ITSSD Journal on Economic Freedom

Attali Commission: "France Must Strictly Circumscribe Precautionary Principle to Promote Entrepreneurial Risk-Taking, Innovation & Economic Growth"

2010-10-24T11:30:00.023-04:00

http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/rapports-publics/104000541/index.shtml

An ambition for ten years - Report of the Committee for the Liberation of growth chaired by Jacques Attali

[The following blog entry was translated from the original French language by ITSSD Advisory Board member Dr. Sorin Straja, who hosts the ITSSD Journal on Energy Security.]

Jacques Attali ,
FRANCE. Presidency of the Republic, FRANCE. Prime Minister

Paris: XO Editions: French documentation

October 2010

Appointed in August 2007, the Commission headed by Jacques Attali was charged to "examine the conditions for the liberation of the French economic growth". This report follows the first report released in January 2008 (http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/rapports-publics/084000041/index.shtml).

[SEE: Sarkozy Claims to Back Attali Commission's Liberalization Plan: But Rejects Recommendation to Scrap Precautionary Principle!, ITSSD JOURNAL ON DISGUISED TRADE BARRIERS (Jan. 25, 2008) at: http://itssddisguisedtradebarriers.blogspot.com/2008/01/sarkozy-claims-to-back-attali.html; French Rethinking the Precautionary Principle?? Jamais!!!, ITSSD JOURNAL ON DISGUISED TRADE BARRIERS (Jan. 25, 2008) at: http://itssddisguisedtradebarriers.blogspot.com/2008/01/french-rethinking-precautionary.html ].

This report proposes a strategy for ten years. This strategy identifies two emergencies: the recovery of public finances (the deficit should be rapidly reduced to 3% of GDP and public debt should be reduced in 2020 to an amount of about 60% of GDP) and employment (to lower the overall unemployment rate to 4.5%; "unlock" youth access to employment; reduce the dualism of the labor market between permanent and temporary jobs). It also defines two long-term priorities: education and management of major growth areas including the environment, natural resources and major infrastructure.

http://lesrapports.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/BRP/104000541/0000.pdf

… SECOND LONG-TERM PRIORITY:

The protection of the environment and the management of scarce resources

To grow,

France

must invest much more than it does in sustainable development, preserve its environment and implement a integrated strategy for managing scarce resources.

From this perspective, our country must take action in three directions:

• establish proper ecological pricing by implementing a carbon tax, if possible at the European level. Proper pricing is indispensable in guiding consumer choice and improving the profitability of long-term investments in the environment;

• prepare the country for the rising cost of raw materials. And for this, in particular, secure Europe’s access to energy by enhancing the domestic energy market, developing renewable energy sources and cross-border infrastructure, adapting energy pricing so as to maintain the capacity to produce the energy needed, and increasing the involvement of the European Union in international negotiations regarding the regulation of raw materials. In particular,

France

must secure the conditions required to fund the renewal of its nuclear capacity and acquire the means to develop a strategy for the control of vital raw materials;

• make better use of our strengths in the management scarce resources: above and beyond our established positions in the fields of water, of energy, of waste, France must re-establish agriculture at the center of the growth strategy, by emphasizing the innovation and research. It must also launch a proper policy of the sea by developing our ports and by intensifying the exploration of sea-beds.

In addition, the proposals of our first report that have not yet implemented, in particular on the innovation and competitiveness, remain fully relevant.

All leaders and decision makers of this country must be convinced of the magnitude of the upheavals required to maintain and modernize our social model, conceived during the Resistance, implemented at the Liberation, deployed during the "Thirty glorious [years]" and abundantly invoked since the first oil shock.

All of our proposals constitute an ambition for ten years. It requires, in order to succeed, radical changes in the organization of the government and the relationship to risk and to democracy. It can be implemented only if it meets social consensus. To achieve this, we are hoping, through this report, to open up a great debate in the country leading to a general mobilization. This debate requires the involvement of a maximum number of political, economic, social and cultural actors.

We are fully aware of the difficulties inherent in these transformations:

• The government lacks the tools for action, since it has gradually relinquished control in favor of Europe, the private sector, the local collectivities and the social dialogue; although these developments may be welcome in principle, they pose real problems regarding the coherence of public action;

• The social partners have not really discussed common strategies regarding the long-term objectives. In particular, they have not debated the debt reduction, the environment and fight against illiteracy.

• Special interests may oppose particular reforms which are motivated by considerations of the common interest alone.

To make possible the changes described above, the Commission proposes to act in four directions:

• Reform the political institutions, so that they make it easier for the government to act: to achieve this it is necessary to clarify the institutional responsibilities that are currently too entangled among the government, territorial collectivities and social protection agencies. It is necessary to establish a budgetary rule for return to equilibrium and to ensure that the Parliament ratifies the budgetary stability program. Public policy must also be systematically subjected to independent evaluations, with real consequences in terms of public spending.

• Promote the risk willingness. Growth means taking risks. Zero risk leads to zero success. The innovation must be favored and assumed; the precautionary principle must be strictly circumscribed. In particular, this requires encouragements for research and the entrepreneurial spirit, a fair pricing for the scarce resources, incentives for the public agents to the reduction of the public deficits, and a more inciting financing of social programs - with a bonus-malus system.

• Mobilize the whole French society in favor of its young people. The generations now in power must perform a massive reorientation of public choices to build a society in which future generations will be able to grow, and in particular to find more easily interesting jobs and good quality housing. This requires the systematic assessment of each proposed public decision according to a simple criterion: “Is this project useful for future generations or, just the opposite, it compromises their future?”

• Develop a shared European – and notably Franco-German – ambition.… (pp. 21-23)

A lack of competitiveness

The lack of productivity gains cannot contain rising production costs arising from the evolution of wages, and therefore hinders the competitiveness of the European countries. This situation has deteriorated globally since the early 2000s except for Germany which achieved to maintain competitiveness better than its partners by limiting wage increases.

The productivity gap is particularly rooted in the relative paucity of research and innovation. More reasons for this situation:

A high risk aversion

Risk aversion translates into a demand for strong (both social and economic) protection addressed to the community. This takes the form of support and help programs that are increasingly expensive for the past projects at the expense of the future endeavors.

Other symptoms are unmistakable: the number of entrepreneurs who choose not to grow their businesses; preference of investors and regulators for risk-free assets which do not fund growth; the high precautionary savings of the households; preference for the retention of the present employment, which blocks the reallocation of employment towards more productive and innovative businesses.

These features are exacerbated by an extensive application of the precautionary principle, contrary to the constitutional text, which covers in everyone's mind a growing number of areas, and sterilizes creativity and risk-taking which are essential for growth.

The lack of innovation and upgrading intellectual creation

While the production moves to countries with low workforce costs, the competitiveness of companies in developed countries relies increasingly on innovation. In France, the effort for the research of the private sector is greater than that of China and the European average, but below the average of OECD countries, and especially the United States and Germany. In addition, the contribution of Research and Development (R & D) to GDP grew less rapidly than in other OECD countries. (pp.34-35)

SECOND LONG-TERM PRIORITY

Preservation of the environment and management of scarce resources

In a mature economy, the growth is no more driven by logics of catching up but by innovation. Innovation is ultimately the only real source of productivity gains, of growth and of purchasing power. It is the result of a complex alchemy and it is not restricted only to the quality of public or private research. Innovative economies are characterized by:

• A willingness to take risks shared by the entrepreneurs and the society. In particular, this risk willingness requires clearly circumscribing the precautionary principle in order to avoid that the inaccuracies that surround the language of the constitutional text do not lead to the paralysis, to the stagnation and to the blocking of the innovation in an increasing number of domains¹. The zero-risk indeed leads to zero growth;

• Acceptance of the process of creative destruction. This implies a high degree of competition in the markets for goods of large consumption, the innovation coming from new businesses as much as from established businesses. It also involves accepting, anticipating and accompanying the changes of employment and trades implied by the technological changes.

• A strong industrial policy, based on the development of small and medium size businesses, vital pool of jobs and of innovation. As such, it must assist them in conquering new markets by giving them the necessary foundation in the European market, specifically by access to public markets in the context a European Small Business Act, and it must pursue vigorously the reduction of administrative burdens weighing on them while developing their access to their own funds. The first report's proposals are fully relevant. This industrial policy must also use the potentials of the European trade policy that must be more based on the principle of reciprocity. (pp. 149-150)

1. See report on the evaluation of Article 5 of the environmental charter of the Evaluation Committee and Control of Public Policy at the National Assembly (June 2010). If it finds no significant impact on research (with the notable exception of biotechnology research), it calls to consider a possible modification of Article 5, including citing the desirability of its repeal, and clarification of the procedures for implementation of the principle to ensure that it is understood and used as a principle of action allowing an efficient and proportionate risk management.

Re-establish the agriculture and the food industries at the center of the French growth strategy

To emphasize on innovation and research

This requires returning to the original meaning of the principle of precaution, which is a principle of action, and thus to clarify its modalities of implementation.

Moreover, the innovation must enable the agriculture to ensure its sustainable development:

• By improving the competitiveness of production chains, and by preparing a lower sensitivity of the farms to the future rising cost of raw materials (oil, fertilizer, but also feed for cattle knowing that Europe is woefully deficient in plant proteins);

• By promoting the resilience of the agriculture to the disasters and climate changes and by encouraging a better carbon balance for farming and forestry;

• By diversifying the uses of renewable carbon from agriculture and forestry to materials, energy and chemistry. In fact, the renewable carbon from the plants will replace a portion of carbon derived from oil (50% in the USA by 2050, 35% in Europe by 2030 and 17% in France by 2017). Global growth of plant chemistry is 50% per year. All industrial sectors are affected: bio-fuels, chemical intermediates, plastics, packaging, constructions, and cosmetics. To achieve this revolution, we must implement a new procurement system and transformation of agricultural production.

France

has many players in the field of plant chemistry, businesses, research institutions, clusters of competitiveness. It is about strengthening the position of France in the global competition. (p.157)

Conclusion

To lead and make a success of the changes

[…] To create the conditions for these changes, it is necessary to:

• promote risk willingness. The search for zero risk leads to zero success. The innovation should be promoted and welcomed; the risk-taking must be paid; the precautionary principle must be strictly circumscribed. Our public policies must create incentives so that everyone has interest to act in the favor of growth, debt reduction, full employment and the environment;

Transformations of the public governance and control of public finances

If the record on implementation of the Commission’s proposals on Governance is very mixed, it is possible to identify four areas that have seen real progress […].

The main proposals for reform of governance of political and administrative system are dormant and in particular those concerning […]

Finally, the significant degradation of our public finances, partly due to the crisis, is in contrast with the Commission’s proposals to reduce by 1% per year the GDP share of the public expenditures. Indeed, the crisis, whose effect was reflected by lower tax revenues and increased public spending, has led to a sharp aggravation of the public deficit and debt. The French public deficit rose from 3.3% in 2008 to 7.5% in 2009; the public debt has, meanwhile, rose from 67.5% to 78.1% of the GDP between 2008 and 2009.

This increase in public liability has not been offset by an increase in private assets of long term and, contrary to the recommendations of the Commission, the taxation savings has not been the major reform needed to encourage riskier and longer term investments. France is still characterized by a rate of household savings particularly high but insufficiently oriented towards long-term financing of our economy.

Finally, the focus on the theme of sustainable development over the past two years has not been accompanied by the major counterpart advocated by the Commission through the reform of the writing of the precautionary principle in the Constitution in order to prevent its utilization as a pretext to curb risk-taking. (pp. 175-177)

…The 42 members of the Commission for the liberation of growth

ÉRIC LE BOUCHER

The direction of the future

First, the seriousness of the offense. Globalization, technology and aging would have forced

France

to adapt long ago. Far too little has been done while the crisis is now strengthening its dangers. The country is lagging behind in competitiveness, is suffering of growth failure, persistent unemployment, explosive debt, and it still seeks for the place it may take over the long term in the global division of labor among China, the United States and Germany. The “trend scenario” that our report draws is that of the decline.

To stop it goes through two emergency measures: the restoration of public accounts and the absolute priority given to stimulating employment.

But this will not be enough. The non-adaptation of the French model, despite its soaring costs has led the welfare state to no longer meet the legitimate needs expected from the government: to protect the citizens, to treat, to educate, to support the poor, to fund their retirement. This failure has led France to shrink at the time of the major upheavals that require action. The French, as panicked, lock themselves into the fear of the future, into the obsession of downgrading, and into the paralysis of distrust.

If France does not regain the confidence, the risk appetite, the desire to invest, if by principle it prefers the precaution to the adventure, it loses all chances that are yet still numerous.

But the country will obtain this revival only at the cost of a complete overhaul of its welfare state, of its educational system, of its social protection, of its attitude with respect to its businesses and their competitiveness and with respect to the overall financing of the economy.

These reforms, which we call "major programs," require time to be implemented, but only they will make again everyone to share the sentiment of living in a country where the government is effective and where the social justice is ensured. Only they will legitimize again the public policy over which hover today all suspicions. The emergency measures themselves, regarding the debt and the employment, shall be admitted only if they fall into this category.

"For the future generations." The title of our report is mainly a method: Young people are the victims of past inaction. Giving them a place, means to change completely the course of politics, means to position

France

in the direction of the future. (pp. 211, 228)

…

SUMMARY OF THE REPORT

FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

A major crisis is sweeping through the developed countries. It hit France at a time when our country was far from having implemented the changes needed to put us back on the path to sustainable growth.

Other profound transformations – economic, financial, social and political – are shaking the world. They have implications for every household in France, every business, every institution. Technological and cultural changes are almost daily revolutionizing our lifestyles and challenging the structures of power.

Our country must retain its position in the face of these great changes. Our children, and future generations must be able to create a prosperous economy in which they can safeguard the cohesion of our society and influence developments in the wider world around them.

For this to happen our country needs to implement the package of reforms set out in our initial report, almost two thirds of which have now been fully or partially set in motion. And the upheavals of the past two years now require prioritized action on a limited number of urgent issues.

The recommendations of this second report therefore clarify the proposals in our first report, and put them in an order of priority, in the light of the new imperatives.

We propose a strategy for change over the next ten years as a basis for all reforms that must be carried out by any government, whatever its political orientation, independently of any other reforms that particular governments may choose to make in the light of their specific political choices. Our aim is to give our children the chance to make collective choices freely in the future.

This framework is grounded in respect for three fundamental needs:

• the need for truth: France is in a difficult situation, with falling competitiveness, problems retaining its young people, scientists and entrepreneurs, debt, unemployment and insecurity. The country must understand the scale of these realities and acknowledge their implications. It must also recognize its own strengths, which are considerable. France has a growing population, compared to our European partners; it remains dynamic, with large transnational industrial groups and innovative SMEs; it has creative scientists, mathematicians, engineers, executives, artists, artisans and workers; it is a socially dynamic country thanks to its population’s capacity to adapt; it is attractive to investors; its growth outstripped that of Germany by an annual average of almost one point over the last ten years;

• the need for fairness: the efforts required from our country are on a scale unparalleled in peace-time. The concerted and determined action required from those in power cannot succeed unless it is seen as legitimate by everyone. Everyone needs to feel that this effort is shared fairly and that there are real opportunities for social mobility. Here again, France has many strengths. With a social security system that is unique in the world, and despite the difficulties caused by the current crisis, we are one of the least inegalitarian developed countries both in terms of income differentials and wealth distribution¹, a country where the incidence of poverty among senior citizens is in constant decline;

• the need for legitimacy: to reform the country, we must have effective public governance, clear responsibilities for state bodies, real-time monitoring of reforms and evaluation of their implementation. Here again, despite the doubts many of our compatriots may sometimes have about the poor functioning of our institutions,

France

has many strengths, with a very lively democracy and an extremely active civil society.

1. The richest 10% control 38% of the wealth in France, as opposed to 54% in Germany, 58% in Sweden and 71% in the

USA

(Source: OECD – Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries, 2008).

A return to economic growth is necessary and possible.

Without new policies to stimulate employment and balance public finances, growth will remain very weak and our society will soon find itself in an economic, financial, ecological and social impasse -and hence in a political one too.

The combination of an aging population and an imbalance in our public finances places France on a very dangerous slippery slope of growing debt and loss of competitiveness. Unless the public finances are very quickly put in order, the national debt will rise far beyond 100% of GDP by 2020, even before the impact of pensions is taken into account. Long before it reaches this point it will bring about a decline in the living standards of every French citizen, concentrate a growing proportion of tax receipts on financing the debt to the detriment of public services, and will make recovery impossible.

Potential growth in

France

, currently around 1.5%, would further reduce, triggering a vicious circle of more debt, less growth, fewer jobs, more injustice, a growing deficit and more debt.

So a new strategy for growth is vital. This growth must be reoriented and socially and ecologically more sustainable. More growth, different growth, growth for all. This new strategy is possible. France is capable of achieving an average economic growth of at least 2.5% of GDP year on year to 2020.This assumes productivity gains of 2% per year generating a reduction in structural unemployment to 4.5% of the active population. The experience of many of our neighbors shows that this is possible. The current situation in

France

and the desire of all French citizens to make the efforts necessary to live better show that the transformations needed to achieve it are within our reach.

The France we want to see in 2020

Our Commission seeks to speak in the name of future generations and to defend their interests. The France we want to see must therefore give priority to its young people in any action undertaken by the state.

Our ambition for France is not only to see our country come through the current crisis, but for all French citizens to fulfill their individual potential and have the best opportunities for themselves and their children. Our ambition is for our economy to be more competitive, our society more free, confident and secure and for the country to obtain the maximum benefit from global growth.

• France can and should build a society open to innovators, entrepreneurs, social activists, creators and investors. We do not want a France in which the privileged few focus on their private incomes. Our country must foster internal and external mobility. It must foster an active civil society as a precondition of democracy, quality of life and the reorientation of growth.

France

must be welcoming to those who want to contribute to its growth through their own work.

• France can and must build a more just and mobile society, particularly for the new generations, by drastically reducing the dropout rate in education and facilitating social mobility by rewarding work with success.

Achievement of these goals requires a new financially and socially sustainable growth strategy

To achieve these goals we have identified the key points of the necessary reforms, the fundamental conditions for growth, and the top priorities in relation to the reforms in our earlier report, which nevertheless remain important.

We propose a ten-year strategy based on:

• two immediate imperatives: debt reduction, to prevent the tragedy of a loss of sovereignty, and jobs, to end the scandal of mass unemployment, notably among the young;

• two long term priorities: education and the management of the major growth sectors, including the environment, natural resources and major infrastructure.

We do not want our legacy to future generations to be a France crumbling under a mountain of debt and unfunded pensions. On the contrary, we want to leave them a sovereign

France

, independent of international creditors, free to conduct its own policies and with sufficient fiscal resources to implement government programs. To achieve this we believe it is absolutely necessary – and possible – to reduce government debt to around 60% of GDP by the end of the current decade. This is our top priority. No growth without debt reduction, no debt reduction without growth.

We do not accept the inevitability of mass unemployment, or a youth unemployment rate of over 20%. This is an obstacle to growth, an injustice and a waste. We want a society of full employment. This is our second priority.

We do not want a France with diminishing levels of education, as is currently the case, particularly in primary education. This drop is an obstacle to growth in a globalized, knowledge-based economy. Primary education must be overhauled. This is our first long-term project.

We do not want to leave future generations with environmental degradation, inadequate infrastructure and a society unprepared for dwindling supplies of oil and many other environmental resources. This is our second major long-term project.

FIRST PRIORITY

Regain control of our public finances as the basis of growth and social cohesion

First and foremost, in the name of inter-generational fairness and the preservation of the future for generations to come, France must seek to balance its books and reduce public debt to around 60% of GDP by 2020.

The priority must be to reduce the government deficit below 3% of GDP as soon as possible, in other words in 2013.

The French stability program, which seeks to bring the deficit below 3% by the end of the period, must be respected. To succeed, for an annual GDP growth of 2%, the effort needed in comparison to the spontaneous development of the public finances is 25bn euros per year, a total of 75bn euros between now and 2013. This considerable adjustment could be obtained through spending cuts – of 50bn euros – and growth in the tax base and receipts from social contributions, in other words a tax increase – representing 25bn euros.

Spending cuts must be a clear priority (50bn euros over three years). It is possible to reduce spending without causing deterioration in the service provided. A proportion of public spending reflects the proliferation of administrative grades and quangos, insufficient use of electronic media and outdated management practices in public institutions such as universities and hospitals. In addition, some budgetary or fiscal spending corresponds to a private income received by certain social groups and professions. International experience shows that when spending cuts are prioritized in budgetary reform, stability is generally more durable.

