The Right To Housing, Not Vacation Homes

• by: Sonali Kolhatkar

Sonali Kolhatkar – Photo: sonalikolhatkar.com

01-07-2024 ~ Can strict regulations on Airbnb solve the housing crisis? Probably not, but they’re a good start.

Americans have been on a vacation binge since the easing of COVID-19 lockdowns, traveling for leisure in record numbers, and generating a major boom for the tourism industry. The vacation rental company Airbnb in particular, built on the euphemistic-sounding idea of a “sharing economy,” is thriving. In the third quarter of 2023, the company posted its highest-ever profits on record.

But increasingly, cities are seeing rising rents, unaffordable home prices, and increased homelessness. Authorities are linking such housing-related crises in part to Airbnb, and are passing strict regulations.

I’ve rented several Airbnb homes over the 15 years since the company was founded. In the early years, staying in other people’s houses was a sort of subversive act of rebellion against corporate hotel chains. During the most terrifying pre-vaccine months of the COVID-19 pandemic, short-term home rentals felt significantly safer than hotels, amid fears of the deadly airborne virus spreading among unmasked crowds in elevators and hotel lobbies. The privacy, convenience, and lower cost often enabled tourists with tighter budgets to enjoy family vacations with members of their chosen pandemic pods.

But, while Airbnb rentals may offer some financial respite for low-budget vacationers, their counterparts in the neighborhoods they visit are often negatively impacted by higher-cost housing prices and rents. What’s more, Airbnb hosts are increasingly professional landlords—wealthy elites and corporate entities that scoop up large numbers of properties and turn big profits by renting them out to travelers.

Even individuals managing a single property are now encouraged to expand vacation rental management into a full-time business. “Becoming an Airbnb property manager can be a fulfilling career path—and you can also make a lot of money with it,” claimed one company specializing in training professional hosts. “It’s a relatively low-risk, low-investment venture that can turn out to be extremely lucrative.”

Indeed, just as companies like Uber were once touted as a way for working people with cars to earn a little extra spending cash, Airbnb offered the promise of supplementary income for those with an extra room or converted garage. Now, however, the market is being increasingly dominated by a small number of corporate “hosts” and professional property managers.

Airbnb homes are available all over the world but the United States is most deeply affected. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said in late 2023, “[O]ur penetration in the United States is significantly higher than our penetration in many other countries. And we think there’s a huge amount of growth if we could just get Airbnb to even a fraction of the percentage of penetration that we have in the United States.” In other words, the U.S. is the model that Airbnb wants to replicate everywhere else in its quest for profits.

Stephanie Synclair is an appropriate symbol of what Airbnb has wrought in the U.S. The 41-year-old Black mom from Atlanta recently made the news for becoming a home-buyer, not in her own hometown, but in Sicily. In spite of the language and cultural barriers, Synclair purchased a home on the other side of the planet, in part because she found Sicilians to be warm and welcoming, but mostly because of the huge price difference. In spite of having a budget of $450,000—no small sum—Synclair had no luck buying a home in Atlanta, where properties are among the most overpriced in the nation. She now plans to retire in her $62,000 home in Palermo, Sicily.

Atlanta’s housing market is dominated by investors and cash-rich corporations who scoop up practically every home listed at $500,000 or less, many of which are then transformed into Airbnb listings for tourists. Precious Price, an Atlanta-based host, initially saw Airbnb as a pathway to building wealth, particularly for Black entrepreneurs like her who faced racial discrimination from the financial industry. But Price soon realized, according to a profile in the New York Times, that her rental property was part of the housing crisis that her beloved city was experiencing. She has since pivoted to long-term rentals aimed at residents rather than vacationers—an enterprise that is less profitable but more ethical.

Not only does Airbnb fuel housing crises in cities, it does so along racial lines. A 2017 study of New York City by the watchdog group Inside Airbnb concluded that the company’s model fuels racism in the housing market. Analyzing the demographics of rental hosts in the city, Inside Airbnb concluded, among other things, that “[a]cross all 72 predominantly Black New York City neighborhoods, Airbnb hosts are 5 times more likely to be white.” Further, “[t]he loss of housing and neighborhood disruption due to Airbnb is [six] times more likely to affect Black residents.” White New Yorkers have benefitted from renting out housing as hotels, while Black New Yorkers are disproportionately hurt.

