Capitalist stooges argue over why there’s no clean water
Bloomberg, 9/2–The water crisis unfolding in Jackson, Mississippi, was decades in the making: the culmination of crumbling infrastructure, systemic racism and more extreme weather. It’s also a stark warning of trouble to come as climate change piles new stress onto the essential services...In addition to warming up the planet by nearly 1.2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, climate change is making precipitation events more intense, and therefore more likely to overwhelm strained systems. Lower-income and minority communities such as Jackson — which is 82 percent Black and where a quarter of residents live in poverty — bear the brunt of the impacts. “It’s a consequence of many, many decades of disinvestment in water infrastructure, in general infrastructure in the city of Jackson.”
Pink wave in Latin America requires U.S. imperialists to adapt
Foreign Affairs, 8/31–Over the past five years, left-of-center politicians have won the presidencies in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Their rise prompted talk of a “pink wave” on the continent. That shorthand, however, is too facile: these leaders do not represent so much a wholesale ideological shift as a wave of anti-incumbency and the rejection of the elite Latin American political class…Western governments are struggling to constructively engage these new political actors, who almost uniformly are not members of the elite and were not educated abroad. That means diplomats will need to expand beyond their traditional networks to forge new connections…In order to preserve Western influence and steer the region away from China and Russia, Western diplomats must figure out how to engage this new crop of leaders…Ministries in Canada, the United States, and Europe…will also need to make inroads into nontraditional networks, such as unions, youth movements, informal sector workers’ associations, and indigenous groups.
War in Ukraine requires a grand strategy for U.S. imperialists
Foreign Policy, 2/2–The war also points to some problems for Washington’s strategists…While the collective West has condemned and sanctioned Russia and backed Ukraine, almost the entire global south has refused to choose sides. India is a U.S. partner in the Quad but has neither criticized nor sanctioned Russia—and has increased its imports of Russian oil since the war began. China has neither backed nor condemned the Russian invasion but has supported Russia’s claims that its attack was provoked by threats to its security from NATO. Many other countries in the global south view Russia as a large authoritarian country with which they can do business and accuse the United States of hypocrisy, given Washington’s own past wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan…If preventing the emergence of a rival hegemon in a vital strategic region remains a cardinal principle of U.S. grand strategy, then pivoting to Asia is essential, regardless of what happens in Ukraine.
Who pays for all those rich beach homes?
New York Times, 8/8–As sea level rises and storm surges grow more intense, beach towns on every coast of the United States will soon be sacrificing more real estate to Poseidon. A 2018 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that more than 300,000 coastal homes, currently worth well over $100 billion, are at risk of “chronic inundation” by 2045… Some $7 billion worth of beach replenishment programs, most under the auspices of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, have added sand and bolstered property values in some of the most exclusive havens in the United States. Federal taxpayers typically pick up two-thirds of the tab…The lords of the beachfront were late to the coastal real estate game. The beach was initially deemed the most useless, undesirable space on the North American continent…The wealthy eventually realized their error. It’s hard to see how, exactly, they will hold on to much of this sea-level paradise in the face of rising waters and carbon-charged superstorms. But it’s not hard to guess who will end up covering their losses.