Spending cuts will not be enough and it is also necessary to increase the tax base and social contributions receipts (25bn euros in three years). In practice the programs for budgetary adjustment implemented in developed countries have all acted both to reduce spending and to increase revenue. In particular, it is important to reduce or abolish tax breaks and welfare loopholes that have anti-redistributive effects or favor the more privileged, such as tax allowances on savings and tax-exempt capital gains. This means effectively raising taxes. For reasons of fairness it is also important to look again at inheritance tax. None of these tax rises will include any tax shield.

The plan for budgetary reform that we propose is:

• realistic: it will not lead to a reduction in the overall level of public spending, but only to a reduction of its rise;

• fair: this plan protects the spending power of the poorest in society and protects future generations;

• balanced: it preserves all the underlying elements of the welfare state and shares the burden of the efforts to be made between central government, local authorities and social security.

If the predicted necessary growth does not take place by mid-2011, the return to a government deficit of 3% of GDP in 2013 will require an acceleration of the reforms set out in the rest of this report, by means of additional measures. Otherwise it will have to be delayed. These measures should be discussed with representatives of local authorities and social partners in France, whose support for the debt reduction strategy is crucial. The measures should also be coordinated with those of our European partners, notably Germany.

Beyond 2013, continued debt reduction requires continued, far-reaching modernization of our institutions in a perspective of fairness and sustainability, and the reform of budgetary rules.

To reach debt levels of around 60% in order to preserve the foundations of our welfare state, it will be necessary, throughout the decade, to maintain efforts to increase the efficiency of public services and budgetary control, notably through the computerization of the public services. This also requires the identification of a new institutional framework for preparing and monitoring budgets.

Every effort must be made to modernize social protection, while preserving its universality. The administrative system needs to become more effective and better attuned to those that need it, encouraging professional mobility by reducing status differences. This notably involves giving a greater role to private health insurance and compulsory supplementary health insurance, and undertaking far-reaching reform of housing policy, which would have at its heart the welfare of the resident.

Everything must also be done to make the tax system fairer and more effective. This requires a more progressive tax system, based on better final remuneration for work and creativity, counterbalanced by new resources focusing on three areas: environmental degradation, consumption and personal wealth.

This readjustment of public finances to favor growth must be able to rely on the support of a strong Europe, which will assist states in reducing their debt while strengthening their collective capacity to invest in future spending. France must therefore work to strengthen the Stability and Growth Pact, develop European public funding for research and innovation, notably through the establishment of Europe-wide risk capital funds for SMEs and patent funds, and by encouraging long-term private investment through the establishment of an appropriate accounting, prudential and regulatory framework.

SECOND PRIORITY

To create jobs and give young people a future

The second priority relates to jobs, notably jobs for young people. Employment is a factor for growth. It is also a consequence of growth.

Firstly, everything that makes businesses more competitive is good for jobs. To this end our Commission recommends retaining most of the reductions in charges and transferring an element of social charges to VAT. The development of competition, particularly in the services sector (telecommunications, banks and insurance, energy, etc.) is also a useful spur to innovation and job creation in areas of unsatisfied demand.

We also propose action in three directions.

The creation of an effective, coherent and empowering framework for job-seekers through the establishment of a development contract. This is a major reform. Its starting point is the observation that the job-seeking process is useful for both the unemployed person and the wider community. It therefore deserves to be remunerated and organized through an activity contract for an open period, providing payment for the activity of seeking work or training. Beneficiaries will be offered personal mentoring. In the longer term this contract is intended to become the standard offer of the public employment service in France and will be offered to all jobseekers. It will take different forms depending on how long the beneficiary has been out of work. It will enable significant reductions in the duration of unemployment and extend the duration of employment. It will be funded by a redeployment of spending on employment and training policies.

The use of vocational training to secure transitions between jobs. This would require fundamental changes to its functioning to make it more effective. In addition to the recently established national Fonds paritaire de sécurisation des parcours professionnels [a fund to support retraining initiatives], the training system needs to be made more effective through the creation of regional funds so that resources can be pooled and shared more effectively within localities for the benefit of jobseekers.

The reduction of insecurity in the job market, which makes employers and employees risk-averse and causes talents to go to waste. To encourage contracts of longer average duration, we propose that unemployment insurance contributions should vary according to the duration of the employment contract and that the social partners be given the task of drawing up an employment contract with progressive rights.

In addition, to put an end to the ‘French exception’ of very high youth unemployment, two actions must be developed:

• the reinforcement of initial work-based training as a priority for those with the lowest levels of qualification: apprenticeships, which have been successful in higher education, must be extended to training at a level at or below the 18+ highs school diploma. One solution would be to give businesses the opportunity to pre-recruit young people and fund their training in exchange for a commitment from the beneficiaries to remain in employment with that company for a minimum period (3-5 years);

• the reinforcement of training after an initial period of work: movement back and forth between professional careers and training at a basic level should be encouraged by developing specially-adapted university courses and ensuring that young people have sufficient resources.

FIRST LONG-TERM PRIORITY

To guarantee an education for our children, from nursery to university

The education system has long been a strength in

France

. But no longer. Progress has been made through the implementation of our first report on higher education. The same cannot be said of the primary sector, where more and more children are failing to achieve and social mobility is diminishing. In particular, almost all children identified as being in difficulty before they enter primary school at 6+ remain so afterwards. This waste of talent can ultimately be seen in the active population, with a very large number of people leaving school under-qualified: poor primary education is an obstacle to growth.

To remedy this we must:

• reinforce equal opportunities in the early years. New educational methods must be integrated into the training of nursery nurses and early-years teachers to enable children to gain the skills they need to learn to read. The training of the different professions working with the under-3s should be gradually harmonized to create a new type of early-years educator with enhanced pedagogical skills.

• reinforce the autonomy and role of school heads. Heads must be able to recruit their own teaching teams and manage their projet d’établissement [school project]. They must be able to run experiments in innovative teaching methods to improve the way all pupils learn reading and arithmetic. So, for example, experiments could start in 2011, in the form of small group workshops, several times a week, in twenty primary schools within an académie [regional education authority], then evaluated independently and, if successful, adapted and extended.

• establish effective management of human resources in education. The work of teachers must be rigorously evaluated in a way that has an influence on their career. The increase in the duties of teachers should make it possible to give pupils more individually tailored support The in-service training of teachers must be substantially improved and opportunities for a second career outside the state education system should be opened up to them.

Lastly, in accordance with the recommendations of our first report, improvements in the quality of the higher education system requires enhanced autonomy for the institutions and the reinforcement of collaborations with the wider society and business to encourage innovation. This requires universities to have stronger governance and increased freedom to recruit teaching staff and select students, in tandem with the development of external evaluation, reinforcement of multidisciplinary approaches and an internationalist vision within universities.

SECOND LONG-TERM PRIORITY

Preservation of the environment and management of scarce resources

In order to grow, France must invest much more than it now does in sustainable development, preserve its environment and implement an integrated strategy for the management of scarce resources. From this perspective, our country must take action in three directions:

• establish proper ecological pricing by implementing a carbon tax, if possible at the European level. Proper pricing is indispensable in guiding consumer choice and improving the profitability of long-term investments in the environment;

• prepare the country for the rising cost of raw materials, and in particular, secure Europe’s access to energy by enhancing the internal energy market, developing renewable energy sources and cross-border infrastructure, adapting energy pricing so as to maintain the capacity to produce the energy needed and increasing the involvement of the European Union in international negotiations concerning the regulation of raw materials. In particular, France must secure the conditions required to fund the renewal of its nuclear capacity and acquire the means to develop a strategy for the control of vital raw materials;

• make better use of our strengths in the management of scarce resources : above and beyond our established positions in the fields of water, energy and waste, France must place agriculture back at the centre of its strategy for growth, with an emphasis on research and innovation. It must also launch a proper marine policy by developing our ports and intensifying deep-water exploration.

In addition, the proposals in our first report that have not yet been implemented, notably on innovation and competitiveness, remain as important as ever.

All the country’s leaders and decision-makers must be convinced of the scale of the transformation necessary to preserve and modernize our social model, conceived during the Resistance, implemented during the Liberation, extended during the ‘Thirty Glorious Years’ and abundantly invoked since the first oil crisis.

Altogether, our proposals constitute a ten-year ambition. To succeed, this requires radical changes in the organization of the state and the relationship to risk and to democracy. It can be implemented only if it is the object of social consensus. To achieve this, we are hoping, through this report, to open up a great debate in France leading to a general mobilization. This debate requires the involvement of a maximum number of political, economic, social and cultural actors.

We are fully aware of the difficulties inherent in these transformations:

• the state lacks the tools for action, since it has gradually handed over areas of control to Europe, the private sector, local and regional authorities and social dialogue; although these developments may be welcome in principle, they pose real problems for the coherence of public action;

• the social partners have not really discussed shared strategies in relation to long-term objectives. In particular, they have not discussed debt reduction, the fight against illiteracy and pollution.

• sectorial interests may oppose particular reforms which are motivated by considerations of the common interest alone.

To make possible the changes described above, the Commission proposes action in four directions.

• Reform political institutions so that they make it easier for the state to act : to achieve this it is necessary to clarify the responsibilities of institutions whose relationships with the government, local authorities and social protection bodies are currently too complicated. Rules leading to a return to budgetary equilibrium must be established and we must ensure that Parliament ratifies the programme for budgetary stability. Public policy must also be subject to systematic, independent evaluation, with real consequences for public spending.

• Promote the acceptance of risk. Growth means taking risks. The drive to zero risk leads to zero success. Innovation must be encouraged and welcomed; the precautionary principle must be strictly circumscribed. In particular, this involves encouraging research and the entrepreneurial spirit and the fair pricing of scarce resources, the involvement of public servants in the reduction of government deficits and a more incentive-based funding of social protection – with rewards and penalties.

• Mobilize French society as a whole for the benefit of its young people. The generations now in power must bring about a massive reorientation of public choices to build a society in which future generations will be able to find work and good quality housing more easily. This requires the systematic assessment of every public decision proposed in the light of a simple criterion: is this project useful for future generations or will it make their lives more complicated?

• Develop a shared European – and notably Franco-German – ambition. France and Germany are in the same boat. Neither country can come through without the other. Everything that has been said thus far must therefore, in the long term, be carried out jointly with our German partners.

The implementation of these principles should make it possible to undertake all the reforms proposed here to best effect.

• • •

•

Our report is completed. Its life starts here.

We are going to use our energies to explain and publicize it, to speak to political and social actors to ask for its implementation. Quickly. Sustainably.

Because we are convinced that if it is not implemented, our country will fall into decline.

Because we are convinced that it can be implemented, democratically, calmly and sustainably.

Because we did not work to ease our consciences but to open up a new path.

May the country follow it.

(pp. 239-251)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7204972.stm

Sarkozy gets economic reform plan

International economists have presented French President Nicholas Sarkozy with a report of more than 300 proposals to "unleash" national economic growth.

BBC World News

January 23, 2008

The panel was headed by Jacques Attali, an ex-adviser to former socialist president Francois Mitterrand.

Unions and opposition politicians have attacked many of the proposals.

But Mr Attali urged the president to implement the measures rapidly. "We believe there is a limited window of opportunity to do so," he said.

The panel believes that if all the measures are implemented, French economic growth could be at least 1% higher in 2012.

And it says unemployment could be cut from 7.9% to 5%, and the number of people under the poverty line could be reduced.

'Remarkable'

“ In a world which is changing very fast, France is lagging behind while it has exceptional assets ”

Nicolas Sarkozy, French president

"Now responsibility no longer lies with us but with the government, the governing majority, parliament and all of public opinion," said Mr Attali.

Mr Sarkozy called the panel's work "remarkable" and said he agreed with most of the proposals, though Mr Attali wants the report to be adopted as a whole.

"In a world which is changing very fast, France is lagging behind while it has exceptional assets," the president said.

"I challenge anybody to say that this finding is not reasonable," he added.

Mr Sarkozy's election promise was to accelerate French economic growth, but last week the government had to revise its 2008 growth forecast down to 2%, with many economists expecting the growth to be even slower.

Mr Sarkozy has recently vetoed some unpopular measures, as some members of his UMP party don't want to upset voters ahead of March municipal elections.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.french-property.com/news/money_france/economic_growth_attali_commission/

Attali Commission - A Plan for the Liberation of France

Friday 01 February 2008

One of the most important reports in decades on the future of France has been presented to the French Government, but will its recommendations ever see the light of day?

The Attali Commission on Economic Growth was set up by President Sarkozy following his election in May 2007. The Commission is an iconoclastic group of 40 members of the éminence grise of France, who were told by the President to go away and come up with a programme of action to improve the level of competitiveness of the French economy.

The report of the Commission was finally unveiled last week, at a ceremony in which President Sarkozy and his leading Ministers were present. When the Commission was created, President Sarkozy somewhat imprudently and presumptuously stated that he would implement their recommendations.

When the day of reckoning came last week, he gave a general welcome to the report, but he also made it clear that he did not accept two of its key recommendations (abolition of administrative counties and removing the 'principle of precaution' from the Constitution), and that implementation of the other recommendations would be subject to achieving a wider consensus.

He was probably right to hedge his bets for the general reaction to the report has been the usual cacophony of negatisivm whenever the prospect of change is in the air. Not only has this opposition come from the usual suspects of trade unions and professional groups, but it is clear that there is a lot of concern within his own UMP party, which will cause him to sleep lightly at night.

One of the most controversial proposals is to increase the level of immigration, in order to meet labour requirements. Against the backdrop of the proposed introduction of a quota system for immigration, and a commitment by the President to deport each year around 25,000 illegal immigrants, it will be interesting to observe just how he deals with this one. He was noticeably silent on it at the release of the report.

Another controversial proposal is one to end controls on certain trades and professional occupations, notably those of taxi drivers, avocats, bailiffs, notaires, hairdressers, and chemists. There have already been howls of protests from all of these groups, so expect some moderation of the proposals to take place if the idea does ever see the light of day.

One of the central tax proposals of the Commission is to transfer employer and employee social security costs onto the general system of taxation. More specifically, by a hike in the rate of social welfare levy and VAT. Once again, the President is going to find himself in great difficulty in implementing this proposal. As one of the central promises of his election campaign was to increase the standard of living of households, it is difficult to see how this can be squared with any increase in domestic taxation.

More generally, there is also concern about a lack of coherence in the report, and its failure to address the underlying need for a greater level of investment in the economy. Many of the recommendations are rightly about tackling the regulatory indigestion under which the country suffers but, whilst the report is clear about the destination, the route to get there is less obvious.

US Constitutional Amendments to Establish Guaranteed Environmental Rights Will Undermine Economic Freedom

2010-07-12T09:42:00.078-04:00

[THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES EVIDENCE A LONG-TERM EFFORT BY ENVIRONMENTAL EXTREMISTISTS AND MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMY, WHICH ARE ARGUABLY INFLUENCING OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND CONGRESSIONAL POLICY, TO EMBED VERY COSTLY COMMUNITARIAN ‘SOFT’-SOCIALIST ENVIRONMENT-CENTRIC SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT NORMS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SANCTIONED EUROPEAN AARHUS CONVENTION, THE RECENTLY AMENDED EUROPEAN UNION AND FRENCH CONSTITUTIONS, AND A NUMBER OF UNITED NATIONS MULTILATERAL ENVIRONMENTAL TREATIES, WITHIN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA VIA AMENDMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION AND ITS ACCOMPANYING BILL OF RIGHTS, AND/OR VIA AMENDMENT OF STATE CONSTITUTIONS, TO PROVIDE FOR A RELATIVELY SUPERIOR CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED ‘ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHT’, THUS EMPOWERING THE ‘ELITES’ OF GOVERNMENT AND NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS, PURSUANT TO EUROPE’S PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AND THE ‘PUBLIC TRUST’ DOCTRINE, TO UNDERTAKE SWEEPING LEGISLATIVE, REGULATORY AND JUDICIAL REFORMS, AND TO EXERCISE AGGRESSIVE ‘GREEN’ ‘POLICE ENFORCEMENT POWERS’ IN THE ‘PUBLIC INTEREST’, THAT WOULD FUNDAMENTALLY ‘CHANGE’ THE AMERICAN COMMON LAW ‘NEGATIVE’ INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS-BASED, FREE MARKET ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL SYSTEMS (i.e. THE UNIQUE AMERICAN SOCIAL COMPACT).]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.abanet.org/environ/committees/lawstudents/writingcompetition/2008/WillMitSoL/ShubhaHarris.pdf
Establishing a Constitutional Right to Environmental Quality

Shubha Harris†

May 5, 2008

…This article begins by discussing recent efforts to enshrine a fundamental right to a healthy environment in the U.S. Constitution.2…It then discusses the arguments for and against adopting a constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment and argues for enacting such a right.5 Finally, it contends that a fundamental right to a healthy environment can be construed as part of the Fifth Amendment’s right to life guarantee, and that the time is right for the U.S. courts to recognize such a right for its citizens.6 (p.1)

…V. A CONSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHT

A. A Constitutional Amendment to a Healthy Environment

1. Arguments Supporting Adopting a Constitutional Amendment

There are several arguments in support of adopting an amendment to the U.S. constitution guaranteeing the right to a clean and healthy environment. A principal reason for establishing a constitutional right to environmental protection is that doing so takes the issue out of the realm of daily politics and therefore less susceptible to political whims.59

…There exists a strong rationale for establishing a constitutional right to environmental protection to insulate environmental values from narrow majorities in legislative bodies: that rationale can best be described as protecting the right of future generations. Legislative action is an important means for protecting the environment. But relying too heavily on Congress to protect the environment is not realistic. Making choices to preserve and protect the environment are difficult ones. It is much easier for legislators to do what is best right now without regard to future impact.69 Protecting the environment cannot be achieved through short-term measures; rather, it is a long-term goal which requires thoughtful and careful planning. (pp. 7-8)

…Another reason for adopting a constitutional right to environmental quality is that doing so would make the right more indestructible than mere statements of policy, procedural norms, or even regulatory statutes.70 Enacting a constitutional environmental right would offer environmental protection the highest rank among legal norms, thereby trumping statutes, administrative rules, and/or court decisions on the matter.71

…A constitutional provision, on the other hand, would provide a minimum guarantee, thereby assuring individuals that the right would receive the same protection accorded other fundamental rights. This is especially important for the poor and for minorities, who are particularly vulnerable to environmental harm because they often live in contaminated areas and/or work in hazardous conditions.77 Adopting a constitutional right to environmental quality will therefore assure Americans, in particular traditionally disadvantaged groups, at least a baseline guarantee that their rights to a decent environment will not be infringed without legal recourse. (pp. 9-10)

…Next, protecting the environment is a global issue. Environmental threats abroad affect Americans and vice versa. Thus, Americans cannot reasonably believe that environmental policy should be only of domestic concern. As one scholar noted, “[t]he amount of fossil fuel burning in China will affect temperatures in Kansas, and transportation decisions in California will affect the quality of life in Bangladesh.”80 The interdependence of human beings is particularly evident when it comes to the environment. No nation is an island,81 and the United States’ environmental policy must reflect its role as one part in a single ecosystem.82 As nations around the world begin to recognize an environmental right, so too should the United States. Our failure to do so will contravene the progress of global environmental efforts.

Related to the above, nations around the world are beginning to include environmental protection as a constitutional right. Arguably, the United States has been the leader of the free world for over a half a century and its Constitution has been and continues to be used as a model to other countries as they form governing documents.83 The United States should be leading the world on environmental issues – as the U.S. takes aggressive action on the matter, so will other countries. Adopting a constitutional right to environmental quality will send a message to the world that the U.S. is serious about environmental protection. (p.10)

…2. Arguments Against Adopting a Constitutional Amendment

…Several American states have recognized the threat to the environment and have passed amendments to state constitutions. Internationally, the right is being interwoven into Constitutions with increasing frequency. But the right to a healthy environment is generally viewed as a “positive” social right, requiring affirmative action on the part of the government to create a certain standard. There are several problems with adopting such a positive right in the U.S. Constitution. The first is that the majority of the Constitution’s existing amendments protect “negative” rights rather than positive rights. Negative rights afford individuals protection against an aggressive government as opposed to positive rights which are individual entitlements to protections by the state requiring definite action on the part of the government.93 Many countries that have enacted Constitutions in the past thirty years have included “positive” rights. These more recent Constitutions protect the right to certain minimum conditions including the right to food, adequate housing, and in many countries, the right to a decent environment.94 Yet these more recent constitutions have been harshly criticized for including overly broad goals and for their failure to deliver the enumerated rights.95 Providing a wide array of social and/or economic rights to citizens requires huge expenditures, and by including such guarantees, most countries will not be able to keep apace with the needs of its citizens.96 The U.S. Constitution does include three positive rights,97 but all of the rights adopted since the Bill of Rights are negative rights.98 Adopting a constitutional “right to a healthy environment” is an aspirational right and is generally seen to be nonjusticiable. The Constitution does not contain any rights which are solely aspirational and the notion of including positive, social rights in the Constitution is scorned by many.99 (pp. 11-12)

…Undoubtedly, a right that guarantees individuals that the government will refrain from action which causes environmental harm may be difficult for courts to interpret and define. Yet courts have faced similar struggles with respect to other fundamental rights and, over time, have developed a body of jurisprudence on which we can rely. The same may be true for an environmental right.