To curb such inequities, New York City, which already had strict rules on the books about short-term rentals and subleases, passed a law in 2023 requiring Airbnb to ensure that hosts obtain permission to rent out housing. If it fails to do so, both the host and the company are hit with hefty fines.

The New York Times explained, “In order to collect fees associated with the short-term stays, Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com and other companies must check that a host’s registration application has been approved.” And, “hosts who violate the rules could face fines of up to $5,000 for repeat offenders, and platforms could be fined up to $1,500 for transactions involving illegal rentals.”

It was an admission that the earlier set of rules was simply not being enforced—as we continue to see in cities like Los Angeles—where hosts flout rules with little consequence. But now, at least in New York City, the onus is on the company, as well as the hosts to comply.

While this means potentially higher hotel costs for out-of-town visitors, it could free up rentals for long-term residents. According to the Guardian, this may already be happening, just months after the law went into effect in September: “[T]he city’s rental costs are backing off from record highs, as the vacancy rate increases to a level not seen in three years—good news for folks looking to sign rental leases.”

While cheaper vacation stays are certainly desirable for those of us who love to travel, vacationing is a privilege in the U.S. More than a third of Americans, as per a 2023 survey, are unlikely to take a summer vacation. And of those, more than half say they simply can’t afford it. A 2019 Economic Policy Institute study pointed out that “Airbnb might, as claimed, suppress the growth of travel accommodation costs, but these costs are not a first-order problem for American families.” What is a first-order problem is affordable housing.

And, while regulating Airbnb will not mitigate all economic injustices facing Americans—such as suppressed wages and a lack of government-funded health care—it certainly will move the needle in the right direction.

By Sonali Kolhatkar

Author Bio: Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her most recent book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization.

Source: Independent Media Institute

Credit Line: This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Elections In Taiwan: Does The Island Choose Further Confrontation With China?

• by: Wim De Ceukelaire

Taiwan – Map: Wikimedia Commons

01-07-2024  ~ On January 13, the residents of Taiwan, an island off the coast of China, will go to the polls to elect a new president and parliament. These elections attract more international attention than one might expect for a country with only 24 million inhabitants. The outcome will have consequences for the evolution of the conflict between the United States and China, and consequently, possibly for world peace.

Two weeks before the elections, I spoke with Wu Rong-yuan, the chairman of the Labor Party of Taiwan, in the capital, Taipei. His party is contesting seats in three districts. Due to the first-past-the-post system, this is an uphill battle. Moreover, the Labor Party is marginalized due to its pro-reunification stance with China. To better understand this, I let the veteran of the labor struggle explain the history to me once again.

Taiwan lived under the dictatorship of the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek’s party, until 1987. The roots of the Kuomintang are on the mainland of China, where they were in power until the victory of the socialist revolution in 1949. Even after the end of the dictatorship, the party continued to rule in Taiwan, officially still named the Republic of China, and initiated a process of democratization. Meanwhile, the main opposition coalesced around the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

For a long time, the island’s politics were a two-way contest between the Kuomintang and the DPP. Almost all other, much smaller, political forces sided with either the blue or the green coalition, corresponding to the respective colors of the two parties. While the Kuomintang sees the island as part of China, the DPP is unequivocally in favor of an independent Taiwan.

In 2000, the DPP came to power for the first time. After an eight-year hiatus, that happened again in 2016. They not only had the president, Tsai Ing-wen but also governed with a majority in the parliament. It is under Tsai that tensions with China increased further, fueled by the United States.

Wu explained to me that the economic positions of both parties are not significantly different. Both align themselves with the U.S. “Moreover, they also find common ground in anti-communism against the rulers in Beijing,” said Wu, “but while the Kuomintang claims that the residents of Taiwan and the mainland of China form one Chinese nation, separated by the sea and different ideologies, the DPP invented Taiwanese nationalism: Since they came to power 23 years ago, they managed to create a distinct Taiwanese identity out of nothing.”

