Monthly Archives: March 2020

Is the world at war with the coronavirus? Last month, Xi Jinping called the Chinese suppression effort a peoples war; in the past week, Donald Trump labeled himself a wartime president, while Emmanuel Macron declared that France is at war with COVID-19. As the global response to the pandemic gathers steam, the rhetoric of wartime mobilization is everywhere. In Italy, the worst-affected country in Europe, the governments anti-virus czar has called for the country to equip itself with a war economy to confront the disease.

During the 2008 global financial crisis, policymakers became fond of using warlike language to describe their stabilization efforts, invoking big bazookas and shock and awe. But the total nature of the global response to the coronavirus makes the metaphor of wartime economics even more relevant today. Governments currently have to manage a public health emergency at the same time as central banks act to calm financial markets, armed forces are deployed to build hospitals, and citizens movements are restricted by social distancing.

But in what ways is the war economy a useful way to understand the fight against the coronavirus? The idea has been invoked to mean a variety of things: productivity, sacrifice, reform, solidarity, and resourcefulness. In some of these areas, war isnt an appropriate way to think about the global pandemic. In other respects, however, its time for Western governments to go beyond merely using wartime rhetoric. The history of 20th-century war economies offers important lessons that policymakers should already be drawing on today.

Our campaign against the disease most clearly recalls wartime emergencies in the urgent need to expand production and care. As COVID-19 cases overwhelm intensive care units around the world, we need more test kits, hospital beds, ventilator machines, masks, and protective clothinglots of them, fast. Expanded emergency care capacity is encountering supply bottlenecks, for instance of the chemical reagents used in testing, and the looming shortage of trained medical personnel. The U.S. governments invocation last week of the Defense Production Act (DPA), a Cold War law allowing it to prioritize and allocate resources to help expand private industries in strategic sectors, is a step on this road to constructing a larger medical mass-production base.

But as historian Tim Barker points out, the DPA is not the only model for such resource mobilization, or even the most effective one. There are models less reliant on the private sector than the DPA; one important peacetime predecessor is the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration. This sort of public scheme would be able to put to work the large numbers of workers who are facing unemployment in the coming weeks and months. Besides having positive economic side effects, such public employment expands state capacity and removes the need to rely on improvised exploitative labor practices, such as New York States use of prison labor to mass-produce hand sanitizer.

War-economic production is often conceived of as a national enterprise. But most war economies in the 20th century were deeply international in their supply lines. The medical mobilization against COVID-19 will have to be similarly global. There are currently about 173,000 ventilators in the United States. In the short term, the increase in American needs alone will probably exceed the entire global annual production of 40,000 to 50,000 machines. Given the complex nature and high sanitary requirements of ventilator assembly, even the DPA will only allow a small conversion of manufacturing plants for medical machine production. The shortage cannot be solved within national borders. East Asia, where the virus is under relative control, is where ventilators can be produced on a serious scale. Just as Lend-Lease and the Berlin airlift provided U.S.-produced war material for the rest of the world in the 1940s, so the realities of the global manufacturing base in 2020 suggest that mass airlifts of ventilators and machine parts from China will be needed to support adequate Western emergency care.

[Mapping the Coronavirus Outbreak: Get daily updates on the pandemic and learn how its affecting countries around the world.]

Beyond the immediate treatment of those infected with coronavirus, however, Western governments have almost universally shut down rather than ramped up production. As one financial analyst pointed out, lockdown economics is in many ways the exact opposite of the wartime economics of total mobilization. During both world wars, economic mobilization enrolled unprecedentedly large groups of male and female workers in mass production. The coronaviruss disruption of supply chains and the social distancing measures of today, however, are currently putting millions of employees in the manufacturing and service sectors out of work.

Despite the atomized nature of life under quarantine, its clear that the coronavirus resembles war in one crucial aspect: As a highly infectious virus with a significant mortality rate, it has the potential to cause mass death on a scale unseen in European societies since the 1940s. Facing up to this reality is politically difficult but unavoidable. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has asked his compatriots for 60 million small great sacrifices as they weather the pandemic. Even those who would rightly avoid the language of war, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, acknowledge that the coronavirus demands a level of collective action unseen since World War II.

Beyond the sick, wounded, and dead, war economies are based on other sacrifices, too. Under capitalist conditions, war economics raises the question of how many resources society is willing to set aside from profit-seeking ventures to protect itself. Both military power and health care fall into the category of expenditures that are essentially protective rather than productive in nature.

But beyond this, the analogy falters. Emergencies often present economies with real resource constraints. In early-20th-century war economics, the key dilemma was usually a choice between prioritizing defense or civilian productionguns or butter. The coronavirus forces us to think hard about how public health measures can be reconciled with economic production. But this is not a problem of prioritizing expenditures or limited resources. The issue is sustaining circulation. In the short run, the demands of disease prevention (quarantine measures) and care (hospitalization) will put the livelihood of those dependent on other forms of capitalist production at risk. Only massive government intervention to protect the channels of economic circulation can resolve this tension in a way that does not sacrifice the former for the latter. We might call this the ventilation or butter dilemma.

The inescapable need for state involvement helps explain why the war economy is a favorite metaphor of the technocratic imagination. Crises have always granted reformist policymakers powers to bypass legislative gridlock and entrenched interests. The coronavirus crisis is already allowing the implementation of ideas that would have been considered very radical just months ago. The speed with which U.S. legislators have embraced interventionist ideas such as direct cash transfers, freezes on mortgage foreclosures, and government nationalization of distressed firms is a major intellectual vindication of the left. For a long time, the progressive left has highlighted the very problems that the virus has now exposed so starkly: precarious employment; galloping income and wealth inequality; the unaffordable cost of health care, housing and education for many; and the peril of personal indebtedness.

A poster produced by British Railways during World War II to remind passengers of the companys services to the war effort. (Frank Henry Mason/SSPL/Getty Images)

But successful crisis management is no guarantee of durable reform. War economies can be powerful incubators of political change. But technocracy cannot make its offspring survive through its own power alone. What renders these innovations durable is the emergence of political and electoral alliances.

In the case of the European welfare state, the real fruits of wartime crisis management were only reaped after the end of conflict. Policies meant to deal with the damage of the Great Depression and the world wars created new constituencies. Despite being framed as exceptional wartime or postwar measures, many provisions rapidly became entrenched. In interwar Britain, France, and Germany, it was financial support for war victimsveterans and those left widowed, orphaned, and disabled by the warthat created the foundations for later universal pensions and child care. If the emergency response measures to COVID-19 grow to encompass a large enough groupfor example, the millions of service workers being laid offthis, too, may coagulate into a new semi-organized group with a future political role.

Precisely because of their reliance on state action, war economies are deeply political systems. War economies do not suspend politics; they raise the stakes. As opportunities for empowerment and enrichment abound, novel distributions of benefits and burdens arise in which some groups acquire power and resources not just in excess but at the expense of others. Short-lived emergencies can temporarily bracket distributional questions from political debate, for instance over wages. But the longer warlike exceptions last, the greater the opportunities for subordinate groups to leverage their power. In the early 20th century, war production made labor unions more powerful in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, and elsewhere. Even when organized labor negotiated pacts of national unity with government and business interests, it put its power on display in the immediate postwar periods of 1918-1921 and 1945-1948, which witnessed the largest strike waves of the 20th century.

In this respect, the coronavirus lockdowns present a deeply lopsided situation. After decades of falling unionization, Western economies are confining much of their workforce to their homes while enormously increasing their reliance on a vital set of workers in the care, logistics, and retail sectors. Doctors, nurses, delivery people, postal and transport workers, grocery store employees, shelf stockers, sanitation workers and janitors, mechanics and tech employees, and farm hands are now, very clearly, the indispensable foundation of a functioning society. There is no precedent for the asymmetric mix of mobilization and demobilization of labor that we are witnessing right now. And as anyone currently working from home with children knows, the realms of office work, child care, and other forms of domestic labor are colliding as never before.