3. Enacting a Constitutional Amendment to a Healthy Environment

Notwithstanding the fact that the positive vs. negative right distinction is illusory, the right to environmental protection can be framed as a negative right111 to assuage those concerned about including positive rights in the Constitution. By analogy, the right of free speech is actually prohibitory in nature and assures individuals that the government will not act in such a way that will restrict their freedom of speech. The specific language of the First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law. abridging the freedom of speech[.]” Similarly, an environmental rights amendment could be mandatory and prohibitory in nature and read

“Congress shall make no law abridging the right to a clean and healthy environment.”112

Such a right would guarantee individuals that the government and the private actors it regulates could not pollute or otherwise engage in environmentally destructive behavior. Establishing the right as a negative right removes the entitlement element viewed by many as problematic with regard to social rights: a negative environmental right does not require the government to bestow upon individuals minimum necessities, but rather assures individuals that the government will refrain from acting in ways that can harm the environment, much like the government must refrain from interfering with an individual’s right to free speech.113 .Additionally, construing the right as a positive right is problematic because such rights lack justiciable criteria114 and also require implementing legislation. On the other hand, viewing the right as a mandatory, negative right would provide the necessary language for courts to find the right to be self-executing and therefore enforceable.11 (p.14)

…B. Judicially-Created Right.

…In general, originalists ascribe to limiting judicial power by narrowly construing the Constitution.118 They believe that the meaning of democracy is that elected officials should govern and that judicial review is a “deviant institution” because it allows unelected judges to change the decisions made by elected officials who are directly accountable to the public.119 Those who subscribe to this methodology argue that in order to limit the power of unelected judges, only those rights specifically enumerated or clearly implied in the Constitution’s text should be protected.120

On the other hand, non-originalists argue that judges should have considerable discretion in interpreting the Constitution.121 They contend that the Constitution should evolve not only by amendment, but also by judicial interpretation, and thus judges should be permitted to go beyond just the four corners of the Constitution’s text.122 Those who espouse this approach contend that because of advances in society and technology, courts are free to protect rights that are not expressly delineated.123

A “fundamental right” is given special status because such rights cannot be infringed by the government without a compelling purpose.124 For the Court to interpret an existing constitutional provision to create a new fundamental right is a not a radical idea. Although controversial, the Court has created numerous fundamental rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution using either the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.125 Either or both of these clauses can give rise to a constitutional right to a healthy environment. (pp. 15-16)

…1. Judicially Created Rights Using Substantive Due Process

…In a recent case, Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997)…the majority…reasoned that a substantive due process right required two elements: first, the asserted right required a determination of whether it was “deeply rooted in [our] Nation’s history and tradition”;130 second, the right required a “careful description.”131

…2. Recognizing a Constitutional Right to a Healthy Environment Using Substantive Due Process

Applying this two-part test in favor of finding a constitutional right to a healthy environment does not bode well for the right. The first factor in the framework requires the right to have been historically and traditionally protected. Yet, there is scant history supporting a constitutional environmental right. Undoubtedly, there is ample recent history supporting the right,132 yet the Glucksberg test requires not a right that has been protected in modern society, but a right that has been traditionally protected throughout America’s history. The U.S. Constitution says nothing about the environment, and throughout our nation’s history, environmental effects have often taken a back-seat to economic progress.

…the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), rejected the "deeply rooted in the nation's history" test and stated that to find a right under the substantive due process clause, courts must look to evolving political and cultural values.136 Under this framework, an environmental right seems more feasible.

…The majority opinion in Lawrence is viewed by many as groundbreaking because it unequivocally engages in making value judgments about what cultural and political ideas should be considered of constitutional importance.139 The Court’s language in Lawrence evinces respect for “constitutional values that have not heretofore found their natural home in the Due Process Clause.”140 While the majority opinion in Lawrence has also been harshly criticized, it is ultimately recognition that constitutional law and culture are juxtaposed in a reciprocal, dynamic relationship whereby each influences the other.141 Under this view, a constitutional right to environmental protection can be justified.

…The Court’s reasoning in Lawrence is a major turning point for the substantive due process doctrine, but it is also significant because it is the first time the Supreme Court cited foreign case law in overturning an American constitutional precedent.146 While there is certainly debate over whether, and to what extent, the Supreme Court should look to foreign case law in deciding constitutional questions,147 Justice Kennedy’s opinion in Lawrence clearly suggests that foreign precedent is relevant in our countries’ constitutional discourse.148 This fact weighs in favor of finding a constitutional right to a healthy environment for Americans. As discussed above, the world’s largest democracy, India, explicitly recognizes an environmental right in its Constitution and the Indian Supreme Court has also interpreted its Due Process provisions to include the right.149 Additionally, courts in other countries have recognized the right.150 These decisions should influence U.S. courts to find an environmental right. (pp. 17-19)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=mes_capstones

EXCERPTS FROM:

Department of Earth and Environmental Science
Master of Environmental Studies Capstone Projects

University of Pennsylvania Year 2006

The Necessity and Possibilities of
Constitutional Environmental Rights

Christina Simeone
University of Pennsylvania

An American Evolution – Environmental Rights Chapter

… Nature and Definition of Environmental Rights

A constitutionally guaranteed environmental right could be worded in many different ways. The wording of the right would shape its duties and scope. Tim Hayward, a scholar devoted to environmental rights, prefers the definition of environmental rights referenced in the Brundtland report of 1987:

‘All human beings have the fundamental right to an environment adequate for their health and well-being’1.

…A U.S. environmental right would be considered an anthropocentric right, because it considers only human health and well-being, not the environment ‘for its own sake’. An eco-centric environmental right would be worded more as a ‘right OF nature’ rather than a ‘right TO nature’. This distinction is important since legal authorities would probably be more likely to oppose the economic interests of an entity to protect the rights of human than the rights of animals or plants4. An anthropocentric right can have two further distinctions, ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ anthropocentrism. Strong anthropocentrism, also called the utilitarian view, would consider only the interests of humans and excludes the interests of nonhumans and the environment for its own sake. The utilitarian view only considers the short-term value of all variables of the ecosystem. By this view, the environment is seen as a life-support system for humans, to be manipulated and used in whatever way humans feel is to their best interests. The focus of ‘weak’ anthropocentrism is on human interests, but it does consider nonhuman and environmental interests. This view acknowledges that humans are integrally linked to the environment and cannot be separated from it. Weak anthropocentrism maintains that if relatively subordinate human interests conflict with essential interests of nonhumans or the environment, priority could be given to the non-human or environmental interests5. ‘Weak’ anthropocentrism generally recognizes that,

“human interests are inseparable from the good of the nonhuman constituents of the environment in many ways, some of which we may not yet be aware of, so that a reasonable working presumption (which is absent from ‘strong’ anthropocentrism) is that where there is not a serious cost in human terms there is a positive reason actively to show concern for features and constituents of the nonhuman environment, regardless of whether humans stand to derive any immediate benefit.”6

Ultimately, the nature of environmental rights requires a concerted International effort towards preservation and protection. This is due to the interdependence of environmental sectors, trans-boundary effects of environmental harm, and such complex and compounding phenomena as ozone layer depletion and global warming7. These factors illustrate how regional environmental protection is beneficial, but not a cure in the face of global damage. Many sectors of the economy serve to negatively impact the environment. The processing of raw materials, fuel use, mining and timber practices, transportation and distribution methods, industrial processes, consumer consumption patterns, product life cycles, and many other common practices of the modern world work together to affect and harm the environment. Pollution in one region can migrate and affect many other regions. Thus environmental protection measures in the United States do not ensure that pollution from other countries will not affect our land and populations. Lastly, ozone layer depletion and global warming have real and significant impacts for the whole of humanity. These problems will not subside unless all actors work to make necessary changes. With these three factors in mind one can understand that problems related to environmental degradation will not be accurately addressed until there is a cohesive international effort. Fortunately, much of the rest of the world has already begun to act8. As both a world superpower and cultural icon, the United States has significant influence on the world stage. As the world’s leading consumer and polluter, the United States the ability to set a revolutionary (or evolutionary) precedent by enacting a constitutionally guaranteed environmental right. Implementing a constitutionally guaranteed environmental right in the United States could not only improve the domestic environmental situation, but could also prove instrumental in improving the environmental quality of the entire world. (pp. 1-3)

… What Should Environmental Right Guarantee?

It is logical that an environmental right would mandate certain duties and guarantees to the people that it protects. An effective environmental right must include duties, and procedural and substantive rights9. Additionally, an environmental right should offer injunctive relief and mechanisms to collect damages from infringing parties10.

… Dinah Shelton believes that procedural rights of an effective environmental right should require informed consent and political participation Shelton outlines 3 procedural rights that an environmental right should guarantee; 1) a right to prior knowledge of such action, with corresponding state duty to inform, 2) a right to participate in decision-making, and 3) a right to recourse before competent administrative and judicial bodies13. Provisions must also be made to enable an injunction mechanism for immediate procedural guarantees against action causing environmental degradation14. This would not prevent entities from secretly carrying out environmentally harmful projects, but it would give the public the ability to halt such projects once they become aware of them. This injunction would stand until the project could be properly investigated, environmental damages assessed, public participation and information enabled, and damages sought if necessary.

Shelton maintains that even with the above-mentioned procedural guarantees, two questions still remain to be answered; 1) how do the rights to information and participation apply to individuals outside of those immediately affected, and 2) who makes the final decision about projects affecting the environment and are there substantive limits to decision maker actions?15

The first question addresses an issue related to the trans-boundary nature of the environmental degradation…The trans-boundary nature of environmental harm requires that provisions be enacted to afford those outside of the state of jurisdiction (or country of jurisdiction) some means of obtaining information, input in decision-making, and legal recourse if damages arise. This requirement could mandate that emitters of pollution or providers of environmental damage forecast how the pollution they produce will migrate. If foreign states or countries are affected, information, participation, and redress must be provided accordingly. Correspondingly, the first question posed by Shelton touches on the issues of the rights of non-citizens. The second question posed by Shelton involves an international scenario. By this perspective, international treaties that establish customary norms and standards would place limits on decision makers. Final decision on environmental issues would come from the state of jurisdiction. However, that state would be restricted by the limits set by international treaties.

Absent norms and standards set by international treaties, the second question posed by Shelton remains unanswered for a domestic scenario. In the United States the state supreme court would have preeminent jurisdiction, with appellate courts and the Federal Supreme Court following. The substance of the federal environmental right and the federal administration tasked to enforce such a right (the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) would impose limits on state decision makers. Federal laws set protection mandates such as limits on pollution. States must abide by those federal regulations, but are allowed to create stricter protection mechanisms and limits.
(pp. 4-5)

… The link between human rights and the environment (discussed in detail later in this chapter) is built on the fact that many national and international jurisdictions recognize that the right to a healthy environment is a fundamental human right. The following substantive matters ensue; 1) litigation should be allowed based on this right and facilitating its enforceability in domestic law by liberalizing provisions regarding ‘standing’, 2) acknowledging that other human rights recognized in domestic legal systems can be violated as a result of environmental degradation (right to property, privacy, life)16… The second issue relates to that fact that nature and the environment are inherently linked to human existence. Therefore, established basic human rights may be violated if the environment is degraded. For example, a person’s right to property or privacy may be violated if pollution from a neighboring property migrates to his or her own property.

… Duties, procedural and substantive rights, and injunction and damages mechanisms are all things that should be guaranteed to each citizen and immigrant under a constitutional environmental right. There are other things, reforms specifically, that should be guaranteed at the inception of an environmental right. These include, but are not limited to the reevaluation of pollution standards, reform of traditional cost-benefit analysis practices, and the manifestation of insulating environmental protection goals from short-term political and economic will. An environmental right should guarantee that pollution standards be set using the precautionary principle of preventing and anticipating harm. Thresholds of acceptable risk are extremely hard to determine, however, this should not be deterrence. Thresholds should be set based on the most sensitive groups of the population, namely children, the sick and the elderly. Thresholds limits should also consider the compound affects of multiple sources emitting regulated levels. A further discussion of pollution limit setting is later in this chapter.

Environmental cost-benefit analysis reform should be guaranteed to take place at the inception of an environmental right. Traditional methods employed by the Office of Management and Budget have historically undervalued environmental inputs (see the Economics chapter of this book). Most notably these under-valuations have been with respect to deriving consumer demand for environmental services, future generation preferences, perfect and poor substitutability of environmental outputs, environmental weights, and methods of valuing non-market goods. (pp.6-7)

…In 1998 the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) held the Aarhus Convention, also known as the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. This convention ‘links environmental rights and human rights’, recognizes current obligations to future generations, proclaims that sustainable development can only be reached if all stakeholders participate, links government accountability with environmental protection, and establishes methods to increase public participation in international environmental agreements23. This agreement establishes procedural rights, rights to information, rights to participation in decision-making, and rights to access to justice in environmental matters. While these rights do not encompass a comprehensive environmental right, they do establish fundamental rights that are necessary to securing the right to a healthy environment.

The preamble of the Aarhus Agreement makes two very important assertions that inextricably link environmental rights with human rights:

• Recognizing that adequate protection of the environmental is essential to human well-being and the enjoyment of basic human rights, including the right to life itself.

• Recognizing also that every person has the right to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being, and the duty, both individually and in association with others, to protect and improve the environment for the benefit of present and future generations.24

The UN asserts that this document is not only about environmental and human rights, but also about government accountability, transparency and responsiveness25. This is apparent through the Agreement’s three main objectives (or pillars): access to information, public participation in decision–making, and access to justice. (p.12)

…Aarhus has been ratified by 39 countries including; Greece, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom, Germany, Latvia, Romania, etc. The United States has not ratified the Aarhus Convention at the time of my research. Most recent amendment to the Aarhus Convention was the extension of the rights of public participation in decision-making on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Also added to Aarhus was the Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers and the “Environmental Democracy” clearinghouse, used to promote ideas and awareness about Aarhus covered issues. Aarhus represents the concerted thoughts and actions of a proactive eastern society focused on basic human rights, such as the right to a healthy environment.

… Can Environmental Rights Be Exercised Using Existing Rights?

The government has used property rights to protect certain areas of land. Whether for natural conservation parks, tourist sites, to prevent development, etc, the government has acted to preserve land deemed to be valuable to the general public. Such ‘regulatory takings’ have prevented certain actions on private land, to the dismay of landowners. The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires the government compensate landowners for taking or limiting their land. However, regulatory takings of the government, for the purpose of protecting the public good, are rarely compensated for. Land-use laws have been a key tool use by the Federal government to achieve environmental protection through regulatory takings. Such laws as the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Section 404 of Clean Water Act (CWA) are examples of such land-use laws.

Lavinge asserts that initial zoning, tax, and public works design of land use laws has inhibited United States jurisprudence from developing strong and useful mechanisms to support, analyze, or regulate cumulative effects of environmental decision-making or their impacts on future generations36. Property rights and land-use laws can be very controversial. They may offer means to protect environmentally desirable areas of land, yet do little to protect the health and well being of all citizens. In this sense, property rights are not a substitute for a constitutional environmental right. However, when landowners are properly compensated for government-seized land, deemed in the interest of the public good, property rights can be effective tools to enforce and implement aspects of a constitutional environmental right. Properly conceived property rights should be seen as a subordinate mechanism to realizing a dominant constitutional environmental right.
(pp. 15-16)

Methods of Amending the U.S. Constitution

Who Currently Has Environmental Rights?

State constitutions shape state laws, branches of government, and direct state bureaucracy. All state constitutions are subordinate to the Federal Constitution.

…State constitutions are more easily amended than the federal constitution. The state constitution amendment process involves voter participation. This functional difference from the federal constitution allows state constitutions to directly reflect popular opinion, consent and control. They tend to be larger documents because they are more frequently changed…

…Many states within the United States have amended their state constitutions to include environmental rights provisions. From 1970 to 1979, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana, and Pennsylvania amended their constitutions to include environmental rights41. (pp. 18-19)

…What are the Difficulties with Environmental Rights?

… It is also noteworthy to recognize that many international documents asserting environmental rights as a human right are not ratified or endorsed by the United States. Apple concludes that a sufficiently specific, universal, and obligatory international treaty accompanied by mainstream recognition of environmental rights would enable U.S. courts to succeed in enforcing environmental rights55.

Sevine Ercmann summarizes the finding of three international meetings regarding the enforcement of environmental laws56. Enforcement of environmental laws is paramount to ensuring the enforcement of a constitutional environmental right. The International meetings Ercmann references were sponsored by the U.S. EPA, other relevant U.S. authorities, the Environmental Ministries of the host countries, and the Dutch ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and Environment. These conferences took place in Utrecht, Netherlands in 1990, Budapest, Hungary in 1992, and Oaxaca, Mexico in 1994. Ercmann outlines generalities, necessary means of enforcement, powers to be given to authorities, the role of public awareness, the role of NGOs and other special interest groups, developing mechanisms of enforcement, and three principles going into the future. Ercmann’s data are heavily cited because they represent a cooperative international effort to address a very specific problem.

… Ercmann points out general methods to ensure that environmental laws are properly interpreted and enforced. He begins by stating that national and international legal requirements regarding administrative, civil, and criminal provisions must be adopted. These legal requirements should begin with effective compliance measures and increased administrative control and participation.

… The international environmental enforcement conferences defined compliance as follows:

“Compliance is the full implementation of environmental requirements. Compliance occurs when requirements are met and desired changes are achieved….If requirements are well-designed, then compliance will achieve the desired environmental results. If the requirements are poorly designed, then achieving compliance and/or the desired outcome will likely be difficult…”57

Enforcement is defined as follows:

“…Enforcement is the set of actions that government or others take to achieve compliance within the regulated community and to correct or halt situations that endanger the environment or public health.”58

Traditional methods of enforcement include monitoring, inspection, reporting, gathering evidence to locate violations, and negotiating with individuals and industrial entities regarding methods of achieving compliance. The last step of compliance enforcement is the ability of enforcement agencies to pursue legal action or to dispute settlements59.

Ercmann emphasizes that the success of an enforcement program depends on how the state exercises discretion when prioritizing environmental needs and objectives, and how it chooses the enforcement mechanism to achieve its objectives. Ercmann notes that effective enforcement may require reorganizing administrative structures, implementing environmental legislation, using innovative administrative instruments, drafting precise and comprehensive legally binding instruments, and making short-term economic sacrifices60. All these aspects of ensuring effective enforcement of environmental laws could increase the operating expense of government agencies. Changing administrative structures, drafting precise new laws, forgoing short-term economic benefits, and implementing new enforcement instruments all have associated costs. These costs should be seen as short-term investments for long-term environmental protection. (pp. 23-24)

…Authoritative agencies should have the power via administrative and criminal law to 1) seize property; 2) bar a facility from government loans, guarantees or contracts; 3) require service or community work to benefit the environment; 4) impose restrictions on financial assistance; 5) seek reimbursement for public authorities cleanup expenses; 6) impose fines with specified amounts per unit; and 7) seek imprisonment63. Ercmann maintains that enforcement authorities should have the responsibility of granting permits, authorizations, monitoring, reporting, emergency powers, and authorization of remedial action.

Emerging environmental enforcement mechanisms that are complimentary to regulations have proved to be effective in increasing compliance outcomes, according to Ercmann. Increases in public awareness through community motivation, education, and incentives have served to enhance regulatory efforts, even when implementation yielded adverse economic impacts68. Nongovernmental organization (NGOs) and citizens have also played important roles in detecting violations and notifying authorities, applying public pressure, and bringing suits to enforce the law. NGOs have proved particularly effective in enforcing compliance through organizing and applying community pressure69.

… Issues of extending standing to citizens, environmental organizations, and NGOs have also bolstered compliance outcomes, according to Ercmann. An entity must prove that they have standing in a case in order to qualify it for judicial review. Citizen lawsuits can increase public awareness and motivate action by politicians. Allowing environmental organizations and NGOs standing in court, because of their high level of specialization and expertise, allows many cases to be brought that may not have otherwise had a chance to be heard. This is because individuals who suffer damages may not have the financial resources to back a case. Also, communities who suffer environmental harm may lack the organizational skills and funding to mount a convincing legal effort. Extending standing to environmental organizations and NGOs can help these individuals and communities pursue their right to legal redress. (pp. 25-26)

…If the law views the duties of government, under an environmental rights provision, as primarily of “the state to implement and enforce laws that secure to the individual the enjoyment of what is intended as the substance of the right”, then the role of government enforcement seems more clear83. This simply leads to stricter interpretation and implementation of environmental rules and regulations. The judiciary, congress and the executive would be forced to take more precautionary measures to insure that the government was fulfilling its duty to protect citizen’s environmental rights. However, government duties would have to expand to meet the needs of increased citizen participation, requests for access to information, and avenues of legal redress for environmental matters.