This does not mean that all Taiwanese support the DPP’s course. On the contrary, the popularity of the ruling DPP has significantly declined. Normally, the opposition would win these upcoming elections hands down. The population is divided over the right stance toward China. The extension of military service from four to 12 months makes the looming military escalation suddenly very concrete. The energy crisis, on the other hand, symbolizes the country’s poor economic performance. The population is far from satisfied with the government’s policies.

A sure win for the Kuomintang, then? Not quite, because this time there is a third party that can convince a significant portion of the voters. The recently established Taiwan People’s Party presents itself as an alternative to the blue and green alliances, putting forward a credible candidate for the presidency, the former mayor of Taipei. It briefly seemed like this party would form a joint presidential ticket with the Kuomintang, but in November, they ultimately chose to run separately.

With a divided opposition, the DPP could still win the elections. The presidential candidates of the DPP and the Kuomintang are neck and neck in the polls. No one can predict who will win. However, the rise of a third party has an important consequence: Regardless of who wins the presidential elections, they will likely not have a majority in the parliament. This means compromises will have to be made.

According to Wu Rong-yuan, these are crucial elections for the relations between Taiwan and China. The Kuomintang advocates the status quo which means that both recognize there is one China but have different interpretations about what this means. The DPP wants to assert Taiwan’s status as an independent country and can count on U.S. support for that. “The confrontational policy of the U.S. makes the status quo impossible,” says Wu, “while the independence the DPP seeks, isolates us from the mainland and goes against the interests of the workers.”

Wu finally explains the vision of the Labor Party: “Reunification between Taiwan and China is the only path to peace and prosperity: ‘One country, two systems’ is a realistic formula.” On the question of whether this would be based on the arrangement with Hong Kong, the answer is negative: “China has clearly stated that Taiwan would have more autonomy, and there are good reasons for that: Hong Kong was a colony of Britain when it was transferred to China, while Taiwan has existed for decades as an autonomous economic and political entity.”

Although there seems to be little openness from the two traditional parties for now, the Labor Party hopes that there will be room for dialogue between Taipei and Beijing after the elections: “There is no model for reunification, and it is only through dialogue and exchange that we can find solutions.”

By Wim De Ceukelaire

Author Bio: This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Wim De Ceukelaire is a health and social justice activist and member of the global steering council of the People’s Health Movement. He is the co-author of the second edition of The Struggle for Health: Medicine and the Politics of Underdevelopment with David Sanders and Barbara Hutton.

Source: Globetrotter

The Nuclear Energy Dilemma: Climate Savior Or Existential Threat?

• by: Leslie Alan Horvitz

Leslie Alan Horvitz – Photo: http://lesliehorvitz.com

01-05-2024 Nuclear power has promise and peril, posing many challenging questions for environmentalists.

With the planet teetering on the brink of climate disaster and the goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 rapidly slipping away, the need for alternatives to pollutive fossil fuels has never been more evident. Should nuclear power be one of those alternatives?

There are many thorny questions. Is nuclear power too dangerous? Is it too expensive? Does it present too much of a security risk? Is the problem of finding a safe way of storing nuclear waste too insurmountable? Is it unfair to kick a clear and present danger down the field to future generations? Is it scalable soon enough to make a meaningful difference in the battle against climate change? Is it a distraction from investing in safer sources of renewable energy?

These are questions that scientists, lawmakers, and pundits have been tackling for years. The argument remains frustratingly unresolved.

The persistent lack of clarity has divided environmentalists. Some say nuclear power is vital to the climate solution because it is a low-carbon energy source. Like wind and solar, it does not directly produce carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas fueling global warming.

Others argue that the dangers of nuclear energy—including meltdowns (a credible threat at Zaporizhzhia, a nuclear power plant in Ukraine—Europe’s largest—following its capture by Russian forces in 2022) and the lack of safe disposal of nuclear waste—are simply too grave. Still, others say there is no longer any time left to bring nuclear energy to scale to combat the climate threat effectively.

“The debate over whether we need nuclear power is very polarized,” says M.V. Ramana from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, who specializes in nuclear energy risk.