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Invoking warlike sacrifice heightens the need for governments to balance rewards across boundaries of class, race, region, and age. The history of war economies offers lessons in the management of solidarity under such circumstances. Beyond pioneering forms of economic planning, resource mobilization, and industrial policy, war economies spearheaded many initiatives that directly promoted solidarity in the face of sacrifice. As millions volunteered to fight while civilians on the homefront manned factories, schools, and hospitals, states were able to create a new moral economy. Its central object of contempt was the figure of the war profiteer. Every society at war between 1914 and 1945 reserved a special hatred for individuals who reaped massive profits while others risked their lives and offered their labor.

The first tool against war-induced rent-seeking was excess profits taxation. Between 1915 and 1918, every major belligerent in World War I taxed the profits of private individuals and corporations. Wisconsin Sen. Robert La Follette denounced war profiteers as the enemies of democracy in the homeland. Excess profits taxation was even higher in the next war; by 1943, U.S. firms were taxed at a rate of 95 percent for every dollar they earned above an 8 percent rate of return on capital. President Franklin D. Roosevelt put it simply: I dont want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.

Wartime economics didnt only recast what counted as legitimately earned income. As historian Mark Wilson has emphasized, one legal innovation created by wartime arms spending was the U.S. governments development of the power of statutory renegotiation. This allowed the government to revisit fulfilled private contracts, demanding lower prices in cases where it had been overcharged by private suppliers. Although these clawbacks were widely despised by industrialists, they allowed the government to avoid wasting public money because of price-gouging by contractors. In urban planning and city politics, landlords came under scrutiny as possible residential war profiteers. World War I did more than anything in the 20th century to make rent control a widespread practice in capitalist democracies. As growing numbers of people worked and lived in cities, the cost of living had to be kept within reach of the average workers income. Minimum-wage laws served the same function, ensuring workers got their fair share of the gains of the wartime boon.

These war-economic mechanisms of solidarity offer valuable ideas about how to address the current pandemic world disaster. Pharmaceutical corporations and health care middlemen can have their excess profits taxed to ensure they do not reap the exclusive benefit of the common fight against the virus. The Economist estimates that U.S. health care providers make excess profits of $65 billion a year. This is enough to produce 1.3 million ICU ventilators at $50,000 a piece or to fund the hospital stays of millions of people who will require urgent treatment for COVID-19. Congress should also investigate reinstating the Renegotiation Act of 1951 to revisit medical supply contracts resulting in excessive profits for the private sector. Rent caps and minimum-wage floors should be instituted to ease pressures on the balance sheets of households.

Economic and financial measures alone are not enough, and major interventions in housing and utilities are also needed. The initiatives of states like California and New York and such cities as Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, and Seattle to freeze evictions and postpone utility shut-offs should be expanded nationwide. (Detroit has even restored water access to those previously cut off.) The U.S. government can use eminent domain law to take over empty private residences, hotels, parks, and other spaces needed to expand the capacity of emergency health care. As James Galbraith has suggested, large logistical corporations such as Amazon, Walmart, and FedEx can be employed as public utilities, with underemployed Uber drivers filling in as additional delivery staff.

War economics emerged around the turn of the 20th century as a field that mixed careful analysis with fearful speculation. Could mass societies based on industrial production and globalized supply routes survive modern wars?

The question was pressing, since wars are by their very nature open-ended clashes whose duration cannot be predicted. Early war economists such as Polish businessman Ivan Bloch and Austrian scientist Otto Neurath examined how large and small statesGermany and Russia as well as Japan and Serbiawould fare if they had to wage war for extended periods of time. Bloch predicted that the overburdening of markets would result in major convulsions in the social order. Neurath argued that the proper organization of material supply would be a stronger foundation of national survival than financial wealth.

What both of them agreed on was that the most resilient war economies were those that did the most with limited resources. Rationing was one way of doing this, but so was technological invention. Being isolated from the rest of the world economyeither by economic crisis or by enemy armies or blockadeswas a powerful stimulus to such invention, which brought about the development of synthetic forms of polymer, fabrics, fuel, and fertilizer during the world wars.

Such resourcefulness holds an important lesson for the present. It is certainly within the material and financial means of the United States and the European Union to overcome the virus and the social and economic dislocation caused by it. Moreover, although the death toll will likely be high, we know that the pandemic will eventually end. But beyond the resolution of the COVID-19 crisis looms another problem: climate change. Will an emergency response to the disease send us out of the frying pan of the virus, into the fire of climate breakdown? The challenge we currently face is to mobilize unused labor and resources in certain sectors while protecting lives in the rest of the economyincluding future lives that depend on winding down the fossil fuel industry. Here the global effects of the virus, which has lowered carbon emissions, saved lives by reducing air pollution, and paused much of our ordinary carbon-intensive lifestyles, create opportunities for a turn to green policy across the board.

The resourcefulness of wartime economies offers a useful template for thinking about the broader context of the coronavirus crisis. Mounting a serious campaign to mitigate climate change demands a response so large that many of the virus response measures are just a start. Despite calls for a return to normality, it is difficult to imagine the post-pandemic world economy, whatever it looks like, as a restoration of any sort. Even if the virus subsides in several months or years from now, the larger state of exception in policymaking and collective action to which it already belongs is unlikely to end.

Twentieth-century war economies played an important role in allowing the peacetime economies that followed them to flourish. The key now will be to draw on their lessons of solidarity and inventiveness as the coronavirus confronts the 21st-century world economy with a new kind of warlike hazard.

Read the rest here:

How the Coronavirus War Economy Will Change the United States and the World Forever - Foreign Policy

Environment March 30, 2020 Richard Sandbrook

When we have dealt with the coronavirus crisis, we need to address the climate emergency. We have learned a lot from handling the pandemic that will help in tackling climate change.

Having learned these lessons, one hopes that recovery from the pandemic-recession would be the ideal time to leap to a green economy. Carbon emissions have fallen, as has consumption, and fracking and oil-sands production are no longer economically viable. [Canadian Crude has dropped from $52 a year ago to $8.50 today.] The battle against the coronavirus has demonstrated the importance of public goods such as health services and unemployment benefits and the centrality of collective action in an emergency. To reverse the economic slump, create good jobs and decarbonize the economy, we could massively invest in green energy and green infrastructure.

We could do so. It makes good sense to do so. Many people might now be willing to support such measures. But the problem is that global heating is primarily a political problem. Even with existing technologies, let alone those that will be available within five years, we could attain a carbon-neutral economy in a decade or two. The 2017 book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming presents a hundred ranked solutions to global warming, drawing on the work of about 200 scientists. Climate activists and scientists have reason and evidence-based projections on their side, but power structures and the culture of possessive individualism buttress the existing carbon-intensive system.

The problem is not that we dont know what to do, but that we dont do it. What we should do is implement a Green New Deal that combines socioeconomic transformation with ecological protection. This is rapidly becoming the defining position of the broad left, as ably presented by Naomi Klein in a recent book On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal. But achieving such a goal is fraught with political dangers and obstacles. We need to reckon with these now in order to avoid the shoals. The passage is inevitably perilous.

It is widely believed, at least by those under 40, that only a mass movement creating a lot of disruption can prevail on governments to take climate change seriously. Few readers of The Bullet would disagree. And this is an era of mass protests, many successful. In 2019, these protests occurred on every continent and across 114 countries, in the global south and north. But forming a mass movement, though a difficult challenge by itself, is just the beginning. In a turbulent and polarized era, spontaneity must give way to strategic planning.

Recently, the climate movement has gained considerable momentum. The ramping up of campaigns to divest from carbon stocks, the climate strikes organized by school students throughout the world, the worldwide protests of Extinction Rebellion and other groups. The flurry of dire reports on climatic trends all these events have brought climate issues to the forefront in rich countries. In the US, there is evidence of a cultural shift that has fossil fuel companies running scared. And media outlets are also reporting more and more urgently on climate issues, in some cases (for example UKs The Guardian) adopting the phrases climate crisis or climate emergency in reportage. We are making progress, and the struggle to banish the coronavirus shows what can be done in an emergency. But much more needs to be done.

Reversing global warming at this late stage requires deep changes in production, distribution and consumption. You dont need to be a socialist to accept this statement; it is common sense. If we had seriously responded two or three decades ago, when the science of climate change was already established, more minor actions might have sufficed. A robust and progressive carbon tax, if instituted then, might have been enough. But remediation at this point demands more radical measures.

