Preview of Climate, Business Climate and Prosperity essay

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Greg Gerritt

Greg Gerritt Feb 7, 2014

I am researching and writing an essay tentatively entitled “Climate, Business Climate and Prosperity in Rhode Island”. Finishing it will take months, but the radio silence was getting to me. Hence this very abbreviated undocumented version. I am spending hours looking at references and figuring out how to say what each article says in 2 sentences that fit in with what else I have written. Every day as I delve deeper I find more nuance but also more confirmation of the misdirection in economic policy globally, nationally, and in my community. I am not alone in the struggle to change these policies. Every day new centers of activism arise. The specific mission of ProsperityForRI.com and the Catalyzing Prosperity project is to bring what we are learning about the economy/ecology interface globally to the policy discussions in Rhode Island, The focus of the research and writing project is to counter-act the obsession with business climate and economic growth found among Rhode Island politicians and business leaders that continues to lead us nowhere. The goal is more prosperous communities in Rhode Island. This short paper simply states what is going on without the documentation and data that will be in the final paper.

The hypothesis being explored is that the current obsession with the business climate actually harms our communities. There is very little evidence that following the prescriptions offered by the business climate indexers actually work even on their own terms, which is simply faster growth in GDP, There is evidence that following the prescriptions harm economies and communities in an astounding variety of ways, and that if we actually did the math we would find our communities are becoming less prosperous in the old industrial west as the externalities catch up to us and the technological revolutions create economic bubbles that undermine economic security for our communities

The flip side of that is the things that we have to do to keep climate change to as small a number as possible and to mitigate and adapt to the harm already in the pipeline is both much more likely to benefit our communities economically than following the business climate route, and that what we should be doing to help our communities move forward is absolutely not the business climate prescription for governance.

Beyond the business think tanks obsession with low taxes it should be noted that much of the regulatory madness in America that in some ways infuriates all of us, not just the think tanks or business community, is primarily the result of shenanigans by the same forces that obsess on the business climate. We all know the American legislation process is like sausage making, full of deals and compromises. That is politics. But the specific things the business lobbyists get into the legislation that they can not kill are often designed to make the laws harder to use effectively. The lobbyists operate under the theory that if we can make it clunky maybe we can get it undone next year. And if that fails, we cut the enforcement budget so folks have to wait a long time for permits. Then we can blame it on bad regulations, rather than accepting that developers both wanted the regulations hard to interpret so they could fudge a lot of things, and then cut the budget for enforcement and permitting so they could use the slowness of the permitting process to undermine protection of the public interest in the pursuit of greater profits.

I underpin much of my work with the understanding that due to the ecological constraints of planet Earth further damage to the ecosystems of the planet are likely to have very serious negative consequences for most of humanity, and we have already reached the point where sinks are full and resource extraction is getting more difficult and expensive as we seek ever further and deeper in a desperate race for more stuff. The reality is that yes we have more throughput, and many places around the world desperately need economic growth so that people can get enough to eat, but in the USA 99% of the growth in income is going to 1% of the population, and it is all funny money from economic shenanigans or what Herman Daly refers to as uneconomic growth, which I define as an expansion of economic activity that in aggregate does more harm than good, ecologically, socially, politically, while reducing the need for labor with nearly all growth in wealth flowing to the 1% while the overall growth rate continues to drop as urbanization and deforestation reach natural limits and inequality slows the pseudo growth machine too.

I have friends who are practioners in the alternative energy industry saying let the market decide too, make it easier to do business. Two problems, The fossil fuel lobby has more money and their subsidies include the military industrial complex that undergirds 1% power. Besides the Koch family is funding efforts around the country to make it harder to install solar and wind power. We need to change the conversation, not just have the market destroy communities and ecosystems slightly less swiftly.

Funny how it is exactly the family most responsible for climate denying propaganda in the world, people who detest real evidence and science, who are also key funders of the most outrageous business climate reports. To me it is no surprise that the business climate reports are useless as policy prescriptions because the evidence they use is as thin as the science of climate deniers, and is paid for by the same ideologues.

