Absolute Zero Newsletter

A round-up of under-reported, interesting, and/or unorthodox news stories.

You’re receiving this email because you’ve subscribed to Absolute Zero, Richard (RJ) Eskow’s newsletter and a companion to the Zero Hour radio and television program.

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It’s Zero Hour for the planet.

Outweighing the real: A new study shows that human-made stuff now outweighs all the life on Earth. As Scientific American writes:

"The world’s plastics alone now weigh twice as much as the planet’s marine and terrestrial animals. Buildings and infrastructure outweigh trees and shrubs."

Also:

"... the amount of new stuff being produced every week is equivalent to the average body weight of all 7.7 billion people."

That's a lot to lay on a living planet.

Betting against life: Hedge funders (and anyone else) can now trade in California water futures, placing bets on whether or not water will be available to the state’s residents and agriculture. The Lakota Law Project put it well with this comment:

“You can live without gold. You can live without oil. You cannot live without water. Water is not a commodity. #WaterIsLife.”

Many unhappy returns: Free return policies are bad for the planet. According to one estimate, returns in the United States create about 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year.

That’s roughly equivalent to the carbon pollution created by 3 million cars over the course of a year.

It’s Zero Hour for our health.

Pandemic detectives: New efforts are underway to trace COVID-19 back to its source, as WIRED magazine reports. That effort is likely to challenge some popular assumptions about the disease’s origins:

"If (the CDC scientists') observation is correct, it would mean the virus was present in the US as the first cases were being found in China … Italian scientists recently announced they have found antibodies in blood samples taken during lung-cancer screenings as far back as September 2019."

A dispatch from the silver-lining department: San Francisco's 35% Plunge in Rents Shows Effects of Tech Fleeing City. It’s been heartbreaking to see a city I love being choked of its vitality by a glut of unearned wealth.

For more on pandemics, check out the fascinating conversation I had with Paul Farmer, MD, whose new book is entitled Fever, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History. The book is an important and insightful work.

In non-pandemic health news:

Why? Since 1973, cancer rates have risen for US adolescents and young adults. More research is needed to understand why.

Heat: Climate change could undo fifty years’ worth of public health gains.

It’s Zero Hour for the working people’s economy.

Rent due: The Washington Post reports, “Millions of Americans are heading into the holidays unemployed and over $5,000 behind on rent.” But sure, let’s have a “relief” bill that doesn’t address evictions or provide cash assistance.

Family Values: Jonathan Cohn writes, “I'm Insanely Jealous of Sweden's Work-Family Policies. You Should Be, Too.” We say we’re a pro-family country, but our policies say otherwise.

007, Inc: The bipartisan proposal for COVID-19 relief includes a license to kill for America’s corporations. They would be indemnified for negligently causing the deaths of their workers by failing to take adequate precautions against COVID infections.

Rethinking the Corporation: More and more mainstream economic voices are reconsidering their commitment to Milton Friedman’s notion that a corporation’s greatest social responsibility is earn as much money as possible. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, who is a savvy business and economics columnist, is the latest defector from this school of thought.

Proving Their Worth: Adam Smith may be a conservative icon, but he was never of this ilk. Smith thought corporations should only be chartered for ten or twenty years, after which they would be reviewed for their social impact. That was the law in Pennsylvania in the post-colonial era (and maybe elsewhere; I can’t remember). We should revive that idea.  

The Secret Sins of American Banks: And, speaking of banks, the redoubtable Wall Street on Parade site reports that both Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase have received massive fines for behavior the regulators are hiding from the general public. They’ve also reported on Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s hijacking of funds that were meant for struggling Americans.      

Shell game: Here’s a promotional video for MATE-XT, which its manufacturer calls “the innovative exoskeleton that enhances and supports workers abilities, by reducing muscle effort and increasing accuracy during overhead tasks.”

Given the tech industry’s record, I wouldn’t be surprised if it also mined workers’ movements and used their expertise without compensation to automate their jobs out of existence.

It also reminds me of this Far Side cartoon.

It’s Zero Hour for under-reported and overlooked stories.

Two recent stories of enormous significance went under-reported by the US media. One was the general strike in India, which took place on November 26. It involved a quarter of a billion workers and a large number of farmers, who were still protesting as of December 4.

From the Washington Post: “The blockade stretches as far as the eye can see, hundreds of bulky tractors and trailers parked on a highway leading into India's capital carrying a distinct message for the nation's government.”

Last month, China led the largest trade deal in history – and we weren’t part of it. This could augur a major shift in China’s ascent as the next solitary superpower. The agreement includes 2.2 billion people – roughly one-third of the planet’s population – and involves one-third of the global economy.

We covered both stories in video conversation with economist Richard Wolff. (India is here, and the China trade pact is here.)

It’s Zero Hour for the federal government.

Building a left bench: The left needs to do more than simply lobby or pressure the administration over its appointments. It needs to identify and develop a deep bench of capable appointees at all levels. Needless to say, it also needs to keep building political power.

Congress shouldn't hold itself back: This Roosevelt Institute fact sheet is entitled, "Unrig the Rules: The Case for Repealing Congressional PAYGO."

Public Service is service: On a deeper level, we need to restore the idea that public service is a higher calling – an idea that has been battered by decades of attacks. This idea will be a major theme for the show and the publication in the months to come. More here.

If we respected public service as we should, Senate Republicans wouldn’t be trying to impose a pay freeze on government employees. As Government Executive reports, employee groups are pushing back on the proposed freeze. We all should.

Senators’ Stocks: Speaking of the Senate, this site is a handy tool for tracking the stock trades made by US senators as they happen – and, hey, look! Today (Tuesday. December 8) Mitch McConnell bought $8,000 worth of shares in Wells Fargo Bank!

Rahm Watch: I wrote an oped with Sean McElwee of Data for Progress about the potential appointment of progressive adversary Rahm Emanuel to a Biden Administration post, comparing Emanuel’s record to voter opinions.

The bottom line: Sure, the left is upset by the idea, but Emanuel would be a political disaster across the board, with actions that are to the right of most Republican voters on some issues.

It’s Zero Hour for activism that changes the world.

This is a deceptive headline, from the Wall Street Journal: “Meet the Country Where Riots Boost GDP.”

The country is France. By “riots,” they mean “mass activism” – in this case, of the “Gilets Jaunes” or “Yellow Vest” demonstrators.

From the WSJ: “To appease the rioters (sic), President Emmanuel Macron increased public spending, pushing the budget deficit above 3% of gross domestic product after years of steady reductions.”

That, in turn, boosted the GDP. A better headline would have been, “Citizen activism spurs pro-growth move from French government.”

Primed to Organize: Amazon has hired nearly half a million workers since the pandemic began, but treats its workers badly. In These Times profiled some Amazon workers who are doing something about it. (Here, here, and here.)

Also from In These Times: "Why the South Is Organizing Its Own Green New Deal."

Random Selection.

I usually read 15-20 books at the same time. Here are five of them.

This handy chart will tell you what to call all those distant relatives.

This footage of a snowball fight was filmed in Lyon, France by the Lumière Brothers, who were among the first to work in the medium of film. As one of my brothers points out, our French great-grandparents or other relatives might have been in this film, since that branch of the family comes from Lyon and Paris.

But that’s not why I include it. It’s here because we’ve all had a rough year and we all deserve this.

And that's it for the first newsletter. Again, go here if you want to subscribe -- and thanks for reading.