The World Nuclear Association is one of the foremost proponents of nuclear energy, supporting the global nuclear industry. Based in London, the group argues that nuclear energy is an efficient, effective, and safe solution to the climate crisis. “Nuclear power plants produce no greenhouse gas emissions during operation, and over the course of its life-cycle, nuclear produces about the same amount of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions per unit of electricity as wind, and one-third of the emissions per unit of electricity when compared with solar,” the organization states on its website.

Still, while the statistics sound promising, nuclear may be too late to make a difference, argues Mehdi Leman of Greenpeace International. “Nuclear power is not the way to a green and peaceful zero carbon future,” he writes. “According to scenarios from the World Nuclear Association and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (both nuclear lobby organizations), doubling the capacity of nuclear power worldwide in 2050 would only decrease greenhouse gas emissions by around 4 percent. But in order to do that, the world would need to bring 37 new large nuclear reactors to the grid every year from now [March 2022], year on year, until 2050.”

Leman also notes that nuclear reactors “are easy targets for malevolent acts,” from terrorism to acts of war, as Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine has illustrated.

Rise of Nuclear Power
As of November 2023, there are 440 nuclear reactors in 32 countries plus Taiwan. The United States has the most reactors, with 93 in operation as of August 2023, accounting for more than 30 percent of the world’s nuclear power generation. China is next in production with 13.5 percent, but its 55 reactors are less than France’s 56. The latter accounts for 13.3 percent of the total global power generation.

Nuclear power supplies more than eight times as much energy as it did in the 1970s. “The first grid-connected nuclear power plant began operations in the Soviet Union in 1954, and nuclear power reached one exajoule of global supply 19 years later. … (One exajoule is equivalent to 277 terawatt-hours—close to the electricity Mexico consumed in 2019),” according to Electricityinfo.org.

As of November 2023, nuclear power provides the world with approximately 10 percent of its energy needs. Nuclear power plants have a lifespan of up to 80 years.

Nuclear Power: Low-Carbon Energy Source
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), total global energy consumption is expected to rise by nearly 50 percent by 2050; this will make reducing carbon emissions much harder, if not impossible, without nuclear power.

Advocates further say that replacing fossil fuel-based energy with 100 percent renewables would need several scarce elements—from lithium to land space—making it next to impossible to supply the world with its future energy needs—while curtailing climate change’s worst effects. In addition, nuclear power is more reliable and consistent since it can provide a steady power supply for days—without wind, sun, or batteries.

“Shutting down nuclear power plants could be a big setback for climate goals,” writes Casey Crownhart, a climate reporter at MIT Technology Review.

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry policy group, nuclear energy in the United States prevented more than 476 million metric tons of carbon emissions in 2021. The U.S. Department of Energy says that is the equivalent of taking more than 100 million automobiles off the road—and greater than all other clean energy sources combined.

“While Germany has made major progress on installing renewable energy like wind and solar, emissions from its electricity sector have been shockingly slow to fall,” Crownhart notes in an April 2023 article. “The country has pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2045, but it missed its climate targets for both 2021 and 2022. To reach its 2030 targets, it may need to triple the pace of its emissions cuts.”

Public Opinion
Persuading the public to accept nuclear power is not easy—particularly with nuclear disasters like Three Mile Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986, and Fukushima in 2011 still resonating in the public consciousness. Nuclear power rates second only to coal in its unpopularity in the U.S.—with just 16 percent of Americans in favor of keeping existing nuclear plants and building new ones, according to Morning Consult PRO data from 2020.

The association of this energy source with nuclear weapons has led to people harboring a bias against nuclear power, argues Charles Oppenheimer, grandson of Robert Oppenheimer, who oversaw the military effort at Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the atom bomb was developed during World War II. “We must get over our cognitive and political bias: Nuclear energy is necessary and safe, and not the same as nuclear weapons,” he wrote in Time magazine.

However, a 2023 Gallup poll found that 55 percent of American adults say they “strongly” or “somewhat” favor using nuclear energy. This polling data—showing a rise of four percentage points in support of nuclear from 2022—may be tied to Russia’s invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine, which started in February 2022 and sparked a global disruption in oil and gas supplies.