Dealing with climate change is likely to be the most important thing people have to do for the next 100 years. It is way too important to be left to the 1%, And since so much of what happens in our communities happens via economic activity, that economic activity is way too important to be left to the 1%. The same people advocating for the Keystone XL pipeline are the same ones telling us to follow the business climate prescriptions. No community input, no right to protest, no regulations, low taxes, military subsidies for the oil industry, lax regulations of chemicals, undo the clean water act. Allow developers to build anywhere, and then keep flood insurance payments artificially low, allowing the tax payers to subsidize the gross abandonment of common sense. That in a nutshell is the business climate prescription. Public loss, private profit and prevent dissension from getting out of hand. The ideologues of the right detest the fact that helping our communities reduce the heat index and cope with the problems created by climate change will take strong regulation of fossil fuel emissions, promotion of alternative energy, a shrinking of the military, a reduced effort to go ever further and deeper to get fossil fuels, an understanding of limits, investment in communities, improving food security, and real democracy. And they are willing to stop at nothing to maintain their power and privilege.

I read a world bank study on their forest lending programs. http://www.redd-monitor.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ForestCODE-Jan-2013.pdf Forest dwellers tend to be the most disenfranchised, disempowered and marginalized people in their countries. Monetarily they are the poorest people, the least attached to the modern economy, though if left alone in the forest often they are more well nourished than tenant and small holder agriculturalists or slum dwellers in the cities. As forests are among the most valuable resources on the planet, and one of the most critical for the development of urban economies, the powerful have been stealing forests forever. I wrote an article analyzing the World Bank report https://prosperityforri.com/the-world-bank-sort-of-figures-it-out/

Here are some of the key findings I picked out

WB 2.79 page 56 The focus on engaging local resource users in decision-making is a vital element of resource management that holds potential for increasing synergy among the three pillars. Increased local participation in environmental management is viewed as a means to eliminate inefficiency and corruption in administration of the forestry sector while enhancing equity in the distribution of economic benefits.

WB 2.82 page 57 Across the World Bank forest-related projects in the Sahel, the failure to explicitly address asymmetrical power relationships between decentralized bodies and forestry agents is likely to reduce the ability of local groups to actually exercise decision-making power in forest management.

WB Page 100 The evolution of the partnerships towards holistic landscape-level approaches that combine forest conservation and SFM with climate change mitigation and adaptation, improved food security and climate smart agricultural development are important achievements. The Bank‘s efforts to integrate broader governance concerns and issues, including the efforts to protect and enhance the rights of indigenous forest-dependent communities, into these approaches are also recognized as important achievements.

In plain English, following the dictates of the rich and powerful, allowing business as usual makes poverty worse, harms ecosystems, and undermines democracy ion forest communities and nations. In Rhode Island it is not the residents of East Greenwich that need economic development, it is the people of our EJ communities, our communities full of Brownfields: Olneyville, Pawtucket, Central Falls, West Warwick. Old industrial places that electric power grids and automobiles made obsolete. The people of these communities are the disempowered, disenfranchised, marginalized people of Rhode Island. I would argue that just as the World Bank found that only systematic efforts to neutralize the power of the 1% so that the community could make its own decisions lead to good economic outcomes (always linked to good ecological outcomes) for the people in the community. In Rhode Island the same things apply. And that dealing with climate change is the way forward if we use the tools available.

I can assert anything I want. I have tried mightily in this short essay to avoid the details and footnotes, but ultimately a fully documented description is necessary to make a radical case break the log jam the powerful have put in our way, And to weave all of the connections that are necessary to a full understanding of the problems and the way forward. I hope to have it written by summer. In the mean time send comments and questions. greg

GMOs

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Greg Gerritt

Capitalism and free markets are based on the idea that everyone will have perfect information. The GMO industry claims to be for free enterprise, but they seem to constantly violate the rule of perfect information for all consumers intentionally and deceptively. clearly they are nothing but thuggish rent seekers seeking subsidies by buying public officials.

Response to the BRWCT event

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Greg Gerritt

Yesterday I attended a statehouse presentation coordinated by the RI Bays, Rivers, and Watersheds Coordination Team reviewing the shoreline special area management plan, the Beach SAMP. This little commentary is primarily going to those who attended, and a few of my colleagues. The speakers, primarily from government agencies, spoke on climate change induced sea level rise and what it means for Rhode Island. All well and good, but it was infused with a great deal of magical thinking about keeping intact our shoreline communities with private control of access to the shore while expecting public subsidy in order to safely keep them there. There was a stunned silence after I finished my question about magical thinking, though eventually the speaker representing the Real Estate industry mouthed some platitudes.