… There are many issues concerning imperfect information with respect to environmental problems. Some natural systems are imperfectly or incompletely understood by science, such as global warming. Some sources of pollution are hard to identify, especially when multiple sources are emitting levels below the legal limit. Additionally, the causes of some environmental problems are difficult or impossible to identify within the specific degree of accuracy needed to pursue legal action. In the face of these uncertainties, an environmental right would still require that the court protect citizens if environmental quality has fallen below the guaranteed threshold level. The courts will face considerable problems of knowledge when faced with certain environmental issues. Tim Hayward suggests that a solution to this problem could be to establish a specialty environmental court84. Establishing a specialty court would have the dual benefit of reducing the increased litigation burden that will undoubtedly arise once environmental rights are enacted. The United States legal system is already overburdened. A large influx of new environmental litigation could serve to cripple the system in its current framework. Establishing a new environmental court could result in a more effective way to address environmental litigation through a trained judiciary, expert panels, and a dedicated legal process.

…Fulfilling all these additional governmental duties increases the operating expense of the federal and state government. Herein lies the biggest issue with respect to enforcement, the cost. The government will be required to provide new services, an increased volume of services will be requested, and the government will hold a greater degree of liability if they don’t fulfill their obligations. For example, Dinah Shelton states that a state may become responsible for the actions of private actors if they fail to exercise proper due diligence to prevent or respond to violations85. This government liability is a result of the environmental right being classified as a basic human right. Human rights impose positive and negative duties on the government. If the government fails to perform some of it’s positive duties, liabilities may result. Environmental rights may place the government in an uncomfortable position of having to simultaneously increase its expenditures and expose itself to additional liability. This dual increase in financial burden stemming from new administrative duties and liability exposure gives the government substantial reasoning to oppose environmental rights.

The government is not the only sector of society that will have to bear the costs of an environmental right. Costs associated with shifting to more sustainable and environmentally friendly business practices cause many commercial and industrial actors to oppose environmental rights. There has been a longstanding belief by industry that strict environmental standards reduce competitiveness86. This belief is true to a certain extent, but is not a rule. There are short-term cost increases and necessary capital investments that will be required of many industrial and commercial entities with the adoption of an environmental right. Increased costs will be necessary to invest in new technology and processes to comply with stricter environmental regulations. These increased costs will no doubt reduce profits in the short term. Many corporations resist this because they are responsible to create quarterly profits for investors. Reduction in profits, even in the short term, could result in lower stock prices and decreased financial commitments from investors. Moreover, cost increases in production may have to be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher product prices. This reduces a company’s competitiveness in the free market. This may not be a problem if all domestic industries are required to conform to the same standards. In this sense, everyone producing a product will be required to make the same adjustments (assuming their methods of production are similar), and incur similar cost. (pp. 28-30)

…The development of an environmental right would require old pollution standards to be reviewed and new pollution standards to be set. An environmental right should guarantee that pollution standards would be set using the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle states that if the consequences of an action are unknown, but judged to have the potential for significantly negative or irreversible consequences, it is better to avoid that action. (p. 32)

…Conclusion

A weak anthropocentric constitutional environmental right worded as,

“All human beings have the fundamental right to an environment adequate for their health and wellbeing”,

could have the benefit of protecting humans as a priority while still considering the nature for its own sake. The need for such a right as a fundamental human right is recognized and established by international organizations and treaties. These entities acknowledge that a healthful environment is a prerequisite to being able to enjoy more traditional and established human rights. Within the United States several state constitutions have also reflected the public’s desire for environmental rights and protection.

While the idea of environmental rights seems appealing, the drafting, implementation, and enforcement of such a right is pragmatically unattractive. To ensure the feasibility and enforceability of such a right it will have to be drafted with considerable attention to detail. The precautionary principle and doctrine of public trust can guide lawmakers in formulating an amendment that would be interpreted and enforced in the spirit as well as the definition that the law intended. A properly conceived amendment would address implementation and enforcement pathways to achieving goals, self-executing provisions, procedural and substantive rights, necessary reforms, duties of the government, legal rights of citizens and immigrants, mechanisms to solve conflicts with existing laws, flexibility provisions, methods of seeking redress, guarantees set up by the right, and relationship of the federal right to existing state and federal environmental protection legislation and regulation.

The considerable difficulties that exist with creating a workable environmental right should not prevent the undertaking. Aside from the legal and administrative planning that must go into the development of such a right, significant costs will also be required. The government and industry might oppose environmental rights because of the cost impact. By the same token, citizens may oppose environmental rights because of higher product prices and the inevitable tax increase that would occur to finance its implementation. What should be kept in perspective is that the environmental affects everyone, in all areas of the world, in all sectors of the economy, for as long as the human race exists. Preserving the environment for the benefit of the health and well being of the human race requires sacrifices to be made by all who enjoy the services the environment provides. Government, industry and consumers will all have to share the cost of adopting and implementing constitutional environmental rights. Formulating a plan to Phase in this right will help all parties absorb the associated increased costs over time, with minimal discomfort.

The costs incurred to institute and enforce environmental rights should be viewed as market corrections for years of under-valuation of the benefits of environmental goods, services, inputs, and outcomes. The economic prosperity that America has experienced since its establishment has largely been at the expense of environmental prosperity, wellbeing, and abundance. It is as if America used a credit card, backed by the environmental, to finance its development. Timber was cut, land, air and water were polluted, species decimated, natural features destroyed, natural resources plundered, all for benefit of Americans. Now that America has developed and stabilized that credit card debt should be repaid. Large accrued interest has mounted on this debt, in the form of pollution, degradation and public policy, business practices and consumer consumption patterns that underestimate the value of environmental inputs. The enormous cost of paying back the debt may be preventing the government from acting, causing industry to resist and making consumers intimidated or complacent. Postponing action further will not solve the problem, it will only increase the intensity of the environmental debt as well as increase the likelihood of negative environmental outcomes. Enacting a constitutional environmental right seems like an enormous undertaking, because it is. It has to be because the breadth of the environment, severity and history of environmental abuse and under-valuation, and the life-sustaining and health determining role of the environment dictate that it be so monumental. The importance of environmental protection for current and future generations argues that the daunting task of creating a viable solution should not deter it from being developed. (pp. 38-39)

… An American Evolution – Public Health Chapter

Introduction

… Environmental pollution, caused by human related activity, poses a considerable concern to public health.

…Amending the U.S. Constitution with an environmental rights provision would affect how the government, industry, and the public perceive environmentally related public health issues. Environmental rights would effectively enhance the health of the public by 1) forcing the government to adopt stricter pollution standards resulting from their increase liability exposure; 2) enact comprehensive environmental regulations to curtail regulatory fragmentation; 3) give citizens, environmental organizations and the EPA more power to stop the actions of entities who pose greater risks to human health; 4) deter future environmentally irresponsible behavior by setting up hefty fines and sanctions for violators and pathways to legal redress for those whose rights have been violated; and 5) encouraging stricter product testing to protect environmentally-related consumer health. An environmental right could realize many positive indirect effects on public health as well. These include environmentally corrective cost-benefit analysis methods resulting in fewer government projects and programs that negatively impact the natural environmental and human health. Negative effects could result from environmental rights if the associated cost increases are not managed correctly.

… Conclusion

…The growing elderly population in America is also more susceptible to environmentally related pollution and hazards. America faces the problem of having more elderly people who will require increased amounts of medical care because of their old age and susceptibility to disease. Paying for this care will result in a substantial burden on all Americans. Environmental pollution and hazards particularly affect the elderly. Reducing environmental pollutants could have the cost saving benefit of reducing the amount of medical care required for the elderly population. In this sense, money spent to enact stricter regulations could be realized as cost savings resulting from reduced health expenditures on the federally dependent elderly.

Quality of life is another important issue to be considered. America is, arguably, the global benchmark for standard of living and quality of life. Americans tend to be risk adverse (value avoiding risks) and support environmental regulations to enhance their quality of life. America has many regulations to protect public health from pollution; however, those regulations are fragmented and not comprehensive. Industrial hegemonies exist because operations of the chemical industry directly affect the American economy through production of inputs, products, and related services. Fragmentation of regulations and the pervasiveness of the chemical industry in the American economy have led to a complex problem. Imposing stricter health-based pollution standards, guided by the precautionary principle (instead of maximum allowable levels), places limits on the industry that could negatively impact our domestic economy. The government is likely unwilling to do this because it equates standard of living and quality of life with economic stability and productiveness. This philosophy may have to change in light of diseases related to environmental pollution. The logic behind this change would come at the realization that Americans value the prevention of disease, through the strict regulation of environmental pollution, more then they value incremental increases in the productivity of the economy. (p. 41)

…As the world’s leader, America could set a significant precedent by enacting a constitutionally guaranteed environmental right. The value of this measure would be realized through symbolism and substance. America would be forced to invest in changing many of its environmentally irresponsible behaviors. These actions and investments could convince other countries of America’s honest effort to protect the environmental and human health. Other countries may choose to follow America’s progressive lead, for economic or ideological reasons, by enacting their own comprehensive environmental right. This could result in more positive human health outcomes all over the world, by reducing native and transboundary environmental pollution. (p.42)

…A constitutionally guaranteed environmental right would not prevent all environmentally related health issues from occurring. It would reduce negative human health outcomes related to anthropogenic pollution by preventing, reducing and eliminating pollution. Though it would impose a cost burden on the domestic economy, these costs can be phased in tolerably. Moreover, these short-term costs could prevent larger long-term costs related to caring for the unhealthy population and correcting damage done to essential aspects of the environment. (p.43)

…An American Evolution – Government Chapter

… The forefathers did not foresee a Constitutional framework for environmental protection. In the absence of an amended Bill of Rights to this regard, the U.S. Constitution has not reflected the need for environmental protection. (p.3)

… The U.S. Constitution has 3 main issues to address when faced with environmental protection and environmental rights issues; 1) inclusiveness of protection; 2) applicability of due process; and 3) fragmentation of political power2.
(p.4)

… While some forms of protection are in place for future generations, the rights of future generations are not recognized in the U.S. Constitution. An environmental right would do much to preserve the habitat for future humans and insure that benefit-seeking actions of the present are not undertaken at the cost of future generations.

… Due process of law ensures that a person receives fundamental fairness and substantial justice in the legal process7. It refers to how and why laws are enforced. The fourth Amendment guarantees, “the right of people to be secure in their persons, Houses, papers, and effects.” Yet, with many environmental matters, these rights are being infringed upon.

… A person’s body can be exposed to chemicals through the air, water, or food, without the person being aware of the violation. This is an infringement of a person’s fourth Amendment rights. Due process of law would insure legal redress to a person who has been exposed to chemical contamination.

… Humans are exposed to these chemicals by breathing air, eating contaminated fish, meats or produce, or ingesting contaminated water. With time, a person can build up a significant amount of chemicals in his or her bloodstream. This exposure and subsequent build up occurs without the knowledge or permission of the individual. Negative health effects may ensue depending on the pathology of the chemicals, sensitivity of the individual to the chemicals, and amount of exposure.

The ill person’s unalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, has been infringed upon. If a negative health outcome manifests, the person has no one to pursue for damages. Hence, the right to due process has been withheld from this person. Those who produce and release chemicals into the air have infringed upon the Fourth Amendment rights of those who have been exposed. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments state that we cannot be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Victims of negative health outcomes related to ambient environmental pollution are not afforded this Constitutional guarantee. (pp. 6-7)

…Cost of Regulation

The largest barrier to enacting an environmental right in the United States is cost. Environmental protection through regulations has a significant cost impact on all areas of the economy. A Constitutional environmental right would increase costs for consumers, businesses, and the government.(p. 35)

…Federalism and Environmental Rights

…A discussion about governmental aspects of a Constitutional environmental right would not be complete without examining the relationship between federal and state governments. There are three basic types of government in the world today, federalism, unitary systems, and confederacies. The idea behind federalism is that there is a national framework of laws that hold significant power, with subordinate state laws and governments that also hold significant power. The U.S., Canada, Australia, Russia, and Brazil are all governed by a federal system. The unitary system is currently the most prevalent in the world. Unitary systems hold power in a central national government, with very little power being given to political subunits likes towns, provinces, etc. Examples of countries run by unitary systems include China, Britain, and France.

…The question regarding federalism and environmental protection is whether the federal government should be in charge or if state governments should hold more power. Currently, the federal government sets environmental standards and state governments are allowed to enact stricter standards, but cannot have standards below the national maximums.

Advocates of national control over environmental protection believe that it is necessary to prevent states from lowering environmental standards to increase competitiveness and attract business, coined the ‘race to the bottom’. Federal environmental protection has also been sought because of the transboundary nature of pollution. This rationale suggests that a downwind state could be negatively affected by the upwind state’s pollution or that pollution from one area can affect many other areas. Therefore, a national limit should be in place to offer a baseline amount of protection to all states, regardless of geography. Another argument for federal power is that many state pollution control agencies are short staffed and unable to handle the burden of statewide environmental protection. Correspondingly, national advocates believe that state governments do not have the knowledge to handle many pollution issues. Many argue that power must be given to the federal government to avoid pressure from local industries that would otherwise overrun state governments. It is also argued that the federal government would be better suited to protect the environment because it can achieve economies of scale, thus creating a cost advantage. Lastly, some believe that the federal government should have more control over environmental protection because citizens have the right to a clean environment.

Supporters of an increased state role in environmental protection believe that state governments are closer to the people and are more able to identify and address their needs and desires. State governments are also more familiar with the specific environmental concerns affecting their jurisdiction, and may thus be able to address those concerns more efficiently without the distortion of national intervention. Schoenbrod asserts that the federal lawmakers make relevant and irrelevant environmental regulations, but are not held accountable by the local citizens for results because the politicians are too far removed from the citizens184. State supporters also point to the role of state experiments in coming up with innovative and efficient methods of handling environmental problems. Too many federal regulations could prevent these experiments from taking place and could result in the stagnation of creative solutions. Some also suggest that the federal chain of command may be too lengthy and burdensome to implement. Overly broad federal regulations maybe so cumbersome and full of exclusions and variances that state governments may not be able to interpret or administrate them properly185. Advocates of increased state power also assert that the ‘race to the bottom’ does not exist because of NIMBY (not in my back yard) pressure from citizens. They claim that there is actually a ‘race to the top’ fueled by citizens that offsets pressure from industries to relax rules. State supporters also suggest that the federal government is susceptible to intense industrial and partisan pressure, which could undermine environmental outcomes. (pp.44-45)

…There is also the belief that globalization has put more pressure on all levels and aspects of government. Federal, state and local governments have lost incremental units of power as transnational corporations proliferate and NGOs and non-profits gain increased citizen support and organizational competency190. This has increased the role of the national government as the central orchestrator, while giving state governments more power and control over implementation, often through outsourcing to private contractors. This phenomenon has resulted in problems of; 1) inability to adapt traditional systems to new problems; 2) limited capacity and accountability; 3) lack of education; 4) issues of scale191 (p.46)

…local governments better address some pollution problems while federal efforts can more appropriately handle other environmental problems. Kettl asserts that the federal government’s inability to coordinate between partisan groups, Congress, and the executive branch may limit national power relevance.

…current forms of government environmental regulation are not effective since they cannot respond to the dynamic and exponential nature of environmental pressures and resulting problems.

…Kettl’s points about the difficulties coordinating different branches of government and the lack of accountability of the federal government are two negative points against the current system of nationally centered environmental protection. Although, this does not mean that the states should be given the dominant role in environmental protection, it does mean the current system may need restructuring. A Constitutional Amendment for an environmental right maybe the exact type of restructuring that is needed to address the issues of coordination and accountability. A Constitutional environmental right would set up positive and negative duties for the federal government as well as legal ramifications if those duties were not fulfilled. The increased legal liability would be an incentive for the government to act appropriately in environmental matters, for fear of expensive legal repercussions. The federal government may be more likely to track accountability for environmental issues to assign blame for costly fines and legal actions associated with environmental proceedings. Surely, any administration would want to know which person in the chain of command was responsible for any improper actions that cost the government money and negative press. Matters concerning the Constitutional also take higher priority in Washington. This increased priority could facilitate coordination between the branches of government. The wording of the Constitutional Amendment could also guide law and policy makers when posed with tough issues, yielding clearer options and choices while reducing debate and partisan politics. A Constitutional right does not mean that states would be given less power in environmental protection. States would still be allowed to have stricter standards than the federal government. Furthermore, a Constitutional commitment to environmental protection could cause more states to adopt state environmental rights. (p.47)

… CONCLUSION

…The current form of the U.S. Constitution has inherent barriers to environmental protection that exclude future generation, prevent due process of the law, and impede environmental policy through government fragmentation. Amending the Constitution with an environmental right would address these shortcomings and grant superior environmental health and protection for current and future Americans. It is also clear that the United States Environmental Protection Agency is not powerful enough to do its job effectively. An environmental right could do much to rehabilitate the agency by giving it a right to protect and by reforming much of its internal and external structure. The EPA is also in desperate need of some independence and insulation from the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. It is evident from many examples that political pressure has the ability to undermine environmental protection. An environmental right could help protect the agency from short-term political pressure in favor of long-term environmental protection.

The cost of regulation is the most burdensome aspect of environmental regulation. Historically, the environmental and the goods and services it provides have been taken for granted by humans. Placing increased protection mechanisms on the environment and valuating goods and services that were previously not quantified before could put a short-term strain on domestic and world economies. Phasing in this right over a five or ten year period is a good way to help markets adjust and minimize social costs associated with increased environmental regulation. Focusing on the long-term objectives of better health outcomes, stabilizing global climate, avoiding future costs related to environmental degradation and instability, achieving a guaranteed level of environmental quality, and leading developing nations towards an environmentally responsible evolution will help justify short-term costs and economic transitions. Implementing this right will require the government to weight benefits of increased protection with decreased benefits in other areas of spending. Principles of proportionality can help identify the best way to minimize costs and use government resources the most efficiently. Short-term sacrifices will have to be made by all sectors of the economy to develop, implement, and enforce a environmental right.

The public seems to be more aware of environmental issues and demand is increasing for more environmental protection. Although awareness and demand are increasing, the public seems to be uneducated about the cost realities of augmented environmental protection. They seem to understand that the government must limit business practices, because these practices often harm the environment. They also seem to understand that without decisive government action, individual actions to protect the environment are barely incremental. It is possible that the costs associated with an environmental right would decrease the demand for more environmental protection, in favor of short-term economic benefits. Since it is human nature to prefer current consumption over consumption in the future, it may be hard to appeal to the public to incur costs now to enjoy benefits sometime in the future. It may even be harder to convince people that these costs should be borne now, when the majority of the benefits may not be enjoyed in the same lifetime that the costs where incurred. The majority of the benefits will be received by future generations in the form of climate stability and preserved environmental quality, but present generations do stand to enjoy considerable benefits as well.

There are valid arguments for state and federal control over environmental protection. It is also evident that some environmental protection functions are more suited for state implementation where as other are better suited for federal administration. An environmental right would grant more power to the federal government, but would give the states considerable power in setting stricter standards, implementing and enforcing environmental laws. The superior role afforded to the federal government is important to enable increased scientific inquiry and to coordinate in international efforts to address global environmental issues.

An Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would have considerable symbolic value. Even if it was loosely constructed and not self-executing it could have a strong effect on government, business and consumer behavior. It could tip the balance in executive and judicial decision-making and change the way Congressional officials approach environmental matters. An environmental right will not prevent or address every environmental issue, but it would elevate environmental protection to a higher level of national priority. It would also spur the United States to become more environmentally sustainable and efficient, which will be advantageous in the future marketplace with higher energy costs and increased demand and competition for resources. All humans should perceive an environmental right as a economic and biological necessity. We need it to protect ourselves from short-term profit-seeking behavior that benefits a minority and harms the majority. We need it in order to obtain a competitive advantage for the future. Most of all, we need it to preserve the habitat of our species, to the best of our ability, to insure our long-term survival. (pp. 48-49)

An American Evolution – Economics Chapter

Introduction

Economic realities are some of the most powerful forces working against the establishment of stricter environmental regulations and a Constitutional environmental right. It is important to understand how certain aspects of America’s economy, government economic policies and corporate structures affect the environment and society. At the heart of many environmental problems lies the very economic foundation of our society, capitalism. Although capitalism is one of the most successful ways to organize a society, it is incurring many problems as populations’ increase, resources diminished and environmental degradation becomes widespread. The global proliferation of capitalism and the pursuit of economic growth is changing the earth. As the world strives to increase economic activity and production, global and local environmental problems are being created and societal welfare may be stagnating. The preoccupation with short-term economic goals is being carried out at the expense of the environment and the livelihood of future generations. (p.1)

…Externalities

…A Constitutional environmental right could mandate pollution taxes or the development of an institutionalized environmental labeling program, both of which could account for negative environmental externalities. A government run eco-labeling program would initially be voluntary, with the idea that perhaps in time it could become mandatory. Environmental labeling would require products to display information about the environmental impacts related to the life cycle of the product. This would educate consumers about the products they are buying and hopefully encourage producers to improve the environmental performance of their products. Many of the negative externalities created by the production and consumption of the product would be calculated in the environmental lifecycle rating displayed on the eco-label. In this sense the true impact of the product would be understood, even if it was not monetized and inputted into the market price of the good. There are obviously costs associated with an environmental labeling scheme. These costs would be borne by producers, consumers and the government. Perhaps even a tiered cost system could be developed so that environmentally harmful products will be charged more than innocuous products. (pp. 9-10)

…Cost Benefit Analysis

…A Constitutional environmental right could reform many cost benefit analysis methods that undervalue the environment. A special form of cost benefit analysis can be developed that incorporates a low discount rate and higher weights attached to environmental benefits and costs. In this sense, economists would quantify environmental services through existing valuation techniques, but greater weights would be applied to reflect the fact that these valuation techniques are limited in their ability to account for the breadth of benefits the environment provides or the exponential costs that occur as a result of its degradation. Perfect substitutability would not be assumed in environmental CBAs and corrective measures and enhanced costs would have to be attached to this exclusion. These corrections would help CBAs arrive at a more accurate conclusion with respect to the environment. They would also take into account that the public is adverse to risk and values the low cost and stable services that a healthy environment provides. (p.18)

…Globalization

Globalization is the interconnection and integration of different national and region markets resulting in one large global market. (p.18)

…Clearly, globalization has its benefits and its costs, socially and environmentally. The pursuit of economic growth, via liberalized free trade, has had many negative consequences that have not been compensated for.

…Although a Constitutional environmental right would not directly effect the environmental injustices that are occurring as a result of globalization, it could indirectly effect them. A Constitutional environmental right could change the mindset and political climate in America, which could translate into the nation ratifying important international environmental agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol or the Basel Convention. By instituting such a right in the United States many domestically run companies would be incentivized to improve their environmental performance. This could result in better domestic and foreign environmental outcomes if the companies export goods or services. Since the United States is considered the major world power, implementing an environmental right domestically could send a powerful signal to the rest of the world. (p.24)

…Gross Domestic Product

…A Constitutional environmental right could require that an environmental set of indicators be implemented and considered in tandem with the GDP, much like how the NNP (“net national product”) is used. Of course there are many difficulties associated with the design and use of these environmental indicators, but the U.S. is presently developing environmental indicators and can look to the GPI and the UK’s MDP as examples. It is difficult to believe that the indicators developed by the US will perfectly measure the well being of the environment. It is important to understand that a perfect environmental indicator can be developed overtime, in the absence of a perfect indicator, the best available alternative should be used so the relationship between economic growth and environmental well being can be understood and properly dealt with. (p.32)

…Short-Term Thinking: Capitalism and Corporations

Capitalism is the socioeconomic system that governs the United States and many other nations around the world. Capitalism advocates the control of the ‘means of production’ of goods to those who invest money into the production process. These private investors contribute capital to the means of production in the hopes of achieving a profit. Capitalism advocates uninhibited markets, private ownership, and free enterprise as ways to achieving greater efficiency, increased opportunity, enhanced product quality and reduced product costs. As discussed in the beginning of the chapter, Adam Smith believed that free market capitalism and the individual pursuit of profits would result in benefits for all of society. The existence of externalities and limited resources offers disputes to Adam Smith’s theory that social welfare will benefit from capitalism. Correspondingly, capitalism is often characterized by unequal distribution of wealth, intense competition and the pursuit of self-interest unencumbered by ethics, all of which maybe counterproductive to increasing overall social welfare. One reason is because capitalism may make some individuals better off through capital accumulation, perhaps at the expense of other individuals. Karl Marx, who believed that capitalism would result in a crisis, popularized this problem. Marx believed a crisis would result as the large population of working class (and a near non-existent middle class) confronts the small numbers of wealthy people who have accumulated the majority concentration of capital.

…Many aspects of capitalism are harmful to the environment. One of the most damaging characteristics of capitalism is that it’s foundation in self-interest leads to short-term thinking. Entities within a capitalist society will focus on maximizing profits for themselves, as a result society as a whole may or may not receive indirect benefits.

However, it is almost certain that future generations are incurring large costs as a result of this short-term self-interested behavior. These costs are related to environmental damage and non-renewable resource use.

…Environmental regulations are put in place to protect the public from the actions of the self-interested polluters. As a result market prices, profits, labor wages and property rents are all affected by environmental regulations. These regulations help protect the public at large from the actions of the self-interested. The existence of environmental regulations is proof that self-interested actions of the capitalist will not always result in benefits for society as a whole. (p. 33)

…Some believe that capitalism is ecologically unsustainable, that it can function in the short –term, but can not ultimately survive.75 Andriana Vlachou believes that the sustainability of capitalism is uncertain, especially since it has several characteristics that are contradictory to ecological sustainability76. It is important to note that sustainability has many different definitions. The World Commission on Environment and Development (a/k/a the “Brundtland Commission”) defines sustainable development as development that meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs77. This definition of sustainability is already in conflict with capitalism, because capitalism is not about fulfilling needs, it is about accumulating capital. It values growth in all forms, whether it is needed or not.

Vlachou uses a modified definition of sustainability in relation to capitalism. She asserts that capitalism is ecologically sustainable if it can secure the natural conditions and processes that are necessary for its existence78. This definition posits capitalisms ability to survive as the only measure of sustainability. This seems logical since without basic environmental conditions to support human life and labor capitalism would cease to have a society to exist within. Correspondingly, if capitalism depleted all the natural resources available it would have nothing left to base production on. (p.34)

…Vlachou observations indicate that the future of capitalism is uncertain. Capitalism may eventually be a cannibalistic system, doomed to implode on itself. It may be the very foundation of capitalism, which is rooted in short-term self-interest that is driving the destruction of the environment and possibly catabolizing itself. As Kirkpatrick Sale states, “To put it starkly, that {the market economy} means that the environmental movement can never win, can never be anything but a tolerated gadfly, as long as it functions within capitalist society.”83 (p. 35)

…American corporations may be particularly shortsighted and detrimental to the environment, compared to European corporations89. Conley suggests that this is because American corporations tend to focus narrowly on shareholders while European corporations focus on a broader range of stakeholders (employees, creditors, suppliers, communities). This is partly because unions have more power, growth rates are lower, and unemployment is higher in Europe. American short-term focus is also related to the power that mutual funds have over the institutional investor sector. Large institutional investors hold the majority of stock shares in America and Europe. The logic is as follows: corporations are dependent on institutional investors to finance their operations, pension funds and insurance companies have long time horizons for investment returns, mutual funds have relatively shorter time horizons, therefore institutional mutual fund investors may require corporations they invest in to deliver profits in the short-term. American financial markets are larger than European financial markets in the categories of equities, fund management (pension fund, insurance companies, mutual funds, private wealth management, hedge funds) and investment banking.90 (p. 37)

…Since American financial markets have a larger proportion of short-term oriented investments, corporations that are dependent on these investments may adopt a shorter term focus compared to European corporations. Additionally, European corporations are adopting the idea of ‘corporate social responsibility’ much faster than American corporations91. ‘Corporate social responsibility’ is the notion that corporations must deliver more than just financial returns to their shareholders, such as sustainable growth, fair employment, and social and environmental well being. (p.38)

…A Constitutional environmental right could be an objective ethic imposed on capitalism and corporate practices. Granting citizens environmental rights will create new exposure to liability for those entities that harm the environment, increase environmental health related risks, carryout environmental injustices, or act in ways that exploit the environment and compromise the well being of others. Environmental rights could serve to unify and strengthen environmental regulations for air, water, chemicals, wastes and exports. It would force companies to consider the environmental impacts of their actions, for fear of expensive litigation. It could also give Congress the Constitutional power to regulate the environment independent from the Commerce Clause, thus limiting economic considerations from environmental protection. Although a Constitutional environmental right will not cure all environmental problems, it has the potential to address many environmental issues that result from capitalistic practices. (pp. 39-40)

…Conclusion

…The underlying problem behind the corporation is of course capitalism. Capitalism is what dictates the modus operandi of economic self-interest, the corporation simply compounds this problem by shortening the time allowed to deliver profits through financial quarters, the stock market and dependence on shareholders. Capitalism affects every area of American society including the government, public health decisions, environmental justice, and many others. The rise of globalization has allowed the ideals of capitalism to seep into every area of the globe. Breaking down boarders to allow the search for short-term maximized profits to carry on in any conceivable location without concern for individuals, societies or the environment. Via the WTO, many policies to protect egregious injustices committed by agents of corporate capitalism have been eliminated as barriers to free trade. Globalization has expanded market opportunities and delivered lower priced goods to consumers, giving them the impression that it is a good thing. Americans are consuming more than they need and perhaps are not much better off for it. The American GDP consistently climbs, adding to the notion that all is well. However, under the surface the well being of society as a whole may be stagnating and even declining. Plagued by hidden externalities, the environment is also suffering in the name of economic growth.

…A Constitutional environmental right would affirm that a clean and healthful environment is an inalienable right of every person, codifying the once unconscious assumption that many people believed into law. This would effectively help protect the environment, the rights of future generations, and the well being of current generations. This right would also depart with many traditional beliefs, such as the belief that the environment should be free for all to enjoy. Although there is no way to prevent people from freely breathing air, consuming fresh water, or enjoying the sunset provided by nature, it should be understood that modern day realities warrant increased environmental protection. More environmental protection comes at a cost that should be borne by society as a whole, including corporations, small businesses, the government and consumers. These increased costs should not be perceived as payments to use environmental services; they should be viewed as compensation to preserve the natural balance necessary for individual life, capitalism and the human species to survive. Furthermore, the difficulties and costs arising from the initial implementation of a Constitutional environmental right should not be viewed as inefficiencies of the right, they should be seen as corrections for decades of abuse and under valuation of the environment. (p. 41)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.sehn.org/rtfdocs/futuregenerations.pdf

Constitutional Experiments: Protecting the Environment and Future Generations

By Carolyn Raffensperger (Science and Environmental Health Network)

Conservation Biology - Volume 17, No. 6, December 2003

The great beauty of U. S. constitutional law is that there are actually 51 constitutions, not just one big, old, fossilized document. All 50 states have constitutions, and many regularly revise them through constitutional conventions. These conventions provide the citizenry with an opportunity to experiment and amend these venerable documents so that they reflect changes in the contemporary world rather than the antiquated conditions of centuries ago.

Several state constitutions have environmental provisions, most of which were drafted and adopted in the 1970s. These provisions often grant a right to a healthy environment (Illinoisa), establish a duty to maintain a healthy environment for future generations (Illinois and Pennsylvaniab), or even improve the environment (Montana) and give the public a right to enforce these provisions (Illinois). Some state constitutions also assert that public natural resources are the common property of all people (Pennsylvania and Hawaii). These basic constitutional ideas embody the precautionary principle and the public trust doctrine that David Orr mentions in his essay.

Two states, Montana and Hawaii [President Obama's declared 'home state'], reinforced their constitutional environmental provisions through innovative, far-reaching lawsuits. The resulting court decisions are reverberating throughout the nation and likely will eventually affect the Supreme Court’s interpretation of U.S. constitutional rights.

The provision in Montana’s 1972 constitution that was challenged in a 1999 mining lawsuit says that “The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.” This provision was invoked in a lawsuit brought by Montana environmental groups suing the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for granting a permit to the Seven-Up Pete Joint Venture to pump millions of gallons of arsenic-tainted water into the Landers Fork and Blackfoot Rivers.…In October of 1999 the Montana Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Montanans’ constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment is a fundamental right. As important, this right is intended to prevent, not just redress, harm.

In an opinion written by Justice Terry Trieweiler, the Montana Supreme Court concluded that Montanans have a right to prevent harm. In an often-quoted phrase, Trieweiler said, “Our constitution does not require that dead fish float on the surface of our state’s rivers and streams before its farsighted environmental protections can be invoked.” The Court also said, “We conclude that the delegates’ (to the Constitutional Convention) intention was to provide language and protections which are both anticipatory and preventative.” This opinion is significant because environmentalists could actually sue to prevent damage; they did not have to wait until the harm had occurred to get justice. Anticipation and prevention are at the heart of the precautionary principle, which is designed to prevent harm, not measure and manage it.

…In a similarly visionary decision, the Hawaiian Supreme Court explicitly adopted the precautionary principle to further the public trust doctrine that is embedded in Hawaii’s state constitution.

The article of public trust doctrine in the constitution says that “For the benefit of present and future generations, the State and its political subdivisions shall conserve and protect Hawaii’s natural beauty and all natural resources, including land, water, air, minerals and energy sources, and shall promote the development and utilization of these resources in a manner consistent with their conservation and in furtherance of the self-sufficiency of the State. All public natural resources are held in trust by the State for the benefit of the people” (Article XI, Conservation, Control and Development of Resources, Conservation and Development of Resources Section 1.).

The Hawaiian Supreme Court used this constitutional provision of public trust in its Waiahole Ditch Decision (Water Use Permit Applications, 94 Hawaii 97; 9 P.3d 409, 2000). The Waiahole Ditch case was brought by small family farmers and Native Hawaiians challenging the decision by the Commission on Water Resource Management to allocate water from the Wai¨ahole Ditch. Water in the ditch had been diverted for 80 years by sugar plantations of central Oahu. The court said, “The duty to protect public water resources is a categorical imperative and the precondition to all subsequent considerations, for without such underlying protection the natural environment could, at some point, be irrevocably harmed and the duty to maintain the purity and flow of our waters for future generations and to assure that the waters of our land are put to reasonable and beneficial uses could be endangered.”

The Court in Hawaii not only reinforced the public trust doctrine but argued that the precautionary principle was essential for implementing the doctrine:

“The absence of firm scientific proof should not tie the Commission’s hands in adopting reasonable measures designed to further the public interest.” The Court said,

Where scientific evidence is preliminary and not yet conclusive regarding the management of fresh water resources which are part of the public trust, it is prudent to adopt ‘precautionary principles’ in protecting the resource. That is, where there are present or potential threats of serious damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be a basis for postponing effective measures to prevent environmental degradation. In addition, where uncertainty exists, a trustee’s duty to protect the resource mitigates in favor of choosing presumptions that also protect the resource.

For those who are ruling on the U.S. Constitution, Hawaii and Montana may seem distant. But court watchers have argued that the Supreme Court is constantly monitoring state court decisions as a barometer for the will of the people. This suggests that both the environmental constitutional provisions and the state court decisions will filter up to the U.S. Supreme Court and influence environmental cases.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://riversfoundation.org/ee/publications/Lavigne_Greening_The_Constitution.pdf

Greening the U.S. Constitution

By Peter M. Lavigne (River Foundation of the Americas)

Conservation Biology - Volume 17 Issue 6, Pages 1485 - 1486

Published Online: 1 Dec 2003

Greening the U.S. Constitution will take more than wishful thinking. A more political and in-depth process is hard to find (Bowen 1966; Hoban & Brooks 1996). United States jurisprudence has long lacked strong and useful mechanisms to support, analyze, or regulate either the cumulative effects of decisions affecting the environment or the downstream effects on future generations.

…As we make a transition from environmental mitigation law to ecosystem law…a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to a healthy environment makes great sense and the movement to put it into reality has a long way to go. The past 35 years are instructive.

In the heyday of early environmental law, at least two serious proposals were made to being the change to the U.S. Constitution. Earth Day founder and former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson led the charge in 1968 with what is thought to be the first proposal to amend the Constitution with a right to a clean environment… Representative Richard Ottinger introduced a more comprehensive amendment in 1970, and several cases were also brought to federal courts to assert that the Constitution already held an implicit right to a clean environment.

Between 1970 and 1979, five states amended their constitutions to include the right to a clean environment. Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana, and Pennsylvania all have constitutional amendments asserting the right of “the people” or “each person” to everything from a “right to a healthful environment” (Illinois) or a “right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of “natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic values of the environment” (Pennsylvania). Hawaii references its laws relating to environmental quality and provides a citizen enforcement provision (as does Illinois).

Though there is yet little case law with which to interpret these state constitutional provisions, at least one clear validation of the constitutional amendment path was provided by the Montana Supreme Court. In the case of Montana Environmental Information Center et al., v. Department of Environmental Quality, the Montana Supreme Court (20 October 1999) held that under its constitution, Montana citizens have a fundamental right to a clean and healthful environment and that any state statute that implicates environmental rights must be strictly scrutinized and can only survive scrutiny if the state establishes a compelling state interest.

…Beyond the relatively untested state constitutional provisions in the United States…, burgeoning international law and policy debates rage over assertion of rights to the basic necessities of life, including clean water…

…David Orr asserts that the time has come for an ecological enlightenment in law schools and courts. He is right, of course, and whether our institutions of legal training (law schools), adoption (legislatures), and interpretation (courts) recognize this in the face of the many absurdities of our modern legal system…is a large, open question.

…The…failure of modern environmental law to effectively protect ecosystems calls attention to Orr’s proposal to reintroduce a constitutional amendment to enumerate an inalienable right to a clean environment. It is long past time that the United States rejoined the international community with useful leadership on environmental policy and environmental justice. The real question is how to create the political and social change that will transform the way we create environmental policy.

The City of San Francisco is showing us one way. A bold new environmental code became law in San Francisco in August 2003…The city redesigned its 11 existing environment-related statutes into a new code that challenges traditional assumptions about costs and risks. Fundamentally, the city how asks the question of the precautionary principle – how little harm is possible? – rather than the standard question posed by most environmental statutes – how much harm will we allow? The precautionary principle requires decision-makers to determine whether a potentially harmful activity is necessary whether less hazardous options are available. San Francisco’s example presents a historic opportunity to refocus environmental decision-making. Creating the political change to amend the U.S. Constitution is another.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[***THE TWO ARTICLES IMMEDIATELY ABOVE APPEARED WITHIN A 2003 ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL, CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, A WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLICATION http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0888-8892 . THE AUTHORS OF THESE ARTICLES HARKEN FROM TWO NON-PROFIT ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST OR ACTIVIST-SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS. THE AMES, IOWA-BASED NON-PROFIT ACTIVIST-ACADEMIC ORGANIZATIONS. THE FIRST IS KNOWN AS THE SCIENCE

AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH NETWORK (“SEHN”) RECOGNIZED AS ADVOCATING IN FAVOR OF ADOPTING EUROPE’S PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AS U.S. LAW (http://www.sehn.org/members.html ; http://www.sehn.org/precaution.html - “The Science and Environmental Health Network is working to implement the precautionary principle as a basis for environmental and public health policy. The principle and the main components of its implementation are stated this way in the 1998 Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle…”). THE SECOND ORGANIZATION IS THE FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA-BASED NON-PROFIT KNOWN AS THE RIVERS FOUNDATION OF AMERICAS, WHICH MAKES GRANTS TO ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS. “The Rivers Foundation of the Americas is a public operating foundation dedicated to promoting and funding the conservation, protection and restoration of rivers and their watersheds throughout the Americas…What We Do

We support activists and their organizations with grants, technical and policy support; and in-kind donations.

We are an operating foundation. That means, in addition to raising an endowment to give grants and other resources to environmental leaders and organizations, we also do projects.”

THE GOVERNING BOARD OF THE RFA IS COMPRISED OF A NUMBER OF ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST LAWYERS. SEE: http://riversfoundation.org/rfa/about/governance/.]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/landuse/vol17_1/kibert.pdf

GREEN JUSTICE: A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE

NICOLE C. KIBERT

170 J. LAND USE & ENVTL. L. [Vol. 17:1 Fall, 2001]

Environmental injustice is a phenomena that occurs in the United States and around the world in which people of color and of lower socio-economic status are disproportionately affected by pollution, the siting of toxic waste dumps, and other Locally Unwanted Land Uses (LULUs).

Initially “environmental justice” was referred to as “environmental racism” because of the disproportionate impact on people of color; however, it is now clear that environmental health risks are foisted predominately on lower income groups of all racial and ethnic groups. In order to be inclusive, as well as to avoid the extra baggage that comes with calling an act “racist,” practitioners almost exclusively use the term “environmental justice” rather than “environmental racism.”1 (p.169)

Use of the term “environmental justice” is a step in bringing the issue of a constitutional right to live in a healthy environment for all people – not just to those who are interested in racial equality.