Consider the magnitude of the challenge. The safe concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is 350 ppm. In February, readings recorded 413 and 414 ppm. According to NASA, this concentration is higher than its been in 3 million years. Although there is a lag between high concentrations and climate heating, that heating will come even if we achieve a carbon neutral economy. The challenge is not just net-zero emissions but drawing carbon out of the atmosphere. And to hold warming to under 2C (the maximum tolerable change), according to the well-known estimate of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), requires cutting carbon emissions in half in a decade and attaining net-zero by 2050. And that in a time when emissions were rising (until the coronavirus-induced recession).

This urgency has given rise to the advocacy of a Green New Deal (GND), Green Marshall Plans, and Just Transitions. The Leap Manifesto, the forerunner of these programs in Canada, contained most of the elements. They included a transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050, the building of a more just society in the process, the enactment of higher, and new forms of, taxes, and a grassroots movement to back the needed changes and to deepen democracy.

Although Green New Deals (the most popular formulation) vary in their ambition from one iteration to another, the logic is the same. Ecological transformation cannot be achieved without deep economic and social changes, both as an end (to cut emissions) and as a means (to win popular support). The transition to a net-zero carbon economy must be just and systemic to be effective.

Famously or infamously, the GND sponsored by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey in the form of a resolution in the US House of Representatives in 2019, follows this logic. Denounced as a socialist plot, the plan is closer to a Rooseveltian New Deal for the 21st century. It calls for a 10-year national mobilization to achieve 100% renewable energy, giant investments in infrastructure and a carbon-free economy, and jobs for all who want to work. Accompanying the transition are measures that are mainstream in Western welfare states: universal healthcare, free higher education, affordable housing, enhanced labour rights, a job guarantee, and remedies for racism. Enforcement of anti-trust laws would, if successful, weaken the economic and political power of oligopolies. We can argue about the degree of systemic change that is needed. Any effective plan, however, must garner support through a vision of a better life, not just fear.

Conservatives, especially right-wing populists, have become climate-deniers, partly on the grounds that combatting climate change is a socialist Trojan horse. They are certainly right that the GND is a progressive project, but whether it is necessarily a socialist project is debatable. It depends partly on ones definition of socialism. For the sake of unity in a diverse movement, that debate is one we should avoid.

Regardless of ones position, we can agree the stakes are high. Powerful interests will lose out, and they will resist.

The deep economic and tax changes required to drastically cut emissions will saddle major corporations and wealthy individuals with major losses in assets, income and power. As reported in the Globe & Mail on 12 Feb 2020, Canadas banking regulator says the financial sector should assume the transition to a low-carbon economy will be sharply negative. A few brief illustrations suggest why.

These threats to the profitability and even survival of major corporations add up to a major challenge to plutocracy.

Plutocracy is a term now widely used, in this neoliberal era, to describe the fusing of economic with political power in Western liberal democracies. The result is that economic and other policies are skewed to the advantage of the top one per cent. This idea is so widely accepted that even economists, mainly the maverick variety such as Paul Krugman, employ the concept.

Its applicability, however, should not be restricted to degraded liberal democracies such as the US and the UK, but extended to authoritarian cases such as Russia and China. In the latter cases, political power has encroached on economic power, a reversal of the process in the West. But the outcome is similar: a power structure highly resistant to the major changes proposed by Green New Deals. True, some investors are attracted to the investment opportunities offered by the green economy. However, the threat to key industries may cast climate activists not as benign tree-huggers, but as security threats.

Even a cursory Google search uncovers disconcerting evidence that security services view climate activists as threats to national security. In the United Kingdom, an anti-extremism briefing issued by the government to all schools and other institutions in late 2019 included environmental groups and anti-racism organizations along with neo-Nazi and Islamist groups in the list of suspects. Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion, Sea Shepherd, Stop the Badger Cull, PETA and a vegan organization all respectably non-violent in tactics appeared. Readers were advised to be aware of the symbols employed by extremist groups and report any concerns to counter-terrorism police.

In Canada, documents released under Freedom of Information Act revealed that, during the era of Conservative government under Stephen Harper, the two main counter-terrorism agencies regarded environmental and indigenous activists as extremists. Security and police services regularly monitored these activists. Security agencies regarded protests and opposition to Canadas resource-based economy, especially oil and gas, as national-security threats (Guardian, Feb 14, 2013). The National Observer, an award-winning digital newspaper specializing in human-rights issues, reported in 2016 and 2017 that surveillance of environmental activists (which includes indigenous activists) was undertaken by the RCMP (the national police force), Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, provincial police forces and, in some large cities, municipal police forces. Jeffrey Monaghan, a Carleton University criminologist studying espionage, identifies a petro-security apparatus linking security agencies to energy corporations in Canada. This collaboration flows from the alleged threat to critical infrastructure posed by environmental activists. So the warning signs are there.

Its a safe bet that climate activists, albeit engaged in legitimate non-violent action, are under surveillance in plutocracies both western and eastern. And thats in a time of relative calm. Perhaps thats just par for the course in what has been dubbed surveillance capitalism. What is troubling is that the means of surveillance facial recognition and tracking of individuals via their cell phones is now far advanced. Should it come to a crackdown, security agencies will already know who is involved in climate activism and where they live. Civil disobedience will be seen as extremism.

What makes this outcome probable is that the climate crisis is not a stand-alone crisis; it is part of a multi-dimensional crisis of neoliberalism. This unbridled variety of capitalism has fostered problems it is unable to solve. That of course is one reason why the Green New Deals normally advocate social and economic, in addition to ecological, transformation. The Green New Deal is an alternative to neoliberalism, though not necessarily to capitalism. It is a reasonable and just response. That matters little, however, in a context increasingly characterized by dislocation, insecurity and polarization. The multidimensional crisis threatens disorder and therefore property rights. The deeper the disorder and polarization, the more likely a right-wing reaction becomes.

We might describe the simultaneous crises in various ways. They afflict the countries of the global south even more than the north, but here Im narrowing my attention to the latter. In the West in particular, three trends are asserting themselves:

These trends in tandem produce a treacherous environment.

Consider the robotics revolution. The significance of this technological shift is best understood in the context of recent history.

Neither digitalization nor the more recent sharing economy lived up to its early promise of ushering in shared prosperity or more flexible working arrangements. Instead, the neoliberal age has seen inequality and insecurity rise to new levels. This story is well known. The gig economy with its precarious and poorly paid jobs has expanded to encompass one-third of all jobs in the US, according to some estimates. Millennials in particular have had trouble finding good jobs, as well as being saddled with high debts from post-secondary education. Moreover, the economic collapse of 2008 dealt a heavy blow to many in the middle and working classes. Their recovery took years, and it is now threatened by the recession induced by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

The fourth industrial revolution of robotics is wreaking further insecurity. The higher productivity wrought by artificial intelligence could lead to a greener, more egalitarian future where available work is shared and working hours shrink. But that will not happen automatically, especially in societies already characterized by inequality, precarious employment and weak democracy.

The employment impact during the next 30 years is likely to be major. Artificial intelligence, as it well understood, displaces workers not just in routine activities in the industrial and service sectors, but in professional occupations as well. A 2017 report by the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that just over half of the waged tasks in 2017 could be done by robots and computers by 2050. In the next decade, 14 per cent of the global workforce will lose their jobs according to the institutes mid-way estimate. The job loss in industrial countries such as the US, Japan and China are much higher than the world average. These estimates, of course, simply tell us what could happen, given technological developments, not what will happen. Political trade-offs and union power, where it exists, may intercede to save jobs. Nonetheless, a lot of people in good jobs as well as bad are going to be out of work.

Economists are confident that the economy will develop new jobs to replace those that are lost: in the longer run. There will be a lag. And will those who lose their jobs be qualified for the tech-savvy, knowledge-based jobs that do emerge? Perhaps if the governments were willing to invest heavily in retraining people for the new economy. However, we cant expect that expensive path to be taken in plutocracies responsive to the demands for the wealthy for lower taxes. We are more likely to see, in many Western countries, further marginalization and inequality.