In this age of austerity, in an age of shrinking livelihoods for many Americans, in an age where the rich demand that we cut their taxes and kowtow to their every whim, while they suck up all the money and insist that free enterprise is the way to the future, we need to call out the hypocrisy of the owners of the shore line when they demand that we either publicly fund the infrastructure they need to maintain their houses and lifestyles and allow them to violate environmental rules and common sense, while they fund climate deniers and demand that the poor be abandoned.

The sea is coming. The issue is not how long can we hold it back for the benefit of home owners, it is how do we adapt to rising sea levels and the slow disintegration of our economy as the climate creates disaster after disaster. We can not allow rebuilding along the cost, we need to engineer a retreat while we create much larger coastal ecological buffers that will reduce our carbon footprint, and improve our feed security.

Recycling the materials in coastal properties, especially the copper, before it falls into the sea is much better for all of us than waiting for the next storm. If the rich insist on waiting it out until the sea comes for them, they should pay the cost of their own stupidity and not expect the rest of us to rescue them and bail them out.

Greg Gerritt

Bugs in the Burial Ground 2013

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Greg Gerritt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zsAXNMfWnc&feature=c4-overview&list=UUn8KjvFgLD0nVShkIYOoyHQ

This is the final video in my 2013 series. I do not know what most of the critters in this video are. The beginning of the video captures images of critters I netted while seeking tadpoles in Providence’s North Burial Ground drainage swale. I have some of those same critters captured in pixels swimming around the swale in natural habitat. The purple flowers are I believe arrow leaf. They grow in the drainage swale, filling the pond in late June and making it impossible to film things swimming in the water after that. The latter part of the video was filmed at the permanent pond in the burial ground. greg

Turtles in Action

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Greg Gerritt

This video project is part of the evolving Wildlife of the North Burial Ground project of Friends of the Moshassuck funded by the Rhode Island Rivers Council.

There is one full time pond in the NBG. When i first started paying attention about 5 years ago on the sunning log you would see up to 6 turtles at a time. This past summer there were 14 after several years of growing a bit each year. Painted Turtles. There is also a snapping turtle in the pond most of the time, but I rarely see it and have never captured it in pixels.

Turtles are but one attraction in the pond. I have video of fish, insects, muskrats, various birds, and various life stages of the Bullfrog from the pond all posted on this channel.

Turtles are hard to film. They ought to be relatively easy. They are largish, relatively slow moving. I am still learning to make videos and had great difficulty getting clear pictures. Besides the murky water that makes in water shots difficult, on the sunning log the intense reflection from the low morning sun off of the shells and heads means i rarely get clear pictures or good color. Hopefully I will figure out how to deal with that eventually as I learn how to use the camera better. And learn how to edit.

There is only 1 log to sun on in the morning in the pond and when it gets crowded it is hard to find a place to climb on. That provides the bulk of the action in the video. I do not think watching a turtle repeatedly try to climb out of the pond onto the log and keep falling back in can hold a viewers attention for very long, so i experimented with speeding it up on occasion. I think if the camera man had a steadier hand it would work pretty well. So watch for it in 2014 as the season progresses. And enjoy my first years efforts here.

I think I now know much more about turtles than I did before I started this endeavor, but I suspect I will learn much more over the next few years of study. Hopefully that too will inform future posts on this channel.

Birds of the North Burial Ground 2013

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Greg Gerritt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P85Avq_RgJ0&feature=em-upload_owner

This video project is part of the evolving Wildlife of the North Burial Ground project of Friends of the Moshassuck funded by the Rhode Island Rivers Council. The project evolved out of observations of tadpoles in the drainage swale, but now will video any animal we can get on camera. Birds are hard to video for an amateur like me. I have not mastered panning with them smoothly or keeping them in focus. Not quite like bullfrogs sitting in the pond or the tadpole cities of the drainage swale where motion is not an issue. Hopefully the 2014 version will be better.