…II. WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE?

The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines “environmental justice” as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws regulations and policies.2 Fair treatment means that no group - including racial, ethnic or socioeconomic groups - should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs.3 Many studies have shown that, over the past 20 years, minorities - African Americans in particular - are more likely to live in close proximity to an environmental hazard. (p.170)

…III. BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT

The official history of environmental justice is approximately 20 years old. (p. 171)

… IV. ORIGINS OF ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE

… Deep Ecology is an ecological philosophy that places humans within the context of ecological systems rather than outside or central to the system.23 In addition, humans are considered to be equal, not superior or more important, in value to other components of an ecological system…Naess and supporters of Deep Ecology believe that if we could focus on the impact of all of our actions on everything in the system (and importantly place humans within the system) that we could achieve social justice and live in harmony with the environment. Another one of the tenets is to fight against pollution and resource depletion. Taken together, these two tenets describe environmental justice: to treat all people equally while reducing pollution. (p.173)

… V. SOLUTIONS FOR ACHIEVING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

A. Legal Solutions

… In order to successfully litigate for environmental justice, lawyers must be able to merge civil rights law and environmental law into one coherent area… Cases have been successful when utilizing a barrage of legal theories in the same suit, including the 13th34 and 14th35 amendments, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act,36 NEPA,37 and a variety of local zoning and historic preservation acts. (pp. 175-76)

…Carol Browner, the EPA Administrator during the Clinton Administration [Ms. Browner currently serves as director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy in the Obama administration], stated in her introduction to the EPA’s Environmental Justice Strategy, “President Clinton and I believe that all Americans deserve to be protected from pollution – not just those who can afford to live in the cleanest, safest communities. All Americans deserve clean air, pure water, land that is safe to live on, and food that is safe to eat.”43

…One way for environmental justice advocates to accelerate the process of recognition of a federal right to a healthy environment is by determining a philosophical route to follow which will aid in achieving the necessary paradigm shift. (pp. 176-77)

B. Philosophical Solutions: A Cultural Paradigm Shift

The most obvious way to stop environmental injustice is to stop putting people at risk by allowing industry and the government to continue to utilize risk analysis as a method for determining whether pollution should be allowed. There are alternative methods of determining whether a project should proceed. The precautionary principle has been defined as "when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof."46 This method focuses on how to avoid exposure rather than measuring the amount of acceptable risk. In order to encourage alternative methods, such as the precautionary principle, we will have to encourage the government to move away from risk analysis and place the burden on the potential polluter rather than the potentially ill-affected public. A shift such as this will take nothing less than a cultural paradigm shift in which permitting processes are completely open to the public, especially the potentially affected people, and a full range of options are discussed, including no action at all.47 (p.178)

Americans Should Beware of Complex, Intellectually Beautiful Bureaucratic Systems; Lest We Fall into the Conundrum of the 'Fable of the Roasted Pigs'

2010-07-11T08:49:00.017-04:00

[THE FOLLOWING ALLEGORY IS A LESSON FOR ALL, AND HAS BROAD APPLICABILITY, ESPECIALLY TO GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRATS AND THE INTELLECTUALS WHO DEVISE THEIR GRANDIOSE INITIATIVES]

http://www.agendadereflexion.com.ar/2007/06/22/368-la-fabula-de-los-cerdos-asados

Nº 368 - La fábula de los cerdos asados
Google Translation from Spanish (The fable of the pig roast)

By Gustavo Francisco Cirigiliano, Ph.D

[Professor Cirigiliano was a professor of philosophy of education at the University of La Plata, in Argentina at the time of publication of this article. Professor Hobert W. Burns of Syracuse University assisted the author in the translation of this fable which first appeared in the November 1959 issue of Catedra y Vida. According to Professor Burns, “Dr. Cirigliano is not only a good thinker, he is dedicated to the principle of democracy and well comprehends that the extension and improvement of democracy in Argentina (and Latin America, and the U.S.) greatly depends upon modifications, or drastic changes in the present educational system.” See: http://www.jstor.org/pss/20342499 ]

It has the old professor who once set fire to a forest where pigs were to be roasted. The men, accustomed to eating raw meat, and then tested them whenever they wanted to eat pig roast, set fire to the forest.

One of the possible variants of an old story about the origin of this is baked.

One time there was a fire in a forest in which they were pigs. These are roasted. The men, accustomed to eating raw, tested them and found them delicious. Then, whenever you wanted to eat pig roast, set fire to a forest ... until they discovered a new method.

But what I want to tell is what happened when you tried to modify the system to implement a new one.

It was time that some things were not going well: the animals are burning, sometimes were partially raw, sometimes so burnt it was impossible to use. As was mounted on a large scale procedure of great concern to everyone, because if the system fails to a large extent, the losses were equally large. Many were those who ate the beef, and many thousands were those with employment in this task. Thus the system simply should not fail. But curiously, as was done on a larger scale, more like fail and cause major losses.

Because of deficiencies, complaints increased. It was a general outcry for reform of the need to fund the system. Every year while met Conferences, Seminars, Conferences, Seminars for the solution. But do not think they happened to improve the mechanism, because the following year he returned to repeat the conferences, seminars, conferences and workshops.And so forever.

The causes of failure of the system, according to experts, should be attributed either to the discipline of the pigs that did not stay where they should, or the fickle nature of the fire difficult to control, the trees too green, or moisture land, or Weather Information Service could not quite with the place, time and amount of rainfall, or ...

The causes were, as seen, difficult to determine because in truth the pig roasting system was very complex: it had mounted a large structure, a great machine, with many variables, had become institutionalized. There were individuals dedicated to light: the igniferi, which in turn were specialists in sectors ignifer fire zone or north, west, etc., Burnt at night, daytime, specializing morning or twilight, summer forest fires, winter ( with jurisdictional disputes over the fall and spring). Specialists had winds (anemotécnicos). There was a General Director and Food Asamiento Asada, a director of Igneous Techniques (with the General Council of Advisors), a General Manager of forestry fire, National Commission Porcología Professional Training, a Higher Institute of Culture and Food Technology (the ISCYTA) and clunkers (Reform Guidance Bureau Igneous-Operative).

The snafu was so great that an inspector had 7,000 pigs reforms so. And it was precisely the hodgepodge that facilitated the annual congresses, seminars, conferences and workshops. But they only seemed to serve to increase the snafu in bureaucracy.

He had planned and was growing the formation of new forests and woodlands, according to the latest technical information (in selected regions according to a given direct and where the winds not blowing more than three hours, which was reduced moisture content, etc.)

There were thousands of people working on the preparation of these forests that would then ignite. There were specialists in Europe and U.S. studying the import of the best woods, trees, vines, seeds, better and more powerful burners, studying operational ideas (eg how to do well so that they fall pigs). There was also great facilities to keep the pigs before the fire, mechanisms to let them out at the right time, technicians in their diet.

There were experts in building stables for pigs, teacher educators from experts in the construction of stables for pigs universities that prepare teachers expert trainers in the construction of stables for pigs, researchers offered a fruit of their work universities that prepare teachers expert trainers in the construction of stables for pigs, foundations that supported the researchers who provided a fruit of their work to universities that prepare teachers expert trainers in the construction of stables pigs, etc.

The solutions were suggested Congresses eg the triangularly implement fire after square root of n - 1 south wind speed, release the pigs fifteen minutes before the fire reached the forest average 47 º C, others said it was necessary put large fans that would guide the direction of fire. And so on. And you do not need to say, very few of the experts agreed with each other, and each had research and data to approve their claims.

One day, a Category ignifer SO / DM / V-LL (or a lighter Southwest specialty woods, day, morning, rain in summer undergraduate), Juan-Common Sense, said the problem was easily solved. Everything was, according to him, that would kill the pig first elected, I will clean and properly cut and put it in a wire mesh or frame over a fire until the influence of heat and flame was on the verge.

- "Kill?" Exclaimed indignantly afforestation Manager .- "How will we make people mate! Now the killer is fire. Do we kill? Never!

Having noted the Director General of Asamiento, sent for him. She asked him what was saying strange things out there, and after listening, he said:

- "What you say is fine, but only in theory. It will not go in practice. Moreover, it is impracticable. Now what do you do with the anemotécnicos, in the case of adopting suggesting? ".

- "I do not know," replied John.

- "Where lighters placed the different specialties?".

- "Do not know."

- "And the seed specialists in wood? What designers seven-story barn, with its new cleaning machines and automatic perfumers?. "

- "Do not know."

- "And those individuals who have gone abroad to perfect for years, and whose training has cost both to the country, I will make cleaning pigs?".

- "Do not know."

- "Those who have specialized in integrating all these years, Conferences and Seminars and Conferences for the Reform and Improvement of the system, if it meets his all, what I do with them?"

- "Do not know."

- "Do you you realize now that his is not the solution we need everyone? Are you believes that if everything were so simple they would not have found before our specialists? Let's see! What authors say that? What authority can help your suggestion? You imagine that I can not tell Anemotécnica Engineers is a question of putting brasitas flameless! What do I do with forests and prepared, ready to be burned, with only wood suitable for fire-in-all, the trees do not produce fruit, which makes leaves shortages do not serve to shadow? What do I do? Tell me! ".

- "Do not know."

- "What do I do with the commission Asado Writer Program, with its Departments Classification and Selection of Pigs, Functional Architecture Stables, Statistics and Population, etc..?"

- "Do not know."

- "Tell me the Porcopirotecnia engineer, Don JC Figuration, is not an extraordinary scientific personality?".

- "Yes, it seems so."

- "Well. The simple fact of possessing valuable and extraordinary pyrotechnics engineers indicates that the system is good. And what do I do with individuals so valuable? ".

- "Do not know."

- "Have you seen? What you have to bring as a solution is how to best anemotécnicos, how to get faster lighters from the west (which is our biggest problem), how to make eight-story stables or more, rather than seven as now. We need to improve what we have and not change it. Bring you a proposal for our fellows in Europe cost less, or doing a good magazine for in-depth analysis of the problem of asamiento Reform. That's what we need. That is what the country needs. To you what is missing is common sense, common-sense! Say, for example, what do I do with my good friend (and relative) the President of the Commission to Study for the Utilization of Waste former Forests? ".

- "I am really puzzled," said Juan.

- "Well. Now who knows the problem, do not go around saying you fixes everything. Now we see that the problem is more serious and not so simple as imagined. One from below and from outside states. But be in to know the problem and know the difficulties. Now, between us, I urge you not to insist with one's own because it could bring difficulties with his job. Not for me! I say it for her sake, because I understand, I understand his approach, but you know, you may find other less comprehensive than, you know how it is, sometimes eh? .... "

Poor John Common Sense-mu said nothing. Without greeting between scared and stunned, with the feeling of walking upside down, left and never seen again. No one knows where it went. That's why we say that these reform efforts and improvement of the system, lack-Common Sense.

The "Fable of roasted pigs," by Gustavo F. J. Cirigliano, was originally published in Life magazine and Chair, Buenos Aires, 1959.

Text courtesy of http://www.losocial.com.ar/ .

The Legacy of Gordon Brown's, and Perhaps, Obama's Socialism??

2010-05-16T08:26:00.020-04:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7127819.ece

Labour hid ‘scorched earth’ debts worth billions

By Marie Woolf and Jonathan Oliver

UK Sunday Times

May 16, 2010

THE government last night accused Labour of pursuing a “scorched earth policy” before the general election, leaving behind billions of pounds of previously hidden spending commitments.

The newly discovered Whitehall “black holes” could force even more severe public spending cuts, or higher tax rises, ministers fear.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, said: “I fear that a lot of bad news about the public finances has been hidden and stored up for the new government. The skeletons are starting to fall out of the cupboard.”

The new cabinet has been discovering previously unknown contracts and uncosted spending commitments left by their spendthrift predecessors.

“There are some worrying early signs that numbers left by the outgoing government may not add up,” said Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister.

David Willetts, the universities minister, claimed that Labour had left behind “not so much an in-tray as a minefield”.

Billions of pounds in public money was committed in the run-up to the election campaign in a deliberate strategy to boost Labour’s chances at the ballot box and sabotage the next government.

One former Labour minister told The Sunday Times: “There was collusion between ministers and civil servants to get as many contracts signed off as possible before the election was called.”

One former adviser to the schools department said there was a deliberate policy of “scorched earth”. “The atmosphere was ‘pull up all the railways, burn the grain stores, leave nothing for the Tories’,” he added.

The disclosures come as George Osborne, the chancellor, prepares this week to reveal details of an initial £6 billion of cuts to help plug the hole in the £163 billion deficit. A full emergency budget next month will see some departmental budgets being slashed by up to 25% as well as tax rises, including a possible hike in Vat.

Many ministers are spending this weekend going through their red boxes trying to understand the scale of the budgetary black holes facing their departments.

This week the government is expected to call a temporary halt to recently signed IT contracts, while new public sector construction projects will be reviewed.

The “black holes” that ministers have already unearthed include:

- A series of defence contracts signed shortly before the election, including a £13 billion tanker aircraft programme whose cost has “astonished and baffled” ministers.

- £420m of school building contracts, many targeting Labour marginals, signed off by Ed Balls, the former schools secretary, weeks before the general election was called.

- The troubled £1.2 billion “e-borders” IT project for the immigration service, which, sources say, is running even later and more over-budget than Labour ministers had admitted.

- A crisis in the student loans company where extra cash may be needed to prevent a repeat of last year’s failure to process tens of thousands of claims on time.

- The multi-billion-pound cost of decommissioning old nuclear power plants, which ministers claim has not been properly accounted for in Whitehall budgets.
- A £600m computer contract for the new personal pensions account scheme rushed through by Labour this year, which will still cost at least £25m even if it is cancelled.

Maude, who has been given the task of reducing Whitehall waste, insisted that ministers were not scaremongering to paint their predecessors in a negative light. He said there was widespread concern that Labour had become particularly spendthrift in the run-up to the election campaign.

“We put the last government on notice that contracts should not be signed without specific ministerial direction,” he said. “We are now seeking to find out what has been committed in the last few months.”

He hinted that the hidden “poison pills” could force the government to look at even more dramatic spending cuts than the ones already being envisaged. “It certainly doesn’t make the task of reducing the structural deficit any easier,” Maude said.

Willetts revealed that while Lord Mandelson, whose portfolio covered business, innovation and skills, had recently announced large cuts in the universities budget, little work had been done to plan exactly where the axe might fall.

“The outgoing Labour government left not so much an in-tray as a minefield,” Willetts said. “Issues that were left behind as too difficult to tackle by the previous regime are going to have to be dealt with.”

Gerald Howarth, the new Tory minister for defence procurement, disclosed that the financial pressures on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) were even graver than he had been expecting. “The appetite for new programmes exceeded the capacity of the MoD’s stomach, particularly in the run-up to the election,” he said. “In the past few months there was a rush of new orders. What we are going to have to do is ensure the equipment programme matches the military need.”

Defence sources say the military has been using the urgent operational requirement (UOR) to borrow money from the Treasury to fund equipment for Afghanistan that the MoD could not afford to buy. “They’ve been using the UOR system like a credit card,” one source said, “and they’ve been maxing out on the card to the point where they’re around £700m over the limit. It’s all got to be paid back.”

Osborne’s cuts package to be announced early this week includes a freezing of spending on new IT projects, stopping most public sector recruitment and renegotiating deals with government suppliers.

With speculation growing that Osborne is planning to announce an increase in Vat from 17.5% to 20% next month, there are growing fears he could face a tax revolt from left-leaning Lib Dem backbenchers.

Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes said on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday: “Our party remains an independent party. We will take views. We don’t suddenly change our policy.”

[WILL OBAMA & THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY DO THE SAME TO AMERICA???]

The EU's Loss of Authority and Influence at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference Ensures Our Economic Freedom

2010-01-14T09:15:00.011-05:00

http://www.thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/413-benny-peiser-copenhagen-and-the-demise-of-green-utopia.html

Copenhagen And The Demise Of Green Utopia

By Dr. Benny Peiser

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)

14 January 2010

The failure of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen is a historical watershed that marks the beginning of the end of climate hysteria. Not only does it epitomise the failure of the EU’s environmental policy, it also symbolises the loss of Western dominance. The failure of the climate summit was not only predictable – it was inevitable. There was no way out from the cul-de-sac into which the international community has manoeuvred itself. The global deadlock simply reflects the contrasting, and in the final analysis irreconcilable interests of the West and the rest of the world. The result is likely to be an indefinite moratorium on the international climate legislation. After Copenhagen, the chances for a binding successor of the Kyoto Protocol are as good as zero.

The extent of the debacle and the shift in the balance of geopolitical power was demonstrated by the fact that the final accord was made without the participation of the European Union. The exclusion of Europe is a remarkable symbol of the EU’s growing loss of influence, a green bureaucracy that was not even asked whether they agreed with the non-binding declaration of China, India and the USA. Although the Copenhagen conference was held in a European capital, the negotiations and the final result of the conference were totally outside European involvement.

Climate poker

The visibly shaken EU leaders had to admit that they were taken by surprise and had been outmanoeuvred by China, India and the USA. US president Obama and the leaders of India and China had left Copenhagen long before the European heads of state were forced to agree with an accord which had been reached without their input. A rejection of the Asian-American Copenhagen Accord would have been an option, were it not that it would have pushed the EU into the extremist corner of Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe.

The failed climate summit caused a tectonic shift in international relations and left behind a new political landscape. After Copenhagen, green Europe looks rather antiquated and the rest of the world looks totally different. The principles on which Europe’s climate policies were founded and which formed the basis of the Kyoto Protocol have lost their power while the EU itself lost authority and influence.

True-blooded advocates of Realpolitik who hardly exist in the climate policy debate, had warned for a long time that Copenhagen would fail to bridge the divergent interests of the West and the developing countries. For political realists, it is no surprise whatever that all key decisions were postponed indefinitely. What is more, there is little doubt that China and India are the big winners of the Copenhagen climate poker. The two emerging superpowers managed to win new strategic allies, even among Western nations. China’s and India’s strategy to align themselves with other developing countries in opposition to protectionist threats by the U.S. and the EU proved itself as very successful. In the end, their persistent even forced the Obama administration to join the anti-green alliance.

The Asian-American Accord connotes a categorical No to legally binding emission targets. This means that a concrete timescale for the curtailing of global CO2 emissions, not to mention the reduction of the CO2 emissions, has been kicked into the long grass. The green dream of industrial de-carbonisation has been postponed indefinitely.

The NO is non-negotiable

The imminent danger of a legally binding climate treaty that would force developing nations to impose extremely costly restrictions on cheap energy and thus their economic growth and development was quashed. ‘Business as usual ‘ seems to be the veritable motto of international climate policy for years to come, if not for decades.

Despite the manifest fiasco, considerable resistance to admit defeat and to accept the new reality still exists in many European capitals. Thus, we hear the usual post-conference mantra: but at the next climate conference we will be successful. The decisions which were postponed in Copenhagen will be agreed to at the next summit Mexico later this year.

This green rhetoric has no basis in reality. It’s a green fata morgana. After all, the rejection by the developing world to commit to legally binding emission targets is not a tactical negotiation ploy. The categorical NO is absolute and non-negotiable. Due to the evident lack of realistic energy substitutes, developing countries have no choice but to continue to rely on the cheapest form of energy, i.e. fossil fuels - for the foreseeable future.

The European rejection of reality is particularly silly as absolutely nothing was decided in Copenhagen. Even the promised $100 billion climate fund are not binding and are unlikely to materialise in any case. Of course, these figures are pure fantasy because both the EU and the US have made these sums conditional on the signatures of China and India under the climate treaty, a proviso that is not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

The developing nations are not stupid. They have ensnared the West in a climate trap that green politicians set for themselves. To meet the growing pressure by the West, developing countries are demanding $200- 400 billion dollars – per annum - for so-called climate compensation and adaptation measures, together with billions worth of technology transfers. It is difficult to see how the West, already heavily curtailed as a result of the economic crisis, would be prepared to transfer such an astronomical amount of money. Even in good times it would have been a foolish idea.

For too long, West leaders have been convinced that they are pursuing a clever strategy. The EU promised, in principle, a financial transfer of $30 billion in the next three years to poor countries. However, Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, made perfectly clear that the climate billions are conditional on an international agreement with binding emission limits.

The Copenhagen fiasco will undoubtedly trigger a rethinking of the European climate policy. Especially East European member states – but probably also the Italian and German governments – will be demanding a drastic reassessment of unilateral climate targets which are turning into an economic liability and a political risk. They are already putting a heavy burden on European economies as well as driving ever higher the costs for energy, industrial output and the general public.

