to start demanding more accountability for the American taxpayer, they need to start learning how to have the conversation. A tried and true place to start? The ever more powerful, the ever more demanding, D.C. ball ticklers, in the featureless, anemic, D.C. lobby. Lockheed Martin, though an independent corporation, is a staple of the defense industry that also has happened to donate money to 386 of 435 members of the 112th Congress. It’s almost shocking how small the largest committee on the hill is—House Armed Services Committee—with 30 Dems and 34 Republicans. Unlike some stalemates in congress, like the obviously trivial debates on education or healthcare, our country’s national security is not a partisan issue.

Strangely enough, the talking heads that salivate at the thought of quoting a “founding father,” never seem to mention that in the wake of the revolution they refused to enlist a standing army because the general population viewed an army as a threat to democracy and freedom. In 1774, Josiah Quincy, Congressman (MA), called a standing army in a free nation a deformed monster. James Madison said “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.” As late as 1939, a North Dakota Republican Congressman, thought the ability to manufacture weapons should be restricted to the government, “The removal of the element of profit from war would materially remove the danger of more war.”

The argument over budget only ever gets as far as cutting waste, but our country doesn’t accumulate massive debt feeding the hungry or healing the sick, or educating their population. If done right, those actions would actually have their own returns. No, our country is bankrupting itself with war. The founders knew it in the 1700s, but pundits are still squabbling about it today. The conversation needs to change. We are having the conversation the industry would like us to have, you either “support our troops,” or you don’t. But we are ignoring, of course, the fact that nothing is that simple, and obviously not the budgetary decisions of the United States Government.

By: Jake Tonkel

San Jose Creates New Clean Energy Department for 100% Renewable Clean Energy

Category : blog , Energy , Environment , Politics

San Jose Clean Energy, approved unanimously this May by the City Council, is a new program that offers a choice for more renewable energy at competitive rates with local control and benefits than currently offered by the investor owned utility, PG&E. Many cities in California have created their own Clean Energy alternative and San Jose is one of them! The program, which will offer electricity to residents that is cleaner and/or more affordable while creating more local clean energy jobs, includes a new department, director, 20 staff, and a Citizens Advisory Committee. 

These programs are enabled by a 2002 state law (Assembly Bill 117) that allows cities or counties to choose their electric provider and the source of their electricity.

Communities can purchase and generate electricity according to their own community priorities – greener than PG&E offers, at a competitive cost.  PG&E still maintains the power lines (and manages delivery and billing), but the power purchase contracts are set by the city’s CCE program. Proven successful programs in Marin, Sonoma, and Lancaster (see below) are delivering electrical power with a much higher portion of renewables than PG&E currently provides, at lower costs than PG&E.

The benefits to San Jose are:

Clean Energy: San Jose will, with this one action, enable the community to make a major transition to clean energy faster than any other way.  Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a major goal for the State, and a focus area of San Jose’s Green Vision.

Choice: Each customer personally chooses the energy plan that best fits them. Whether to potentially pay less than they pay now for a cleaner energy mix, pay a bit more for 100% renewable energy, or pay the same price they pay now for the same mix (stay with PG&E) there are no risks to individual rate payers.

Community Control and Economic Benefit: San Jose has made buying locally produced clean energy a priority so local energy companies and producers will have an increased market which stimulated localrenewable energy development projects, helps create local jobs and attract businesses, and puts competition in the energy utility market. San Jose can  capture some of the approximately $400 million per year that San Jose pays PG&E for electricity generation, and have the decision-making control to save customers money, and invest revenues locally to produce jobs and benefit the local economy.

As an example: Since the launch of Sonoma Clean Power (SCP) in 2014, they have increased the percentage of overall spending in Sonoma County from an estimated 3% of dollars by PG&E prior to SCP launch, to over 25% today by SCP, and this percentage is expected to increase over time. SCP has already achieved $50 million in direct customer savings plus over $35 million in shifted spending back into the county.

Marin Clean Energy and Other Leaders

Three community choice districts are already successfully operating in California, and CCE’s operate in at least 5 other states as well.  Originally termed Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), the terms CCE and CCA are interchangeable.

    • Marin Clean Energy (MCE) was the first CCE/CCA in northern California: it first came online in 2010, and by year end 2014 had grown to serve over 125,000 customers in Marin County, unincorporated Napa County and the cities of Benicia, El Cerrito, Richmond and San Pablo. It serves residential, commercial, and municipal customers, and is expected to increase the number of communities it serves in 2016.
    • Sonoma Clean Power is a CCA serving most cities (and all unincorporated areas) in Sonoma County, and came online in 2013.
  • The southern California city of Lancasterlaunched their CCA in early 2015. Lancaster represents a single-city CCA model.

More locally, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties have created Community Choice Energy programs in 2016!

    • In San Mateo County all 20 cities plus the County Unincorporated area have voted to join the local CCE program, Peninsula Clean Energy (PCE).. Program launch in August, 2016.
    • In Santa Clara County all but one of the 11 cities in consideration have voted to join the Silicon Valley Community Clean Energy Partnership (SVCCEP), started in late 2016. 
  • San Francisco has established a CCA (CleanPowerSF), offering service in May of 2016.

Other California communities are investigating CCEs as of June 2015, by formal action of elected bodies (list possibly incomplete):

    • Los Angeles County, including the cities of Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Carson, Torrance, Inglewood, Culver City and Santa Monica.
    • Santa Cruz/Monterey/San Benito Counties (and all cities therein)
    • Lake County
    • Mendocino County
    • Humbolt County
    • San Luis Obispo County
    • Santa Barbara County
    • City of Morro Bay
    • City of Davis
  • City of Solana Beach

Links to Marin’s, Sonoma’s, and Lancaster’s CCAs, and other resources, are here at our Resources page.

San Jose′ Community Energy (SJCE) is a group of residents committed to bringing affordable renewable energy to our community.  We advocated for the formation of a CCE program in San Jose′. 

San Jose plans to roll out the new program incrementally over the next year. To learn more visit the City’s website: sanjoseca.gov

By: Cheryl McGovern

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