Bullfrogs in the NBG 2013

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Greg Gerritt

After several years of observations, with a little funding from the Rhode Island Rivers Council I began a video project to record wildlife in Providence’s North Burial Ground, with an emphasis on the tadpoles in a little drainage swale near the maintenance building. The Misadventures of an Urban Naturalist tells some of that story. There is also a larger and permanent pond in the burial ground, and it may be the best wildlife watching place in all of Providence The Bullfrogs of the larger pond were always of interest, but in some ways I used them as a back up, something else to focus on in case the drainage swale went dry and produced no tadpoles. As I noted above, the larger pond has an abundance of wildlife, 3 types of heron, ducks, geese, cormorants, kingfishers, and swifts, as well as songbirds in profusion, muskrats, occasional otters, a growing population (from 6 to 14 over the last few years) of painted turtles, several varieties of fish, and bullfrogs.

The size of the pond, the inaccessibility of various parts of the shoreline, and the murkiness of the water means that unlike the drainage swale certain parts of the bullfrog life cycle are inaccessible. The most obvious missing piece is that I have never seen, let alone filmed, the early stages of bullfrog tadpole life. Fowler’s Toads and Gray Tree Frogs complete their breeding cycle in one season. They mate, the eggs are laid, the tadpoles develop and the frogs and toads hop away from the pond between May and August. Bullfrogs overwinter as tadpoles the first year. Bullfrogs mate later in the season, so the tadpoles are in the water from July until the following July. I have never seen the newly hatched tadpoles in the late summer. They do not appear to swim near the surface close to shore, so I have no idea where they are.

What I do see of tadpoles is the tadpoles that have overwintered in the pond beginning in May, once the water warms up. They float near the surface, swim around, jump out of the water, and are generally visible nearly every day. What gets my attention is the jumping, and the video that accompanies this essay reflects that fascination with jumping tadpoles, including the use of slow motion so the motion can be seen a bit more clearly.

In the spring, in addition to the tadpoles, there are the frogs that have overwintered. I have a collection of shots of the various frogs that have overwintered, the rogues gallery. There is nothing systematic about these shots, I take them when I find a frog in range,. I know there are not very many frogs in the pond in the spring, but it would take a much more scientific approach than I can muster to actually determine the population size.

The transformation from tadpole to frog in early July is fast. I have found only one shot that shows a Bullfrog tadpole with legs, in contrast to the abundance of footage I have of Fowlers Toads and Gray Tree Frogs with legs, It seems like one day there is an abundance of jumping and milling tadpoles, the next day there are no tadpoles, but the shoreline of the pond is covered in small frogs. To give some sort of reckoning of the new abundance I came up with the idea of capturing on film how many take off when I go near them. I have shots from 2 locations, in the northwest corner of the pond near the outflow and looking north from the peninsula/point in the center of the pond on the western shore. Slow motion is again used to show more details.

After the new frogs show up the herons become more common (Green and Night as well as Great Blue) and the population slowly dwindles under the predation until they go to sleep for the winter in the bottom of the pond, waiting for spring and the chance to do it again. I retreat into editing, waiting for spring and a chance to see the pageant of life played out in a pond again.

Rhode map commentary

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Greg Gerritt

Question on the Rhode map website:

What is your vision for a new approach to economic development in Rhode Island?

My Response: only get 1000 characters

The most important thing is to understand current conditions. And key conditions are climate change, growing injustice, and the end of economic growth for 99% of the population. We have to throw out the business climate BS and realize that unless we directly address inequality the economy is going to continue to deteriorate. Another study just came out pointing how rising inequality harms economies. Even the pope can figure it out, why not Rhode Island?

And unless we heal our ecosystems, our communities will fail. Climate change is about to drop us off a cliff, so what we need in that case is to stop using fossil fuels and start focusing on food security. We need to rebuild forests, fisheries, and soils, which means compost and no more food scrap in the landfill.

We need to clearly remember that there is absolutely no correlation between a good business climate and a healthy economy. As long as business interests reduce taxes on the rich, RI will never work.

The road to prosperity

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Greg Gerritt

Originally written as a letter to the editor December 18, 2013 Greg Gerritt

On December 18, 2013 in a remarkable juxtaposition the Providence Journal had an article “Analysts say income gap impedes growth”, an op-ed by by Steven Frias “Warnings of RI Stagnation go way back”, and an op-ed by John J. Colby “Wage regulation okay for the well to do”. Mr Frias repeats the tired old cliches about the business climate saying that the only way to move the RI economy forward is to cut taxes on the rich and remove regulations that protect the public health and the environment. The problem with Mr Frias’s argument is that there is absolutely no correlation between a good business climate and a healthy economy, and that if Rhode Island obeyed the business climate shysters what we would end up doing is increasing inequality further, which even economists and the pope are starting to realize harms the economy, as well as destroying democracy.