Most likely, all efforts of reaching a binding climate agreement will fail in coming years. The pressure of lowering expectations of a green utopia will therefore increase. The developing countries can not afford to slow, let alone reduce their dependence on cheap energy and economic development as any significant curtailment would undermine their social and risk political stability.

Even in the Western world, the general climate hysteria shows a marked cooling. If recent opinion polls are to be believed, the obsession with climate change, which was a common feature during much of the 1980s and 90s no longer exists. In its place, climate fatigue is spreading. The novelty of climate change and the habitual alarms have lost their original shock value. Instead, the public seems to be warming to the idea of gradual and inevitable climate change.

International climate politics face a profound crisis. Green taxes and climate levies in whatever form and shape have become political liabilities. Revolts among eastern European countries, in Australia and even among Obama's Blue Dog Democrats are forcing law-makers to renounce support for unilateral climate policies. In the UK, the party-political consensus on climate change is unlikely to survive the general elections as both Labour and the Tories are confronted by a growing public backlash against green taxes and rising fuel bills.

However, the biggest losers of the Copenhagen fiasco appear to be climate science and the scientific establishment who, with a very few distinguished exceptions, have promoted unmitigated climate alarm and hysteria. It confirms beyond doubt that most governments have lost trust in the advice given by climate alarmists and the IPCC. The Copenhagen accord symbolises the loss of political power by Europe whose climate policies have been rendered obsolete.

Loss of credibility

Climate science too is facing a crisis of credibility. It is confronted by growing doubt and criticism, not in the least as a result of the so-called Climategate scandal, the revelations about the behind-the-scene shenanigans by leading climate researchers. Moreover, the unforeseen arrest of the global warming trend has only increased the credibility crisis and has led to growing and deepening scepticism among wide sectors of the public. The standstill global warming, as well as the global economic crisis have greatly dampened the enthusiasm for expensive climate policies as well as for green taxes and exorbitant subsidies.

Above all, the debacle of Copenhagen shows that conventional climate policies have no future. What is necessary now is the development of alternative approaches that are politically realistic and economically feasible. In order for a new climate realism to be successful, governments and government agencies should start, at last, to engage and involve critics of conventional climate politics. Instead of continuing to follow the futile approaches and failed policies promoted by climate alarmists for far too long, governments would be well advised to be introduce more balanced and more transparent assessments of climate science and policy research.

It is quite possible that global temperatures might start rising again in the foreseeable future. Admittedly, no one knows exactly if and when this will happen – and if, whether the renewed warming trend will be pronounced, moderate or insignificant. In all likelihood, we will not now for the next twenty or thirty years who will be right or wrong - the climate sceptics or the alarmists. Nevertheless, as long as the global warming standstill continues, more or less, and as long as the political deadlock between the West and the rest of the world lingers, international climate politics will remain firmly on ice.

Dr Benny Peiser is the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation and the editor of the climate policy network CCNet.
Translated by Marianne and Gerrit van der Lingen from the original article in the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche, 20. December 2009

Barko & Sarko Capitalism - Socialism With a Twist

2009-12-19T14:00:00.033-05:00

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4226

From Meccania to Atlantis - Part 13 (2): Harpo, Gekko, Barko, Sarko

Chapter 2: Barko = Fundamental Transformation 2 + 3 = 5.03820

By Takuan Seiyo

The Brussels Journal

12/18/09

There was a time, before every car had a bumper sticker that read, “Even my llama voted for Obama,” when Americans preferred to affirm in this manner some essential and incontrovertible truth, like “S**t happens.” Swayed by their ruling elites and boob tube to take out reverse mortgage loans to buy swamp vacations condos and 3-ton SUVs with all the desert options for driving to MacDonald’s, they lost their mind. Their political and opinion-making leaders, all graduates of elite universities, all counseled by PhD’s from even more elite universities -- they too had forgotten the simple truths one used to learn in kindergarten.

But the Chinese have not forgotten, and they are quoting Benjamin Franklin to the American fools. “He who goes borrowing, goes sorrowing,” admonishes Cheng Siwei, ex-vice-chairman of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing University students laugh at U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner when he reassures them with the transparent fib that his government believes in a “strong dollar.” And Americans swindled by their own government unto the nth generation, take solace in lampooning their Loon in Chief -- here being told by “Hu Jintao”, ”I am noticing that each of your plans to save money involves spending even more money."

To construct an economy whose survival depends on the ability of both government and citizens to borrow money and spend it on mad social engineering programs and redundant imported junk is the stuff of retarded children’s fancy. After that house of cards has collapsed, for America’s government to borrow and print additional trillions of dollars, and to sprinkle that onto failed, mismanaged corporations, corrupt Communist labor unions, cesspool banks, and racial extortion racket like ACORN, is nothing short of terminal lunacy. Or something more sinister.

In 2002, the U.S. national debt was close to $6 trillion. By November 2009, it had doubled to nearly $12 trillion. The debt is running so fast that it’s expected to pass $18.6 trillion in 2014. But that too is a lie – Snatcher State (1) is founded on lies. For to measure the true national debt of the American Leviathan, one would have to add other U.S. obligations that with respect to unfunded pension and health-care liabilities alone run over $99 trillion.

The true measure of the United States’ insolvency in November 2009 was $111 trillion, or 5.038 to the power of 20. Leviathan says, “Sorry, our forecast was 5, but it turned out to be 5.038.” Pundits then comment on the debt overrun at 5.038 and find that it’s no big deal. But Leviathan has neglected to mention the tiny superscript mark next to 5.038 that makes it $111 trillion. Maybe if Orwell’s 1984 were called 2009, Winston would have been tortured by the state for writing, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus three is five, not 111 trillion.”

Generations of American politicians and bureaucratic barons have defined the government’s liabilities in such a way as to exclude unfunded retirement and health care obligations. Try this creative accounting with your espresso cart business, and see how long you can stay out of prison.

What’s $111 trillion? It’s one of those things that, to grasp, one has to stack up Eiffel Towers all the way to Pluto, or to count seconds backwards until a few months before the Big Bang. It’s an obscene number. It’s nothing compared to the $1.4 quadrillion value of outstanding derivatives, but one insane balloon does not excuse another.

Gordon Gekko was made into a symbol of greed only because a brain-altered leftie, Oliver Stone, made the film. The banksters are indefensible, that’s true. But they are merely little covetous geckos compared to the rapacity of whore politicians and government pashas who lust for power, permanence of power, perks of power, and the buttered money crumbs that fall their way from the table de luxe where the really smart guys dine.

The Club of Crooks and Loons thrives by beggaring the middle class to fund programs that keep enough voters happy to get the Club re-elected. It raises the funds by direct wealth transfer through “progressive” (double meaning) taxation, and by borrowing and printing, i.e. creating money out of nothing. The latter is a form of stealth progressive taxation. And the purpose is always the same: reckless spending.

Manifestly, this “stimulates” the economy with plentiful credit and cheap money. But over time, this robs the middle class by diluting its savings and fixed income through inflation and stealth devaluation. It undermines society as profoundly as the profligate expenditures of the latter Caesars did Rome, financed as they were by shaving the diameter and falsifying the silver and gold content of the coins of the realm.

But the Club doesn’t care. The Crooks know that it’s in their re-election interest to conjure and spend vast sums of money. For the same reason they are keen on replacing the white, largely self-reliant majority with a more “diverse,” imported electorate, inured to government handouts robbed from the dispossessed middle class. And the Loons are happy that such spendin’ and diversifyin’ furthers their pet causes of social justice, equality, peace, and penance for whitey. Each one of these words and concepts is a hypocritical euphemism worthy of Molière.

There has been much media chatter that the current travails of financial capitalism are a crisis of the “free market” system. In a recent BBC poll of 29,000 people in 27 countries, only 11% opined that free-market capitalism works well. 23% saw capitalism as fatally flawed. In 15 of the 27 countries, majorities wanted their government to increase its direct ownership of the main industries. Although only 11 of the 23 sampled countries were of Euro-origin, the pervasive ignorance embedded in these opinions was evinced in this comment by Doug Miller, chairman of the company that conducted the survey: “It appears that the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 may not have been the crushing victory for free-market capitalism that it seemed at the time.”

“Free-market” capitalism? In a system where the government has a monopoly on the price and quantity of money, which it misprices and misprints as a rule? In a system where the government has just bailed out the crooks and the fools from the free market’s judgment, and charged the costs to the productive and prudent?

Greedy financial capitalism has exploited and exploded the credit bubble. But every bubble of the last 20 years has been inflated by the constant expansion of cheap credit by central banks, particularly the U.S. Fed. Had (Federal Reserve Chairmen) Greenspan and Bernanke not flooded with “liquidity,” the Gekkos would not have had the practically limitless free money to play speculative games with.

This is the second systemic sabotage of free market economy even in the freest country of all – the United States. The first one is the government’s persistent failure to exercise its legislative and enforcement powers to restrain fraud, graft, market manipulation and excessive risk taking with other people’s money. A big part of the Crooks and Loons’ scam is that they leave free what they ought to control, i.e. the borders, Islamic infiltration, criminal gangs, bank reserve ratios, derivatives, speculation on margin -- but they control what they ought to leave free, i.e. interest rates, gender and race-blind meritocracy, the people’s right to armed self-defense, and more.

To compound the disaster, after their bubble imploded, the Keynesian monetary drones threw $23.7 trillion’s-worth of moneta (i.e. coins) -- in the U.S. alone! -- to extinguish a conflagration of debt with more debt. None of them saw the advance warning signs of the biggest financial crash in history, but all of them now know how to cure it.

The economy is an organic entity. It gets irrationally exuberant and drunk on cheap money, if there is a misguided central bank providing it. But if the economy gets a chance to sleep through the hangover, fast for a year or two on bread and water, the toxins – what “Austrian” economists call malinvestments -- are flushed out of the system and the patient wakes up full of vigor to start a new day afresh.

If instead of leaving it alone, the government plies the economy with the very drug that has caused its crash, it produces a jolt of activity today, and a bigger crash tomorrow. It’s like pumping a heroin addict full of opium, to cure the addiction. It’s obvious therefore that if the Monkey Business (2) clowns continue “stimulating” the economy they already destroyed through two decades of overstimulation, they must have either a mental deficiency, or a hidden agenda, or both.

Barko, spender

Barko is Barack Hussein Obama -- Great Leader, The One We Have Been Waiting For or, in implanted childrens’ devotionals, “Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama.” Mr. Obama’s unique historical significance is as a “community organizer” brought to the levers of supreme power by a stroke of good fortune and able, therefore, to accelerate the Gramscian Long March beyond the wildest dreams of any American socialist radical who ever lived.

Barko is also a phenomenon that extends beyond Mr. Obama himself. It includes what is known as the Obama-Chicago Machine-Pelosi-Reid political axis, its crypto-socialist billionaire backers and upper class “progressive” acolytes, the pierced-and-tattooed slackers, militant labor and civil service unions, socialist NGOs, and the tens of millions of non-white minorities for whom the Barko coalition is a ticket to bounty requisitioned from others.

The Left’s strategy has not changed much since the 1930s. They push government spending ever higher, and then define budget deficits as the problem. When fiscal conservatives point out that the overspending causes the deficits, the Left labels that as extremist, supporting slavery and homicidal. When in power, the Left ratchets up the spending on its clients and picks the pockets of the productive citizens out of a faked concern for the “deficit gap.”

The one rule is that expenditures are never reduced, except as a strategic ploy. If an emergency forces a reduction, what’s reduced is the police, the garbage pick-up, the libraries, but never the budget-busting public workers’ pension programs, or the legions of $150,000-a-year deputies of bureaucrat deputies, hired and retained through thick and thin to fulfill the Holy Grail of Body Snatcher creed: “balance” between competent straight white males and quadriplegic black Muslim lesbians.

But there comes a time when the spending is no longer an exercise in cynical egotism or delusional ‘social justice,’ but a deliberate battering ram with which to fell a nation and steal its future. There is no precedent in history to the reckless magnitude and speed of the Obama–Pelosi regime’s spending. It’s impossible to capture concisely all the details of the confetti curtain of $100 bills streaming day and night from ten million Bernanke helicopters, but a few mileposts are worth mentioning:

The Senate of the most indebted nation in history, a country staggering under mountains of debt that it has no viable way of repaying, continues to pass Titanic spending bills that just in the first nine months of 2009 included:

$350 billion Wall Street bailout extension
$787 billion “stimulus” package
$400 billion, earmark-infested omnibus spending bill
$6 billion to federalize charities and pay volunteers
$109 billion loan to the International Monetary Fund
$3 billion for “Cash for Clunkers”
$400 million in corporate welfare to the tourism industry
$4 billion bailout of the Postal Service

In what the New York Post called “a stimulus without the stim", the federal government has spent a half-billion dollars on ten large government stimulus contracts in New York City and Long Island that created 54 jobs. That comes to $9 million per job.

Overall, the government has spent $246,436 per each of the 640,329 jobs it claims to have saved or created so far. That's a pretty costly stimulus, a government Ponzi scheme of printing money and so robbing those who hold previously printed money, then flinging the new money about in order to cover up the sorry effects of the government’s own prior malfeasance and stupidity.

Each buyer of the 690,000 vehicles that were sold during the “Cash for Clunkers program” (gov. propaganda here) received a government subsidy of $3,500 - $4,500, at a total cost to the taxpayer of $3 billion. But since the majority of these beneficiaries would have bought their cars anyway, the 125,000 who were actually induced by the government to buy cost the taxpayer $24,000 each.

Fraud in the “$8000 ‘stimulus’ to each new home buyer” program is currently assessed at $500 million. Thousands of such $8,000 tax credits have been issued to illegal aliens, children, and people who had not bought a house – the latter including at least 53 IRS [Income Tax Bureau] employees. That’s what happens when a government rather than the free market mechanism dispenses money.

Obama has announced a plan to send 78 million American seniors a check for $250 each. That’s a paltry 19.5 billion dollars. In Detroit, thousands line up for “Obama money,” that they believe is a personal gift from The One. In Tampa Bay, millions are wasted to subsidize beauty school tuition for beauticians for whom there are no jobs. Maybe that’s the ultimate Monkey Business haircut.

As if this weren’t enough, the lunatics in the House of Representatives write a 2000+ page bill that nobody has read and pass it at 23:00 on a Saturday night. They propose to spend another $1.2 trillion on health care for the 12.5% of Mexico’s population (3) that prefers free American doctors, in a reform that would actually worsen everything that’s already bad in the American healthcare system (4), explode U.S. debt, increases taxes, and kill jobs. Two Saturdays later, the Senate gives its stamp of approval, in a wheeling-dealing process that involves buying one senator’s vote with a $300 million bribe to Louisiana, twenty times the amount of the original Louisiana Purchase.

And since this is being too niggardly with the taxpayer’s money, Democrat Snatchers in the Senate push through a Climate Change bill that will cost at least $3.6 trillion, such estimates always proven 20 years later to have been too hopeful by a factor of eight.

But they are just getting warmed up. “After flurry of stimulus spending, questionable projects pile up,” reports the Washington Examiner. The “projects” range from $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit excrement, to $800,000 for the John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pa. that serves 20 passengers a day. Democratic Congressman Murtha deserves his name on an airport because he is a crook of such staggering proportions that even The Huffington Post – no foe of Democrats – gives him his own Web page.

While all this is going on, in a brave experiment to disprove the unfashionable “guns–or-butter” maxim , the U.S. wastes $2.6 billion a day to build the unbuildable nations of Iraq and Afghanistan [total wasted in Iraq alone: $53 billion, so far], promises to double its foreign aid to $50 billion, to initiate hush money to Third World kleptocracies at [a big part of] $100 billion per year, and generally does everything that the speed of its Bureau of Engraving and Printing presses -- 8,000 sheets of paper money per hour – makes possible.

This is madness for the ages, stuff for future historians of civilizational collapse. And it’s not economic ignoramuses who are doing this. Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, was a professor of Economics at Princeton University. Timothy Geithner, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, has an M.A. in economics. Paul Krugman, who habitually criticizes these two for not spending enough, is the 2008 Nobel laureate in economics. Even President George W. Bush, who started this insanity in earnest, has an MBA from Harvard.

The unfolding disaster is tied in part to false economic models of credentialed “experts,” full of the particular arrogance of people who have read 10,000 books but never milked a cow. Like the medieval alchemists, the Greenspan-Bernankes serving Snatcher State still look for the philosopher’s stone – and find it in John Maynard Keynes’s theory that government meddling and deficit spending is not the leaden hobble that a 9-year-old with a piggy bank would recognize, but pure gold.

Pure gold it is. Since gold is an insurance against the government’s follies and depredations, in the first 10 months of the Obama presidency the price of gold went up by 37%.

The fatal conceit of learned socialist bunglers is personified in Dr. – in history, of all things -- Gordon Brown. As the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, between 1999 and 2002 Brown sold 60% of Great Britain’s gold reserves at an average price of $276 an ounce. He had actually managed to drive the price to its lowest in 25 years, still called "Brown Bottom," by announcing his intentions in advance.

By 1 December 2009, gold had risen by 335% and stood at $1200 an ounce. And Dr. Brown, having managed to trash Great Britain in many other ways since, is now its Prime Minister. Full of grandiose ideas to redeem whitey and uplift the world, among Brown’s other flashes of brilliance has been his effort to get the West’s then-solvent countries to give away much of their gold, via the IMF, to relieve Third World debt. Since this particular outflow to the Third World did not work out, Brown with other Labour leaders have since done their best to destroy Great Britain via a demographic inflow from the Third World.

The gross mismanagement of the West’s real assets by big business leaders has been far exceeded by the gross mismanagement of the West’s economies and societies by political leaders and bureaucrats. This starts with their Keynesian conviction that they know how to manage the economy. Friedrich von Hayek called it “the fatal conceit." The scope of this term ought to be enlarged to include also social capital, i.e. common ethnic roots, cultural consensus, shared norms of behavior and the resulting social trust – for these invaluable social assets have been similarly destroyed by the fatally mad ruling elites.

The 1st Great Depression was not a failure of capitalism but a failure of the leftists elites to understand the nature of both capitalism and their own limitations (5). History’s reproach to the foolish government tinkerers may be deduced by comparing the “Panic of 1920” with the “Panic of 1929.” The first one subsided quickly after President Harding’s government left things alone except for cutting taxes and spending. But the Panic of 1929, followed by much government fiddling, tampering and burning huge sums of money, lasted for the better part of two decades and stopped only because of World War 2.

Government meddling, bailing out and “stimulating” is pulling the world straight into the second Great Depression through a fake, “stimulated recovery,” as though there is no lesson to be drawn from the first one. However, the government’s essential incompetence is a Harpo clown issue, and we have covered that already . But Barko and Sarko, the one a sinister destroyer, the other a Body Snatcher lunatic, are stacked on top of the Harpo bumbler.

Barko, waster

It takes the two meanings of “to waste” to describe what the leftoid American regime is doing to the country it loves to hate. For it’s a wipeout, a gigantic destruction by profligate mega-squandering.

What separates the wasting of the Barko socialists from that of the faux Sarko conservatives (like Nicolas Sarkozy) is speed, quantity, and intent.

The Barkos wreak accelerated destruction with intelligent purposefulness in order to collapse Western society. Their playbook has been authored by Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse, Saul Alinsky, even a convicted thief, Robert Creamer, a darling of Chicago-style “gangsta-progressives.” Barkos even have a conspiratorial script, the Cloward – Piven Strategy.

The Sarkos, on the other hand, destroy incrementally, with benign intent -- a mixture of bleeding heart liberalism and stupidity. They hew to John Maynard Keynes, Big Business, and lefto-Christian dhimmo-bishops like Nick Baines or Godfried Danneels. There are conspiracies attributed to this side also, such as the “Bilderbergs” and other names given to a behind-the-curtain group of powerful string-pulling bankers.

In the United States, George W. Bush was the last Sarko in the White House, and there are Republican Sarkos serving now in the U.S. Congress. But as the country is struggling with its biggest crisis since World War 2, it is firmly in the grip of Barack and the Barko Party.

As if some of the finest financial minds of the United States (e.g. James Grant, here ) have not warned of courting disaster, as though millions have not voiced their outrage in thousands of Tea Parties, Barko, like a windup thieving magpie, goes forth. As of 8 December, there are new Obama plans to “spend our way out of this recession."

Even as voices of warning and dire prediction intensify, the Fed’s Ben Bernanke and U.S. Treasury’s Tim Geithner are intensifying their actions that ignore and defy the warnings. Even as lone Congressmen sound the alarm about the evil circus they witness daily on the job, a new 2500-page Omnibus spending bill is making its way through the Capitol like a tasty rat through a python’s practiced colon. The bill, putting the match to the paltry sum of $446 billion, includes 5,200 earmarks for things like a $17 million gift to Ireland and $3 million for bike racks in Washington DC.