You dont need to be a rocket scientist, or even a political scientist, to foresee the political dynamics of the unfolding crisis of neoliberalism. Social stress is rising. A growing sense of marginalization and precarity is likely to produce higher anger and resentment, especially at times of recession.

Simultaneously unless we respond swiftly global heating will precipitate extreme weather events that wreak widespread damage. More extensive heat waves, floods, droughts, fresh-water shortages, inundations of coastal cities and islands, falls in agricultural and fishing yields and declines in human health are rendering certain regions uninhabitable while inducing panic.

The consequent population movements add another element of instability. The global south, suffering a more extreme climatic shift than in the north, will witness a growing stream of climate migrants to join the existing refugees displaced by war and disorder. Estimates of the numbers of climate migrants vary, but the most frequent estimate is 150-200 million by 2050. This total includes temporary as well as permanent migrants, and those who are internally displaced as well as cross-border migrants. At the minimum, several millions will join political refugees in heading for sanctuary in Europe, North America and Australia in recurrent waves.

These migrants are the victims of a climatic shift for which they bear virtually no responsibility. The rich countries, having generated most of the carbon in the atmosphere, have an ethical duty to be generous in their reception of these migrants. And yet. The movement of just a million migrants to Europe in 2015-2016 amplified support for right-wing populist parties throughout the continent. The new waves are likely to be far more numerous.

The political danger is clear. With threats to property posed by mass movements and the radical policies of the Green New Deal, concentrated economic power may ally with reactionary political forces. Conservatives feeling under threat from social movements and generalized anxiety will be tempted to turn to reactionary political forces as a means of re-establishing order and safeguarding power and property (as in the 1930s). Hitherto climate-deniers on the right may see in the unfolding of climate change an unparalleled opportunity: to appeal to the ethno-nation, casting migrants and immigrants and their elite enablers as the enemy.

The situation is the more dangerous owing to the decline of democratic institutions. Trust in government has declined during the past two decades world-wide according to numerous surveys. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2020, which surveyed population in 28 countries in late 2019, concluded that a global trust crisis is deepening. More than half the population of developed liberal democracies felt that democracy is losing its effectiveness and 56 per cent believed that capitalism does more harm than good. The far right thrives on declining trust, fear and lies.

Fortress America or Fortress Europe is the opposite of the Green New Deal. It means restricting liberal freedoms, closing borders, blaming aliens, repressing dissent and regulating national economies while safeguarding existing property rights and ethnic and class hierarchies. It involves abandoning the global south to its fate and reversing globalization. Fascism has no viable answer to the climate crisis or the socioeconomic crisis except repression.

Our future could indeed be dark, but our task is to ensure that what could happen, doesnt happen. Within limits, we can make history.

Reversing climate change is a hard sell in societies where right-wing populists have gained a following among the less-educated and more rural elements of the population. Climate change is as much a threat to these elements as to cosmopolitan elites, but the former do not see it that way. Climate change has become entangled in political polarization. Conservative populists have cast climate change as a hoax allowing governing elites to impose new taxes, expand state intervention and welcome new waves of migrants. The populist message resonates with those who feel left behind. Inequality, the exodus of good jobs, and a loss of status in multicultural societies generate resentment, anger and mistrust. Populists have shaped this anger; the left has not.

How then can the climate movement break through the class division? How can they dispel the mistrust to expand their support beyond affluent urbanites and the more highly educated? The only feasible strategy is one that attacks inequality and precarity together with global warming. Hence the importance of the Green New Deal. It envisions a more desirable and feasible future than that offered by nationalist populists.

The GND provides a vision of universal well-being to counter the hateful message of ethno-nationalism. We all the people are vulnerable to climate change, and thus must work in unison. We have a common enemy threatening our future: an economic system that is out of control. We can win the struggle by making a just transition to a net-zero carbon economy through measures that also create an egalitarian, secure and democratic society. That story-line may not work, but its the best available.

But can we forge a broad coalition of progressive forces animated by this vision? Unity and coherence are key. Civil society encompasses a variety of social movements, each with its own agenda, whether social, economic, or ecological. Furthermore, the movements operate at different levels. Some are local, some regional or national, and others transnational. Consequently, there is a cacophony of voices: how do we make them into a choir, singing the same hymn? Presumably, a political party tries to organize and channel the demands. Which party, however?

That raises the issue of the political hue of the GND. Naomi Klein contends, and I agree, that the climate movement is inherently a movement of the left. It seeks social and economic change to achieve its climate objectives. But what left? The fact is that the left has never been good at creating unity (unlike the right); some factions seem more engaged in attacking back-sliders in their own camp than engaging with the real enemy. Achieving an accord is a major challenge.

Can this change, as the threat from the far right escalates? The coalition, to be successful, would surely need to unite most climate activists with left liberals, human-rights defenders, trade unions, social democrats, socialists, indigenous activists, and identity-based groups seeking justice. Perhaps the most fruitful coalition-building strategy is to articulate a powerful vision but offer a program that remains vague in details about the future sustainable society.

But we can all agree that, in means as well as ends, the Green New Deal is a democratic project. Democracy, unfortunately, does not now favour the project of halting global heating. When given the opportunity, electorates throughout the world have voted against, or even rebelled against (as with the gilets jaunes in France), carbon taxes and other inconvenient climate measures. Political polarization and widespread alienation are having this effect. Democracy is thus a gamble, but a necessary one. Only if the Green New Deal is popular will it succeed. Yet if the polarization deepens, the struggle will ultimately be waged between a democratic and egalitarian new deal and an increasingly authoritarian, ultra-nationalist populism.

Finally, we need to counter ethno-nationalism with progressive internationalism. The fight for a Green New Deal cannot be exclusively fought at the national level. Climate change is a global issue and requires global cooperation. I cannot broach the many issues surrounding a progressive international order here. But one contentious issue open borders as part of a just transition does require comment.

Presumptive admission of climate migrants to apparent havens in North America, Europe and Australia is ethically admirable. The emissions that have caused the crisis in the global south have emanated largely from the global north (in addition to China and India more recently). But presumptive admission would likely be politically disastrous. It would provide the Far Right with an issue it could exploit.

If open borders is a policy that is right in principle but disastrous in practice, one is obliged to discuss other options. Winning power or influence is crucial for our success. Certainly, we must support a generous immigration policy. But that will not be enough to fulfill our moral obligation. Major transfers from the rich countries to the global south for mitigating climate change are critical. The Paris Agreement obliges rich countries to make financial and other transfers, but governments have shirked their obligations. A Green New Deal must include provisions for a generous immigration policy (though not presumptive admission for all), together with major transfers of green technologies and financial resources to the beleaguered populations of the global south. Even those pragmatic measures, however, may not be enough to stem the popular appeal of Fortress Europe and Fortress America.

The climate movement, with its allies, is called upon to make history at a critical juncture. The threat posed by climate change is more complex and, in the longer term, more deadly than that posed by the corona virus. But the pandemic has shown what can be done in an emergency. Can we harness the lessons weve learned? Whether we succeed cannot be foretold, and a livable and just world hangs in the balance.

Richard Sandbrook is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Toronto.

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From Coronovirus to the Green New Deal - The Bullet - Socialist Project

Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. (NASDAQ: ARLP) today announced a series of actions in response to the rapidly evolving impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The unprecedented decision by world leaders to lockdown the global economy to combat the deadly virus has crushed demand for energy. The price war initiated by Saudi Arabia and Russia has lowered oil prices even more. All Americans are having to adjust to a way of life none of us could have imagined two months ago.

Given the essential, life-sustaining nature of its business, ARLP continued to operate during the 2020 first quarter. For the past six weeks, however, we have been working at reduced levels while evaluating the needs of our customers amid the disruptions caused by the pandemic. It appears these disruptions will continue for the immediate near future and in light of the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, ARLP is taking the following actions:

"It is important to note that approximately 75% of our domestic sales are targeted to states that depend on coal, more than any other fuel, to generate electricity," said Joseph W. Craft III, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. "As serious as the disruption caused by the virus has been to the citizens of these states, imagine the impact if our miners didnt show up every day to ensure the reliable supply of this essential fuel necessary to keep the lights on. We remain in constant contact with our customers and stand ready to meet their needs for this essential fuel."