Mr Colby points out just how inequality has harmed our economy, the poor are unable to be the consumers our consumerist economy seems to demand. But considering the state of the Earth, and the likelihood that changes in the climate due to overconsumption are likely to overwhelm the effects of any boost the 1% will get from adopting the greed is good model, a model based on consumerism is unlikely to help our communities. Even the World Bank knows that ecological healing and economic justice are likely to produce better economic results than anything else in marginalized communities. Time for Rhode Island to learn that too.

Response to article on November Jobs report

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Greg Gerritt

This is actually the new normal. We are unlikely to ever see economic growth large enough to create lots of jobs as technology will destroy jobs faster than it creates them. American workers are going to see a reduction in per capita income as our national economy shrinks.

The real challenge is not to keep it growing, that is an ecological and social dead end, but to shrink it in a way that grows our Gross National Happiness. The way to do that is ecological healing, shrinking inequality, and focusing on community food security and climate resilience.

Comments on ESA article

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Greg Gerritt

Read an article on Endangered Species Act success. Here is what I wrote in response:

Wish the Republicans could remember when they were a party of conservation and how much it benefits communities. The Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, The ESA, are some of the most important legislation Congress has ever passed, but every day they are under threat of repeal despite near unanimous support for them from the American public.

2013 BND sites in Rhode Island

Posted on November 3, 2013 by Greg Gerritt

The 17th Annual Buy Nothing Day Winter Coat Exchange

Friday November 29, 2013

If you have a coat to give, please drop it off. If you need a coat, please pick one up.

Some see Buy Nothing Day as an escape from the marketing mind games and the frantic consumer binge that has come to characterize the holiday season. Others use it to expose the environmental and ethical consequences of over-consumption. In Rhode Island as part of International Buy Nothing Day, we hold a winter coat exchange in various locations around the state, where people who can donate coats, do so, and people who need coats pick them up.. Volunteers are needed to help with this life-affirming event.

Locations in Rhode Island

Providence State House Lawn brick patio across from the mall

Collection and give away November 29 9 AM to 1 PM

Rain location Gloria Dei Lutheran Church 15 Hayes Street Providence

Contacts Greg Gerritt: 331-0529; gerritt@mindspring.com;

Phil Edmonds: 461-3683; philwhistle@gmail.com

Pawtucket – 175 Main St Blackstone Valley Visitors Center

Coats accepted at the visitors center and many other locations in Pawtucket all through November during business hours.

Collection at November Winters Farmers Markets Wednesday evening and Saturday morning at Hope Artiste Village

Coats given away Friday Nov. 29 10AM -2PM

Contact Arthur Pitt ; kingarthur02940@yahoo.com 401-369-1918 http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/NAP-_Neighborhood_Alliance_of_Pawtucket/home

East Providence Bridgepoint 850 Waterman Ave

Coats collected and given away Friday November 29 9 AM to 1 PM

Coats collected throughout November at various locations in East Providence and Seekonk including the Newman YMCA.

Contact David or Lisa Spencer 401-965-9099 Dspencer@atlanticpaper.com

Newport – St Paul’s Church 12 West Marlborough St.

Coats collected and given away 10 AM to Noon

Contact Reverend Becky Baumann pastorbeckybaumann@gmail.com Coats also available at other church events

Wakefield –St. Francis Church, 114 High Street,

Coats Collected and given away 10AM to noon

Contact Tom Abbott 401-364-0778

East Greenwich St. Luke’s Church, 99 Pierce Street, East Greenwich

Drop Off and Exchange 10 am – 2 pm In downstairs cafeteria.

Contact: Jean Ann Guliano, 401-323-5196, jaw408@aol.com

Greater Providence YMCA’s sites

All sites collecting coats throughout November Most sites distributing Coats on November 29 9 AM to 1 PM

East Side/Mount Hope

Drop off coats throughout November Not a distribution site

Contact Christy Clausen 401-521-0155 cclausen@gpymca.org

West Bay Family YMCA Branch