And the Senate is hard at work to “clear away” a Republican filibuster of a $1.1 trillion end-of-year spending bill rewarding most federal agencies with generous budget boosts and funding such Barko staples as abortions and hard-drug needles. As well, the barking mad party in Congress under Barko’s baton is pulling out all stops to ram through what will be one of the main anchors of Socialist America: the health care “reform” with its grossly underestimated price tag of $1.2 trillion.

The same government that wants to mismanage the $2.3 trillion (annual spending) healthcare industry, also drives hard to control the carbon emissions of the American economy – which means, really, to control the American economy. This, after having taken over much of the American auto, banking and insurance industries already. And that’s the government that has just agreed to pay $3.4 Billion to settle a lawsuit relative to its mismanagement of the revenue in the American Indian trust fund.

Not by coincidence, the same crazed Leviathian that has just driven the U.S. mortgage market and the world’s economy with it to implosion, continues to subsidize mortgages for people who do not qualify for loans by prudent banking criteria. U.S. Federal Housing Administration has guaranteed 37 % of all residential mortgage loans in 2009. At least 20% of this $725 billion mortgage portfolio will end up in default and another bailout by the U.S. taxpayer.

7.2 million jobs have been lost in America since recession began. The official unemployment rate, at 10.2%, is the highest in 26 years. But even the government admits that the true unemployment rate, including workers who have given up looking for work, is 17.5%. 22% is the truthful rate, per Shadow Government Statistics.

The only area where employment is booming is Washington, DC. At 6.2%, it has the lowest unemployment rate of all large American cities. The two million federal employees, including 25,000 new hires just since December 2008, have recently gotten a 2% wage increase. Over 10,000 of them -- an increase of 450% in just two years -- make more than $170,000 per year.
In this sense, the Barko regime has mounted a coup d'état in which the état is the instigator and beneficiary of the coup. But there is far more to it. It shows in the urgency and simultaneity of the unprecedented spending on very large society-transforming projects, any one of which alone would be perilous to America’s finances and social viability.

All of the spending iterated above has been initiated by the government of a country amidst the greatest economic crisis in 70 years, while fighting two hot wars and three cold ones, reeling at home from a shattered social and cultural consensus, and crippled by the breakdown of such bedrock institutions as public education that educates, and civil service that serves.

It’s this time that the Barko regime has chosen for smashing and rebuilding the largest sector of the American economy, healthcare. It’s this time they have chosen for closing Guantanamo and holding trials for Al Qaeda jihadis in New York. The idea is not just to burn another quarter billion for the trials and the attendant security, but also to destroy, through the judicial discovery process, the clandestine capabilities of America’s security apparatus.

It’s this time too, early next year, that they have chosen to ram through Amnesty for 15 -20 million illegal immigrants. 60% of those are semi-literate Mestizos and 5% are jihadis-in-waiting. And 15 million translates into at least 60 million through gradual “family reunification” over just 20 years. It’s this kind of strength in diversity that America is wanting so much.

All Body Snatchers who have access to a microphone crow about this coming epiphany, but the most instructive gloating comes from Janet Napolitano. In a typical inverse reality mode of Snatcher State, Ms. Napolitano is in charge of domestic security for the United States, tasked among others with protecting its borders and enforcing its immigration laws. “Timing is everything in the arts of war or politics”, said Ms. Napolitano in her speech on the blessings of busting the United States for good with a demographic bomb too, on top of all the other heavy petards.

The art of war – if only the foggy “conservatives” had a clue.

It’s within the same time bracket that the Barko people chose to unleash the Cap-and-Trade economic catastrophe on their country, under the risible pretext that their failure to do so would lead to a catastrophe. It’s in this time bracket that Mr. Obama chose to appoint an Afrocentric Black Communist, Van Jones, as “Green Jobs” Czar, and a Socialist International operative, Carol Browner, as “Energy and Climate Change” Czar. And that confluence of Third-worldism, socialism and climate change hokum provides the clue as to what the monetary bonfire of hokum stimulus is about too.

Mikhail Gorbachev, no stranger to Trotskyite thinking, has reportedly said that the threat of environmental crisis will be the “international disaster key” that will unlock the ‘New World Order’ (6). But even without Gorbachev’s decryption, that key is on plain view every day during the United Nations-staged Copenhagen climate commedia dell'arte.

The idea is to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor – on a scale undreamt of even by Karl Marx himself. All in the name of equality. No longer the equality of a German coal-mine owner and a German coal miner, but the equality of a German surgeon and a Gambian porter. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, globally. Or, to paraphrase Charles Krauthammer, taxing hard-working citizens of Western democracies in order to fill the treasuries of Third World kleptocracies.

This is the biggest heist in the history of the world, and the Holy Grail of socialists everywhere, not the least at Socialist International. And the United States is the one obstreperous territory that has stood athwart the road to this progressive progress, starting with George W. Bush’s refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol.

That’s why the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize went to Barack Hussein Obama. Thorbjørn Jagland, who presided over this travesty, had been, among his other socialist posts, a vice president of the Socialist International. And Barko with his crew steer America’s ship now, with an intention that presidential candidate Obama hinted to the knowing so vividly.

[Thorbjørn Jagland "has been one of several vice presidents of the Socialist International...He has stated that the left wing in Norway does not use Socialist International enough." See: Thorbjørn Jagland, Wikipedia, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorbj%C3%B8rn_Jagland . See also Dan Calabrese, Who is Thorbjorn Jagland? Obama’s Nobel patron is a long-time leader of Socialist International, The North Star National, (Oct. 10, 2009), at: http://www.northstarnational.com/2009/10/10/thorbjorn-jagland-obamas-nobel-patron-long-time-leader-socialist-international (reproduced below)].

America’s backbone is its middle class of mainly white, Christian anti-socialists. The last such backbone remaining in the world, with the possible exception of Australia. Crush it, and you have shattered the last obstacle standing before The New World Order. Break it, and you have changed the course of history as profoundly as the French Revolution has, in the same Jacobin direction.

That’s what the spending has been all about, and that’s why they stuffed so many back-breaking projects into the same impossible time frame. That’s why Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s majordomo, said that no serious crisis should go to waste.

And that’s why the next chapter in our contrarian cogitations will bear the title Requiescat in pace. The key to ending this nightmare is not in putting one’s electoral faith in a Sarko to replace a Barko while Harpo is running around in the background, but in recognizing that the whole enterprise is a mad circus decayed beyond redemption. The only true choice left is to get up and walk out of the circus tent.

Previous articles in this series can be found here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) The basic analogy reverts to Part 1, where we cited the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In the film, alien “Body Snatchers” produce giant legume Pods that replace living people while appearing to be identical to them. From the Pods develop the new Body Snatchers who cultivate further Pods etc. Snatcher State, per this central metaphor, is a state governed by an elite that seems to be so crazed and indifferent to Earthly reality as if it had come from outside our galaxy.

(2) Monkey Business is the metaphor used in Part 13(1) and taken from the Marx Brothers film, “Monkey Business,” including its “haircut” scene.

(3) See map.

(4) See assessment by the Dean of Harvard Medical School.

(5) Space does not permit for summarizing the proof here, but it may be found, among others, in Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960, Princeton University Press, 1963 (more here) and in Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. And Prof. Walter Williams has made the point that until the 1st Great Depression, all financial crises since 1787 had subsided quickly due to no governmental intervention in the economy.

(6) Quoted in Marilyn Brannan, “A Special Report: The Wildlands Project Unleashes Its War On Mankind,” Monetary & Economic Review, 1996, p. 5.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wall Street Journal Finally Recognizes Threat Posed to Science By European & Obama Administration-Endorsed Precautionary Principle: It's About Time!!

2009-12-04T09:54:00.007-05:00

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/03/science_is_on_the_credibility_bubble_99388.html

Science is on the Credibility Bubble

By Daniel Henninger

(Wall Street Journal Deputy Editor)

Real Clear Politics

December 3, 2009

Surely there must have been serious men and women in the hard sciences who at some point worried that their colleagues in the global warming movement were putting at risk the credibility of everyone in science. The nature of that risk has been twofold: First, that the claims of the climate scientists might buckle beneath the weight of their breathtaking complexity. Second, that the crudeness of modern politics, once in motion, would trample the traditions and culture of science to achieve its own policy goals. With the scandal at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, both have happened at once.

I don't think most scientists appreciate what has hit them. This isn't only about the credibility of global warming. For years, global warming and its advocates have been the public face of hard science. Most people could not name three other subjects they would associate with the work of serious scientists. This was it. The public was told repeatedly that something called "the scientific community" had affirmed the science beneath this inquiry. A Nobel Prize was bestowed (on a politician).

Global warming enlisted the collective reputation of science. Because "science" said so, all the world was about to undertake a vast reordering of human behavior at almost unimaginable financial cost. Not every day does the work of scientists lead to galactic events simply called Kyoto or Copenhagen. At least not since the Manhattan Project.

What is happening at East Anglia is an epochal event. As the hard sciences-physics, biology, chemistry, electrical engineering-came to dominate intellectual life in the last century, some academics in the humanities devised the theory of postmodernism, which liberated them from their colleagues in the sciences. Postmodernism, a self-consciously "unprovable" theory, replaced formal structures with subjectivity. With the revelations of East Anglia, this slippery and variable intellectual world has crossed into the hard sciences.

This has harsh implications for the credibility of science generally. Hard science, alongside medicine, was one of the few things left accorded automatic stature and respect by most untrained lay persons. But the average person reading accounts of the East Anglia emails will conclude that hard science has become just another faction, as politicized and "messy" as, say, gender studies. The New England Journal of Medicine has turned into a weird weekly amalgam of straight medical-research and propaganda for the Obama redesign of U.S. medicine.

The East Anglians' mistreatment of scientists who challenged global warming's claims-plotting to shut them up and shut down their ability to publish-evokes the attempt to silence Galileo. The exchanges between Penn State's Michael Mann and East Anglia CRU director Phil Jones sound like Father Firenzuola, the Commissary-General of the Inquisition.

For three centuries Galileo has symbolized dissent in science. In our time, most scientists outside this circle have kept silent as their climatologist fellows, helped by the cardinals of the press, mocked and ostracized scientists who questioned this grand theory of global doom. Even a doubter as eminent as Princeton's Freeman Dyson was dismissed as an aging crank.

Beneath this dispute is a relatively new, very postmodern environmental idea known as "the precautionary principle." As defined by one official version: "When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically." The global-warming establishment says we know "enough" to impose new rules on the world's use of carbon fuels. The dissenters say this demotes science's traditional standards of evidence.

The Environmental Protection Agency's dramatic Endangerment Finding in April that greenhouse gas emissions qualify as an air pollutant-with implications for a vast new regulatory regime-used what the agency called a precautionary approach. The EPA admitted "varying degrees of uncertainty across many of these scientific issues." Again, this puts hard science in the new position of saying, close enough is good enough. One hopes civil engineers never build bridges under this theory.

The Obama administration's new head of policy at EPA, Lisa Heinzerling, is an advocate of turning precaution into standard policy. In a law-review article titled "Law and Economics for a Warming World," Ms. Heinzerling wrote, "Policy formation based on prediction and calculation of expected harm is no longer relevant; the only coherent response to a situation of chaotically worsening outcomes is a precautionary policy. . . ."

If the new ethos is that "close-enough" science is now sufficient to achieve political goals, serious scientists should be under no illusion that politicians will press-gang them into service for future agendas. Everyone working in science, no matter their politics, has an stake in cleaning up the mess revealed by the East Anglia emails. Science is on the credibility bubble. If it pops, centuries of what we understand to be the role of science go with it.

Eureka!! British Media Finally Realizes Seriousness of Threat Posed to Freedom by Green Socialists and Green Fascists

2009-07-31T19:03:00.035-04:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6725471.ece

Blunt warning about greens under the bed

Once the lure of communism seduced the idealistic. Today’s environmental ideologues risk becoming just as dangerous

By Antonia Senior

TimesOnline

July 24, 2009

Britain is, thankfully, an ideologically barren land. The split between Right and Left is no longer ideological, but tribal. Are you a nice social liberal who believes in markets, or a nasty social liberal who believes in markets? Anthony Blunt’s memoirs, published this week, reveal a different age, one in which fascism and communism were locked in a seemingly definitive battle for souls.

Blunt talks of “the religious quality” of the enthusiasm for the Left among the students of Cambridge. There is only one ideology in today’s developed world that exercises a similar grip. If Blunt were young today, he would not be red; he would be green.

His band of angry young men would find Gore where once they found Marx. Blunt evokes a febrile atmosphere in which each student felt his own decision had the power to shape the future. Where once they raged about the fleecing of the

proletariat and quaked at the march of fascism, Blunt and his circle, transposed to today’s college bar, would rage about the fleecing of the planet and quake at its imminent destruction. If you squint, red and green look disarmingly similar.

Both identify an end utopia that is difficult to dispute. The diktat “from each according to his ability, to each according to his means” sounds lovely on paper. Greens promise a world in which we actually survive a coming ecological apocalypse. A desirable outcome, undoubtedly.

But the means to these ends seem similarly insurmountable. Both routes demand an immediate suspension of human nature.

[ACTUALLY, IT SOUNDS EERILY SIMILAR TO THE UNITED NATIONS CONCEPT OF ENVIRONMENT-CENTRIC SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT!! - "DEVELOPMENT THAT MEETS THE NEEDS OF THE PRESENT WITHOUT COMPROMISING THE ABILITY OF FUTURE GENERATIONS TO MEET THEIR OWN NEEDS". See: Sustainable Development, Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development ; Framing Sustainable Development; The Brundtland Report – 20 Years On, United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development at p. 1, at: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd15/media/backgrounder_brundtland.pdf ].

Ideologies often credit man with either more nobility or more venality than he deserves. In reality he is a mundane creature. He wants a home for himself and those he loves, stocked with food. And he wants to have the right to control his own destiny, own his own stuff, and to acquire more if he can without interference or fear of imminent death. Such low-level acquisitive desires support high concepts: property rights and the rule of law, without which there would be no foundation for democracy.

My desire to live a free, mundane life is a fundamental cog in our messy, glorious, capitalist democracy. It is built on millions of such small entrenched postitions. Red-filtered, my desires are despicable and bourgeois and must be beaten out of me with indoctrination or force. Green-filtered, my small desires are despicable acts of ecological vandalism. My house is a carbon factory. My desire to travel, to own stuff, to eat meat, to procreate, to heat my house, to shower for a really, really long time; all are evil.

The word evil is used advisedly. Both the green and red positions are infused with overpowering religiosity. Dissenters from the consensus are shunned apostates. Professor Ian Pilmer, the Australian geologist and climate change sceptic, could not find a publisher for his book Heaven and Earth, which questions the orthodoxy about global warming. He is the subject of hate mail and demonstrations. It is entirely immaterial whether he is right or wrong. An environment that stifles his right to a voice is worse than one that is overheating.

Even within the convinced camp, dissent from certain party lines is frowned upon. Nuclear power is the cheapest, greenest alternative to fossil fuels that we possess, yet it is anathema to advocate its proliferation at the expense of wind and sun. Fans of nuclear are the Trotskys of the movement, subject to batterings by verbal ice pick.

The great ecological time bomb is population growth. By 2050 the United Nations’ demographers expect the world’s population to reach 9.2 billion, compared with 6.8 billion today. That’s 2.4 billion extra carbon footprints. Half measures seem futile. We all hope for some new technology to rescue us. But what if it never materialises? The logical position is to be a cheerleader for swine flu, but not in my backyard. Do we have to pray for swine flu to ravage foreign children, to save our own from frying in the future?

We are at the early stage of the green movement. A time akin to pre-Bolshevik socialism, when all believed in the destruction of the capitalist system, but were still relatively moderate about the means of getting there. We are at the stage of naive dreamers and fantasists. Russia was home to the late 19th-century Narodnik movement, in which rich sons of the aristocracy headed into the countryside to tell the peasants it was their moral imperative to become a revolutionary class. They retreated, baffled, to their riches when the patronised peasants didn’t want to revolt. Zac Goldsmith and Prince Charles look like modern Narodniks, talking glib green from the safety of their gilded lives.

Indulge me in some historical determinism. We, the peasants, are failing to rise up and embrace the need to change. We will not choose to give up modern life, with all its polluting seductions. Our intransigent refusal to choose green will be met by a new militancy from those who believe we must be saved from ourselves. Ultra-green states cannot arise without some form of forced switch to autocracy; the dictatorship of the environmentalists.

The old two-cow analogy is a useful one. You have two cows. The communist steals both your cows, and may give you some milk, if you’re not bourgeois scum. The fascist lets you keep the cows but seizes the milk and sells it back to you. Today’s Green says you can keep the cows, but should choose to give them up as their methane-rich farts will unleash hell at some unspecified point in the future. You say, sod it, I’ll keep my cows thanks. Tomorrow’s green, the Bolshevik green, shoots the cows and makes you forage for nuts.

If the choice is between ecological meltdown, or a more immediate curtailment of our freedom, where do those of us who are neither red nor green, but a recalcitrant grey, turn? Back to those small desires, and a blinkered hope that the choice never becomes so stark. If it does, I’ll take my chances with Armageddon.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://socialistresistance.org/?p=573 .

SR & Green Left Plan 'Climate and Capitalism' Seminar

Socialist Resistance

June 27, 2009

Planned for Saturday September 12, Climate and Cap

italism is the first seminar organised jointly by Green Left and Socialist Resistance, the ecosocialist currents in two of Britain’s left parties, the Greens and Respect. This energetic and open day of discussion will bring experts, campaigners, radical activists and others together. The event will be in the Friends’ Meeting House, London, NW1 (at Euston).

The plan for the day

After registration at 10, the opening plenary will addressed by Romayne Phoenix, from Green Left, and Ian Angus, editor of “The global fight for climate justice”, a new book being launched next month. Romayne is a Green councillor: Ian is one of the Socialist Resistance advisory board.

Before lunch, at least three workshops will be held, all with plenty of time for questions and discussions, to give the context for the combined economic and ecological crises. Amongst those planned are:

1. Crisis and the response: with Sean Thompson, author of new pamphlet on the Green New Deal, and the Scottish Socialist Party’s Raphie de Santos, co-author of ‘Socialists and the Capitalist Recession’

2. Gender, ecology and ecosocialism: with Sheila Malone, co-editor of ‘Ecosocialism or Barbarism’

3. Alternatives to the market: with a panel invited including Derek Wall, former principal speaker of the Green Party

The interaction and sharing of experience will deepen in the afternoon, where participants in major struggles for climate and social justice will be speaking. The discussions will include:

1. Voices from the Global South: facilitated by Ian Angus

2. Direct action and prefiguration; with speakers from British direct action campaigns

3. Sustainable cities; with invited experts including the Campaign for Free Public Transport

4. Alternative production: with speakers from the Swedish and British trade union movement struggles for sustainable manufacturing.

The closing plenary will provide an opportunity to see how anti-capitalists in Respect, the Green party and elsewhere on the left can deepen their co-operation - both in the run up to the Copenhagen demonstrations at the end of this year, and next year’s general election. ‘Socialist Resistance’ editor Liam MacUaid will discuss strategies for uniting reds and greens while Green Left’s Andy Hewett will discuss the tasks going forward to Copenhagen. The event will close at 5.30pm.

How to register

You can register in advance and make two savings: get one-third off the price of your ticket, and a further two pounds on the cost of the book being launched at the conference. Tickets cost 6 pounds unwaged (4 in advance) and 12 pounds waged (8 in advance). To register, make your cheque payable to ‘Resistance’ and post it to PO Box 62732 London SW2 9GQ.

Find out more

Visit http://ecosocialism.org for updates on the event. You can register on that site for updates, and to take part in the preparations of the event. If you have any questions or comments send an email to seminar at ecosocialism dot org.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.greensocialist.org.uk/ags/umbrella

The Alliance for Green Socialism is a political organisation devoted to the building of a peaceful, environmentally safe and socially responsible world. A world in which diversity is both respected and celebrated. A world in which relations are based on mutual understanding and not force, where rights and a decent life are available for all, not just the rich. The AGS believes this can come about by the development of a democratic, socialist and environmentally conscious society. Our two basic principles are summed up in our name.

Green is for a world where the serious issues of pollution and global warming are properly dealt with. This means tackling the oil-driven system of big business, which drives us into successive wars and conflicts.

Socialism is the opposite of such a system in which the needs of the people take priority and the power of big business is curbed. A key element in this being an expansion of various forms of public ownership, from taking the railways back into the state sector to an expansion of cooperatives.

Linking these two indivisible themes is a commitment to openness and democracy.