Mr. Craft added, "Although we are suspending formal guidance, we currently anticipate ARLP's total sales tons for 2020 will be approximately 25% below our initial expectations. At the same time, assuming we can successfully fulfill our coal sales commitments this year, the improvements to ARLPs cash flow resulting from the steps outlined above are expected to substantially offset lower revenues, allowing us to maintain ample liquidity and protect our strong balance sheet."

Mr. Craft concluded, "In implementing these actions, ARLPs highest priorities remain safeguarding the employees health and safety, supporting the communities in our operating areas and serving our customers by continuing to safely and reliably operate our critical infrastructure. I want to thank the employees throughout our company for their dedication, resiliency and commitment during these challenging times. I also want to express my appreciation to our customers, suppliers, communities, unitholders, friends and elected officials for the sacrifices you are enduring during these uncertain times. We are all in this together. We will get through this and be stronger for it. I look forward to updating each of you as our circumstances change."

About Alliance Resource Partners, L.P.

ARLP is a diversified natural resource company that generates income from coal production and oil & gas mineral interests located in strategic producing regions across the United States.

ARLP currently produces coal from seven mining complexes it operates in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland and West Virginia. ARLP also operates a coal loading terminal on the Ohio River at Mount Vernon, Indiana. ARLP markets its coal production to major domestic and international utilities and industrial users and is currently the second largest coal producer in the eastern United States.

ARLP generates royalty income from mineral interests it owns in premier oil & gas producing regions in the United States, primarily the Permian, Anadarko, Williston and Appalachian basins.

In addition, ARLP also generates income from a variety of other sources.

News, unit prices and additional information about ARLP, including filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), are available at http://www.arlp.com. To request a copy of ARLPs Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 or for more information, contact the investor relations department of ARLP at (918) 295-7674 or via e-mail at investorrelations@arlp.com.

The statements and projections used throughout this release are based on current expectations. These statements and projections are forward-looking, and actual results may differ materially. These projections do not include the potential impact of any mergers, acquisitions or other business combinations that may occur after the date of this release. We have included more information below regarding business risks that could affect our results.

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FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: With the exception of historical matters, any matters discussed in this press release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from projected results. Those forward looking statements include optimizing cash flows, reducing operating and capital expenditures, preserving liquidity and maintaining financial flexibility, among others. These risks to our ability to achieve these outcomes include, but are not limited to, the following: the impact of COVID-19 both to the execution of our day to day operations including potential closures, as well as to the pandemics broader impact on demand for coal, oil and natural gas, the financial condition of our customers and suppliers, available liquidity and credit sources and broader economic disruption that is evolving. In addition, the actions of Saudi Arabia and Russia to decrease oil prices may have direct and indirect impacts over the near and long term to our minerals segment. These risks compound the ongoing risks to our business, including changes in coal, oil and natural gas prices, which could affect our operating results and cash flows; changes in competition in domestic and international coal, oil and natural gas markets and our ability to respond to such changes; legislation, regulations, and court decisions and interpretations thereof, both domestic and foreign, including those relating to the environment and the release of greenhouse gases, mining, miner health and safety and health care; deregulation of the electric utility industry or the effects of any adverse change in the coal industry, electric utility industry, or general economic conditions; risks associated with the expansion of our operations and properties; our ability to identify and complete acquisitions; dependence on significant customer contracts, including renewing existing contracts upon expiration; adjustments made in price, volume or terms to existing coal supply agreements; changing global economic conditions or in industries in which our customers operate; recent action and the possibility of future action on trade made by United States and foreign governments; the effect of new tariffs and other trade measures; liquidity constraints, including those resulting from any future unavailability of financing; customer bankruptcies, cancellations or breaches to existing contracts, or other failures to perform; customer delays, failure to take coal under contracts or defaults in making payments; fluctuations in coal demand, prices and availability; changes in oil & gas prices, which could, among other things, affect our investments in oil & gas mineral interests; our productivity levels and margins earned on our coal sales; decline in or change in the coal industry's share of electricity generation, including as a result of environmental concerns related to coal mining and combustion and the cost and perceived benefits of other sources of electricity, such as natural gas, nuclear energy and renewable fuels; changes in raw material costs; changes in the availability of skilled labor; our ability to maintain satisfactory relations with our employees; increases in labor costs including costs of health insurance and taxes resulting from the Affordable Care Act, adverse changes in work rules, or cash payments or projections associated with post-mine reclamation and workers' compensation claims; increases in transportation costs and risk of transportation delays or interruptions; operational interruptions due to geologic, permitting, labor, weather-related or other factors; risks associated with major mine-related accidents, mine fires, mine floods or other interruptions; results of litigation, including claims not yet asserted; foreign currency fluctuations that could adversely affect the competitiveness of our coal abroad; difficulty maintaining our surety bonds for mine reclamation as well as workers' compensation and black lung benefits; difficulty in making accurate assumptions and projections regarding post-mine reclamation as well as pension, black lung benefits and other post-retirement benefit liabilities; uncertainties in estimating and replacing our coal reserves; uncertainties in estimating and replacing our oil & gas reserves; uncertainties in the amount of oil & gas production due to the level of drilling and completion activity by the operators of our oil & gas properties; a loss or reduction of benefits from certain tax deductions and credits; difficulty obtaining commercial property insurance, and risks associated with our participation in the commercial insurance property program; uncertainties in our ability to generate sufficient cash from operations to maintain our per unit distribution level; uncertainties in our ability to meet guidance, market expectations and internal projections; and difficulty in making accurate assumptions and projections regarding future revenues and costs associated with equity investments in companies we do not control.

Additional information concerning these and other factors can be found in ARLP's public periodic filings with the SEC, including ARLP's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, filed on February 20, 2020. Except as required by applicable securities laws, ARLP does not intend to update its forward-looking statements.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200330005152/en/

Contacts

Brian L. Cantrell Alliance Resource Partners, L.P.(918) 295-7673

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Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. Announces Actions In Response to Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic - Yahoo Finance

I AM certain I am not alone in thinking that the UK Governments handling of the Covid-19 outbreak has an air of Dads Army about it. The needless letter I will receive from Captain Mainwaring in 10 Downing Street, which apparently represents more than 5 million of taxpayers money is unwelcome at a time we have so much variety in media, and I feel the money should have gone to the NHS. I would rather he sent me a Covid-19 testing kit.

No, Boris Johnson, you cant laugh your way out of this one. There is a world of difference between having a notional plan for medical emergencies and being fully prepared for one. In this case our sentries seem to have been asleep on duty and never had bullets for their rifles anyway. Since we abandoned a manufacturing-based economy for a service-based one we cannot respond quickly in scale to emergency resource needs. Ventilators? Aprons? Masks? Everyone in the UK seems to have discovered panic buying and now finally our Government is at it. I would have expected more foresight.

The problem with a parliamentary democracy is that investment in the mythical secret warehouses we used to think existed for emergencies does not win votes.

Considering the millions we provide through government agencies and charities to research into cancer, strokes, heart disease and so forth, we have to ask ourselves how much we commit for research into combating viruses which we now know can bring the whole country to a halt and also for provisioning the processes required for testing and immunology.

But the fact remains that we knew since early January the genetic code for Covid- 19 and we could have been geared up to test everyone and isolate the positive. Instead we have adopted a universal keep away policy which has been used since biblical times to stop contagion. A cheap solution now, perhaps, but I expect more costly in the long term.

A democratically elected governments prime directive is to ensure the health, safety and welfare of its people. If this Government has been so unprepared for the current crisis, I believe we must ask ourselves what other emergencies are it also not prepared for?

Bill Brown, Milngavie.

I AM not a virologist, but cannot help expressing surprise and concern over official statements concerning the test for antibodies (Ab) against Covid-19. At least one Cabinet minister has described the test as a "game changer", and even more worrying, test-yourself-at-home kits are becoming available on the internet.

The test, if shown to be reliable, may be a useful epidemiological tool with which to map where the virus is, and has been, and of use in vaccine development, but it surely cannot be used as a signal of readiness to return to work or to abandon social distancing. A positive test for Ab means a person has immunity due either to a recent or current Covid-19 infection, it does not mean that person is no longer shedding infectious viruses. Used indiscriminately as an all-clear, could it not lead to a dangerously false sense of security and an actual increase in population exposure to virus particles? I would be delighted if one of your readers were to correct me on this.

Professor Angus Mackay, Ardrishaig, Argyll.

MORE than two weeks ago, when I saw how Covid-19 was spreading from China, I made the decision that I would not go to hospital if I became ill. Although I am frequently told how fit I am for my age I only have to look at my birth certificate to confirm that I am no longer in the first flush of youth. I feel it would be better that a younger person make use of a ventilator and the services of the medical staff. Our planets future lies with the young. I was therefore most interested to hear similar ideas being expressed on BBC Radio 4's Any Answers on Saturday.

I told my family last week who are, of course, not happy, but they know my opinions as I have a Living Will, written in 1998, and a DNAR. They have their own families and I had 57 happy years of marriage with my beloved late husband.

Obviously the worst feature of this decision would be that one could be alone at a time when family would normally be coming from far and near to provide support. One contributor on Saturday had a suggestion for those of us who are making this decision. There would be a dedicated telephone line which would lead to someone medical (in the widest sense of the word) coming to be there at the end.

Perhaps a Herald reader has a different solution.

(Mrs) Kathleen Gorrie, Helensburgh.

WE are in the grip of a deadly virus that is robbing our children of both normality and an education. It may require a lockdown that extends for months perhaps a year until a vaccine is widely available. However, while toilet roll is in short supply, we have an abundance of television channels, several of which could be utilised for social purposes in the interim.

Scotlands Government should be arranging for a full education curriculum to be broadcast daily, with groups of leading ( and charismatic) teachers in each subject, contact numbers for guidance for children and parents, and course work which can be down-loaded or sent through the post. None of this should be difficult to arrange, and we dont want children to lose a year in their educational lives. Plus, it will give them a semblance of normality, and relieve parents of the burden of entertaining their delightful progeny.

GR Weir, Ochiltree.

I ENTIRELY agree with Sheila Duffy's point about cancelling Trident and diverting the money to the NHS (Letters, March 30); however, I don't agree with her comment that standing on our doorsteps last Thursday clapping NHS workers was a "meaningless gesture". It was a very small thing to do and took up only a minute of our time, but it was an act of solidarity to show our appreciation of dedicated, brave people who are working hard under difficult circumstances to care for people who are at their most vulnerable.

I suspect that many people who stood on their doorsteps or at their windows, clapping, may never have actively supported a cause before. Making this gesture might just encourage them to join campaigns in the future; after all, every journey begins with a single step, and I am reminded of the 2014 independence referendum when people who had never before been politically involved found themselves joining in with the campaigns on either side of the debate.

Like Thelma Edwards (Letters, March 30), I too heard neighbours clapping in the misty night last Thursday, and felt comforted. This Thursday, I hope others will join us and let the clapping be heard even louder.

Ruth Marr, Stirling.

NHS staff have received tremendous praise from all members of the general public and rightly so. Once the crisis is past, I would like see places of entertainment football clubs, theatres and the like give any unused seats to local hospital staff as a way of showing our appreciation of the great work they are doing.

John Connor, Dunfermline.

I DO so agree with the expressions of thanks to the various health workers who are doing such a wonderful job of caring for the victims of this virus, but would also like to thank the many legions of frontline home carers who are coming and going and are at particular risk when carrying out such close-up work as washing, dressing and the like amongst the elderly and disabled.

Alan Stephen, Glasgow G44.

AN Englishman's home is his castle. However, the virus crisis has made it his prison and for many a place of solitary confinement, which should open the eyes of all to the misery of prison sentences and the punishments within.

Perhaps more will now take an enlightened view about the prison conditions the inmates experience and come to regard the purpose of such incarceration to be rehabilitation rather than punishment.

What the virus has also done is to convert us all to a Cyclops limited to our own little islands and kept amused by the one-eyed idiot in the corner of our homes, being liberally brainwashed by the innumerable public announcements.

We will all welcome our release from this bondage but it may take us a bit longer to recover our freedom of thought after the deluge showered upon us from this public platform.

Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs.

I MAY be locked in but I can still look out to a ruined building where a bunch of daffodils are nodding their heads in the breeze. Wordsworth watched the daffodils, and sitting on his couch years later he sat back closed his eyes and saw the scene again with his inner eye. We can all do that.

Kay Murray, Largs.

I SEE that Prince Charles is out of self-isolation. Jings, crivvens, help ma boab. If that was a fortnight it'll be the end of June in nae time.

Rachel Martin, Musselburgh.

YOUR headline "Six months before life in Britain 'returns to normal'" (The Herald, March 30) made me remember that those of us who lived through the war had six years of it: six years of grey-coloured breakfast cereal, toilet paper you could see through, no holidays, children including me evacuated to places far from home, air raid warnings in the middle of the night, austerity everywhere.

So, let us get this "six months" threat into proportion. We can keep in touch and do many sociable activities with the help of the hitherto-despised, electronic devices.

We can weather this storm so long as we obey the rules for six months at least.

Alison Lambie, Stirling.

COULD someone please advise me if I have missed an announcement that speed restrictions have been lifted during the current crisis?

The A741 between Paisley and Renfrew seems to have become a race track rather than a dual carriageway with a 30mph speed restriction.

As we have been advised to limit our travel unless essential, I wonder if these vehicles are unmarked emergency vehicles using the reduced volume of traffic to speed to someone's salvation, or is this the hooligan element in our society showing their complete disregard for the laws of the land?

Allan Halliday, Paisley.

Read more: Now we know for sure that austerity was not necessary

Originally posted here:

Letters: Why on earth was this Government so unprepared? - HeraldScotland

University of Maine Cooperative Extension will offer a series of free one-hour online home gardening discussions starting Monday, March 30, at 9 a.m. Additional sessions are scheduled each Monday at 9 a.m., Wednesday at noon and Thursday at 6 p.m. through April 23.

"Garden Chats: Growing Resilience from the Ground Up" will be a chance for gardeners and UMaine Extension experts to share and discuss gardening tips, and ask questions. Topics will include pruning, seed starting, soil preparation and garden management.

More information, including the schedule of topics and instructions for joining the Zoom sessions, is online. For more information or to request a reasonable accommodation, contact Caragh Fitzgerald, 207.622.7546, cfitzgerald@maine.edu.

University of Maine Cooperative Extension:

As a trusted resource for over 100 years, University of Maine Cooperative Extension has supported UMaine's land and sea grant public education role by conducting community-driven, research-based programs in every Maine county. UMaine Extension helps support, sustain and grow the food-based economy. It is the only entity in our state that touches every aspect of the Maine Food System, where policy, research, production, processing, commerce, nutrition, and food security and safety are integral and interrelated. UMaine Extension also conducts the most successful out-of-school youth educational program in Maine through 4-H.About the University of Maine:The University of Maine, founded in Orono in 1865, is the state's land grant, sea grant and space grant university. As Maine's flagship public university, UMaine has a statewide mission of teaching, research and economic development, and community service. UMaine is the state's only public research university and among the most comprehensive higher education institutions in the Northeast. It attracts students from all 50 states and more than 70 countries. UMaine currently enrolls 11,561 undergraduate and graduate students who have opportunities to participate in groundbreaking research with world-class scholars. UMaine offers more than 100 degree programs through which students can earn master's, doctoral or professional science master's degrees, as well as graduate certificates. The university promotes environmental stewardship, with substantial efforts campuswide to conserve energy, recycle and adhere to green building standards in new construction. For more information about UMaine, visitumaine.edu.

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'Garden Chats: Growing Resilience from the Ground Up' online with garden experts - PenBayPilot.com

CEO of social good software leader voluntarily forgoes paycheck; releases free resources to customers; gives donation to fight virus; expands employee matching gift program

CHARLESTON, S.C., March 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackbaud(NASDAQ: BLKB), the world's leading cloud software company powering social good, announced new measures to support its customers and the broader social economy as many organizations are thrown into crisis mode in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the COVID-19 crisis evolves around the globe, social good organizations are experiencing unprecedented challenges, and even disruptions to their operations. The need for funding, support and resources is significant as organizations work to pivot their models, activate supporters and minimize disruptions to their services and work.

When addressing Blackbaud's global workforce this morning, president and CEO Mike Gianoni outlined a series of measures to support customers, fuel critical innovation and help employees. Among the measures outlined, Gianoni announced he would stop taking a paycheck until the business stabilizes.

"At Blackbaud, we believe the world will be a better place when good takes over," said Gianoni. "And, that higher purpose has taken on entirely new meaning and importance during this unprecedented time. We are taking measures to ensure business continuity while remaining critically focused on the success of our customers. We want to empower them to not only survive this pandemic, but to thrive. We also want to do our part to help bring the global economy back to a powerful place. And, most importantly, we want to do our part to help save lives."

Blackbaud is seeing the needs and impact of COVID-19 manifest in many ways for its customers depending on the organization type. Many private K12 schools across the U.S. are benefitting from Blackbaud's cloud solutions by being able to swiftly move classes online. Food banks are receiving record high donations through Blackbaud Merchant Services up more than 500% year-over-year. Meanwhile, other nonprofits like arts and cultural organizations face entirely different challenges, which Blackbaud is working diligently to support through resources and guidance. Blackbaud is helping churches recapture weekly offering by quickly setting up virtual platforms. Blackbaud solutions support virtual events, so as organizations around the world are having to cancel important in-person eventseven marathonsthey're able to quickly move fundraising aspects online and recapture revenue. For example, Blackbaud's JustGiving platform is experiencing a rise in COVID-19-related virtual events, individual crowdfunding and direct donations from charities, individuals and celebrities. In support of this, Blackbaud's team is working hands-on with organizations and redeploying resources to accelerate the "go live" of all COVID-19 campaigns.

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Below are some of the announcements that Blackbaud made today to further support its customers.

Blackbaud to Now Offer Customers Free, Universal Access to All Recorded eLearning ResourcesMany social good organizationsnonprofits, higher education institutions, K12 schools, healthcare organizations, faith communities, arts and cultural organizations, foundations and companiesare relying on software in an unprecedented way to fuel communications, fundraising and more during this crisis. To make it easier for its customers to get the training and education they need, the company announced free universal access to its entire curriculum of recorded eLearning resources through Blackbaud University. Customers can learn more here.

Blackbaud Releases More than 100 New Resources at No Cost to the Social Good CommunitySocial good organizations are seeking best practices and advice on how to operate and pivot amidst the unforeseen challenges of COVID-19. To help arm these organizations with the knowledge and resources they seek, Blackbaud created new webinars, virtual user groups, community forums, podcasts, e-books and more over the last two weeks; making them available at no cost. Topics include change management, managing a global remote workforce, virtual fundraising, financial management, donor communications and more. Blackbaud's resource library is being continually updated and can be accessed at Blackbaud.com/COVID-19-Resources. Additionally, Blackbaud launched job boards and a COVID-19 discussion thread as part of its Blackbaud Communities platform to help customers further connect and share best practices with each other during this time.

Blackbaud Donates to World Health Organization and UN Foundation's COVID-19 Solidarity Response FundBlackbaud's mission is to empower and connect people through technology to drive impact for social good, which is especially critical during these times. Throughout all major disasters, Blackbaud is on the frontlines with its customers and supporting the social good community globally. Blackbaud will be making a donation to the World Health Organization and the UN Foundation's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund to put technology in place to fight the spread of the virus. This technology will help track the virus and provide powerful insights into how it is spreading, ensuring patients are getting the care they need; improving the buying and shipping of essential medical supplies; and accelerating efforts to develop a vaccine.

Blackbaud Employees Empowered with New Programs and Expanded Employee Gift Matching ProgramBlackbaud's employees are committed to social good professionally and personally as evidenced by employee participation in thecompany's matching gift program being consistently more than two times the national median, according to company data. To continue to empower employees' drive to support causes they care about, Blackbaud today increased its employee matching gift program for the second time since January, bringing the increase to 30% in 2020. The company also began rolling out "virtual volunteerism" programs, which will augment the more than 100,000 hours its employees physically donate each year.

Learn more about the resources and measures that Blackbaud is taking for its customers here.

About BlackbaudBlackbaud(NASDAQ: BLKB) is the world's leading cloud software company powering social good. Serving the entire social good communitynonprofits, higher education institutions, K12 schools, healthcare organizations, faith communities, arts and cultural organizations, foundations, companies and individual change agentsBlackbaud connects and empowers organizations to increase their impact through cloud software, services, expertise and data intelligence. The Blackbaud portfolio is tailored to the unique needs of vertical markets, with solutions for fundraising and CRM, marketing, advocacy, peer-to-peer fundraising, corporate social responsibility, school management, ticketing, grantmaking, financial management, payment processing and analytics. Serving the industry for more than three decades, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, and has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit http://www.blackbaud.comor follow us onTwitter, LinkedIn,Instagram andFacebook.

Media Inquiriesmedia@blackbaud.com

Forward-looking StatementsExcept for historical information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions contained in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding expected benefits of products and product features. Although Blackbaud attempts to be accurate in making these forward-looking statements, it is possible that future circumstances might differ from the assumptions on which such statements are based. In addition, other important factors that could cause results to differ materially include the following: general economic risks; uncertainty regarding increased business and renewals from existing customers; continued success in sales growth; management of integration of acquired companies and other risks associated with acquisitions; risks associated with successful implementation of multiple integrated software products; the ability to attract and retain key personnel; risks associated with management of growth; lengthy sales and implementation cycles, particularly in larger organization; technological changes that make our products and services less competitive; and the other risk factors set forth from time to time in the SEC filings for Blackbaud, copies of which are available free of charge at the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov or upon request from Blackbaud's investor relations department. All Blackbaud product names appearing herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackbaud, Inc.

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/blackbaud-announces-new-measures-to-support-customers-and-global-community-in-response-to-covid-19-pandemic-301031924.html

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Blackbaud Announces New Measures to Support Customers and Global Community in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic - Yahoo Finance

These are unprecedented times. The spread of the Coronavirus throughout the world and the entire world led many governments to enforce extreme social distancing policies, ordering residents to stay in their homes, with the hopes of stopping (or at least slowing down) the spread of the virus.

This step adds another element of fear to these already troubling times: as if the health scare was not enough, we now have to deal with the economic implications of the massive quarantine, with over 20 per cent of the worlds population already confined to their 4 walls.

In order to try and reduce the economical damage, many governments have urged businesses and companies to make every effort and continue operations remotely.

Theoretically, this is an optimal solution: the damage to both the local economy and the companies will be reduced, employees will continue to work and receive wages (and pay taxes), and having something to do will affect their mood in a positive way.

But in the real world, it is not enough to call on companies to work remotely; infrastructure must be in place to minimize the obstacles and ease the complicated transition as much as possible. Unfortunately, today, most of the developing world economies are not prepared for massive remote employment, and governments have not taken any steps to improve the situation.

If governments will not take action over the next few days, the economic repercussions are likely to be severe and painful. Without significant steps, working remotely will be impossible and irrelevant to most companies; And with no prediction of how long the current situation might last, many businesses will not be able to survive the crisis and will shut down over the next few months.

As a result, unemployment will drastically rise, many services that have led to substantial progress across the continent (such as electricity, water, communications, etc.) will disappear, and governments will face a deep recession, affecting the lives of hundreds of millions.

The good news is it is not too late. Governments can still take action to help employees work from their homes, without breaking the social distancing guidelines. Governments must shift budgets and investments in order to support the business sector and improve the chances of survival of companies, potentially saving millions of jobs, thousands of companies and a huge loss of income in taxes. To do this, governments cannot wait any longer.

So what steps can the government take to support businesses during the crisis?

Free fast internet for everyone. In the hyper-digital world that we live in, social distancing can be relatively easy. Family members can connect through video calls, children can learn online, and employees can continue working from their personal computer or cellphone. The common ground for all of these is an available, stable Internet connection. Today, even in major cities throughout Africa, stable internet access is still a faraway dream. In other countries, such access is very expensive. If governments want companies to allow employees to work without coming to the office, the first step must be free Internet to all.

Cellphone / Tablet for each family. Internet connection is, as mentioned, the most basic infrastructure for working remotely, but even the worlds strongest internet connection is worth nothing without a computer, tablet or cellular device. There is no need for powerful and expensive computers; a simple mobile device to allow people to communicate and browse the Internet will enable many to continue working from home. In the past, we have witnessed various failures (such as One Laptop Per Child initiative). The government must not be afraid: now is the time for a national-scale plan, to allow as many people as possible to join and enjoy the digital world.

TV-based education. Today, in many countries across Africa, state television channels are constantly repeating the same news which just increase panic among millions of people. Instead, governments can take advantage of this important public resource for the benefit of educating children: each channel can be dedicated to a different age, showing educational content. This will also provide children with a much-needed structure and activity, allowing the parents to work with fewer interruptions.

On top of supporting employees and businesses, governments should take advantage of the situation, and lead Africa into a digital, technology-based future, benefitting hundreds of millions of people:

Move all government services online. Today, many government services still require citizens to arrive at the relevant office, physically. Therefore, many cannot get the service they need, while others who need essential service run the risk of leaving their homes for that purpose. Now, the government can put the circumstances to good use and transfer all services to be available online, making them accessible to all. While there is a (negligible) risk of frauds - at this time, the prospect seems to outweigh the risk.

Tele-medicine services. While many are required to give up medical services and check-ups in order to remain in their homes, others are required to transport to the nearest city for simple examinations. Today, advanced technologies provide solutions to this problem, enabling medical services over the phone. The government can incentivize and encourage relevant companies, thus leading a digital revolution in the medical field, which is in desperate need of it.

Cashless economy. Although mobile money (MoMo) is in common use throughout Africa, in many remote communities, the high transaction costs make it too expensive for many who have no other option than using cash. By prioritizing MoMo services and lowering the transaction fees, the government can take one more step toward a cashless economy and a more inclusive future.

Coronavirus is a real threat to public health, in Africa and all over the world. But I have no doubt that despite the difficulties and challenges, we will emerge from this crisis: In a few weeks or months we will overcome the virus, social distancing will end, and employees will return to their workplace (if it is still there).

The governments actions today will determine the reality we face when the crisis is over: Will it include a massive economic crisis with huge unemployment rates and a dying private sector, or will we take on the opportunity to leapfrog, innovate, and disrupt reality, taking a huge step toward a more digital, technological and advanced future for everyone.

editor@newtimesrwanda.com

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Before it's too late: What governments should do to keep the economy alive - The New Times

SINGAPORE, March 31,2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Blue Planet Environmental Solutions Pte Ltd (Blue Planet), Asia's leading sustainable waste management company, today announced a significant investment in Zigma Global Environ Solutions Pvt Ltd (Zigma), India's largest landfill mining company.

Zigma specialises in landfill mining and full reclamation of land which is contaminated with legacy waste and suffers from environmental pollution and degradation. Founded in 2015, the company provides a sustainable solution involving multi-step segregation, treatment and recycling to clear landfillsof deposited refuse.

"By adding Zigma to our portfolio of solutions to treat organic, plastic and inert waste, we can now offer governments an integrated solution to tackle its problematic landfills. Apart from significantly improving resource recovery, our technologies can also drastically reduce or eliminate the negative impact of existing landfill sites," said Madhujeet Chimni, co-founder of Blue Planet.

Globally, landfills are a substantial source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Governments, in Asia in particular, are developing enhanced waste handling measures to cut landfill disposal rates and combat the rising volume of waste generated.

However, this alone will not be able to address the dangerous fugitive methane emitted from existing landfills.

Chimni added: "Besides upcycling and recycling freshly generated waste, Blue Planet's vision is to offer the technological capabilities to clear vast areas containing mountains of waste. We have taken a significant step in realising our vision through this investment in Zigma, which can convert unsanitary dumpsites that are a threat to public health into land, which can be utilised for waste processing plants, parks and other productive uses".

Turning legacy waste into an opportunity

Open dumps are a major cause of social concern for local authorities as it is accompanied by underground water pollution, soil contamination and emission of flammable and toxic gasses.

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"In India, there are about 23,000 open dumpsites which emit harmful gasses and puts public health at risk. We saw the immediate need to develop a solution to clear legacy dumps, avoid continuous contamination of groundwater and air and remediate land for regional development," said Nagesh Prabhu, Director of Zigma.

Zigma has cleared multiple open dumpsites since 2015 in India and aims to clear a total of 3 million tonnes of waste by 2021 and 10 million tonnes by the end of 2022.

"Previously landfill capping was the only solution that existed but we saw potential in landfill mining to be a successful socio-economic business model and developed the required tools and systems, necessary for enhanced scalability and sustainability," added Prabhu.

Zigma's process involves landfill mining, which starts with waste composition analysis and pre-stabilisation processes including deodorisation and leachate drainage from open dumpsites. The company leverages online monitoring system with real-time data processing, which is made available to all project owners to ensure high quality of operations.

With Blue Planet's strategic investment in Zigma, waste processing can be augmented using Blue Planet technologies to extract and upcycle useable materials and resources. This includes technologies to convert inert waste into concrete blocks, plastic waste to fuel conversion, and decentralised organic waste to energy solutions where Blue Planet has one of the largest installed bases in India.

Zigma has completed multiple landfill mining projects in various states like Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and others and is currently undertaking 16 projects in various parts of the country.

"As we expand and look at opportunities in ASEAN and the Middle East market, our partnership with Blue Planet takes us a step closer towards the overall vision of creating a cleaner world. We will do this by combining best practises in waste management with advanced technologies from around the world," added Ilangovan, CEO at Zigma.

"Zigma's solution is aligned to our vision of creating circular economy solutions and brings us closer to creating an integrated sustainable waste management model," said Prashant Singh, co-founder/CEO of Blue Planet.

Singh added: "With Blue Planet's experience in handling waste projects in Asia, we aim to help Zigma in expanding its footprint in the waste management sector around the region, and contribute to sustainable economies around Asia."

Blue Planet recently announced a strategic investment of US$25 million made by Nomura, to further efforts to develop an integrated and inclusive waste management solutions for the region.

Since October 2018, Blue Planet has completed a string of acquisitions which includes Rudra Environmental Solutions (India), Yasasu Environmental Management Services (India), Xeon Waste Managers LLP (India), Globecycle Holding Sdn Bhd (Malaysia), Virtus Concrete Solutions Ltd (UK) and Smart Creative Technologies Ltd (UK).

About Blue Planet Environmental Solution Pte Ltd

Blue Planet is a Singapore headquartered company driving regional sustainability through technology-driven and IP based end-to-end solutions for waste management and upcycling. Blue Planet has assembled a strong team of experts to lead its growth and has strategically acquired solutions which enable it to provide the collection, transportation, segregation, processing and treatment of waste.

Blue Planet's key investors include the Neev Fund which is an infrastructure-focused private equity fund that was created as a partnership between State Bank of India (SBI) and the UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID) with a focus on achieving long-standing capital appreciation by promoting sustainable models of development to focus on low-income states in India.

Website:www.blue-planet.com

About Zigma Global Environ Solutions Pvt Ltd

Zigma was founded in 2015 in India and headquartered at Erode, Tamil Nadu which pioneered integrated landfill mining. Since its pilot project in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, Zigma has won several awards for innovation and best sustainable practices in waste management in India.

In 2017, Zigma associated with Forcebel, a South Korean Landfill Mining major which was credited with successful reclamation of more than 100 dumpsites across the globe. Zigma today employs more than 600 personnel across its various plants and processes over 10,000 tonnes of waste per day.

Website: http://www.zigma.in

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200330/2763877-1

SOURCE Blue Planet Environmental Solutions

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Blue Planet realises its end to end vision with Zigma, India's largest landfill mining company - Yahoo Finance