It makes sense that public opinion toward nuclear energy is tied to the price of gas at the pump. “Throughout the course of Gallup’s trend, Americans have generally been more amenable to the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity for the U.S. when oil prices have been high and less open to it when oil prices are low,” points out Megan Brenan, a research consultant at Gallup.

European nations are more open to nuclear power than the U.S.—but up to a point. In 2022, the European Parliament designated nuclear power as a source of green energy. In the European Union, nuclear power plants operating in 13 countries provide almost a quarter of global electricity, although electricity generation from EU nuclear plants fell by 20 percent between 2006 and 2011. (Germany decided to phase out nuclear energy in 2011.)

And while Germany shut down its three remaining nuclear reactors in April 2023, ending the nation’s nuclear era, which lasted more than 60 years, it isn’t the first European country to bring an end to nuclear energy: Denmark banned it in 1985, Italy closed all plants in 1990, and in 1999, the Austrian parliament unanimously passed a constitutional law on a “nuclear-free Austria.”

Even climate activist Greta Thunberg (who opposes nuclear power and spoke against the European Parliament’s “green energy” classification of nuclear) supports keeping nuclear power plants in Germany functional—if the alternative is coal.

But nuclear power still has a lot of ground to make up if it’s to become a factor in serving the energy needs of a post-fossil fuel era. In 2021, 95 nuclear plants went online in the previous 20 years, but another 98 have shut down, according to Deutsche Welle (DW). Take China out of the equation, and there are 50 fewer reactors operational in the last two decades, states the 2021 DW article.

“[D]oubling the capacity of nuclear power worldwide in 2050 would only decrease greenhouse gas emissions by around 4 percent,” writes Mehdi Leman. “But in order to do that, the world would need to bring 37 new large nuclear reactors to the grid every year from now, year on year, until 2050.”

As of November 2023, there are only about 60 new reactors under construction, according to the World Nuclear Association. Doubling nuclear capacity (which would only lead to a minor decrease in carbon emissions) is unrealistic. In contrast, clean, renewable energy sources like solar and wind have grown rapidly.

Proponents of nuclear power are pushing back. In a notable attempt to influence public opinion in its favor, Oliver Stone released a documentary in 2022 called “Nuclear Now,” in which the director asserts that opposition to nuclear power has become “glamorous, virtuous, and lucrative all at once.”

Well-publicized accidents at nuclear power plants such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island have only reinforced the idea that nuclear power is too risky to be considered a reliable source of energy.

As Robert P. Crease, a chair of the department of philosophy at Stony Brook University, wrote in a June 2023 edition of Physics World, “No Oliver Stone movie would be complete without a conspiracy theory,” which in the case of “Nuclear Now,” sees the oil and coal companies as the villains because of their disputable claim that even low levels of radioactive emissions are dangerous.

Stone maintains that because climate change is an existential threat caused by fossil fuels, and given the world’s insatiable energy demands, nuclear power should be considered a safer and more essential alternative than its detractors assert.

“Stone’s movie forces us to think,” Crease argues, because humans can no longer sit back and “ponder and judge nuclear power from a smug and superior distance.” With his documentary, Crease adds that Stone has put “nuclear technology back on the table as a possible energy source.”

Land Use
How much land an energy-producing installation takes up is often overlooked, but its importance can’t be underestimated. Approximately 100,000 square miles of solar panels (an area greater than New England) or more than 800,000 square miles of onshore windmills (the size of Alaska plus California) would be required to meet the energy needs of the eastern United States, according to Armond Cohen of the Clean Air Task Force, writes Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in a February 2023 article in the Atlantic.

By contrast, Cohen says, addressing the same energy needs with nuclear power would take a little more than 500 square miles (roughly equivalent to the size of Phoenix, Arizona).

“Nuclear power is the most land-efficient source, needing 27 times less land per unit of energy than coal and 34 times less than solar [photovoltaic],” writes Hannah Ritchie, a researcher at Our World in Data. But she also points out that “land use of renewable energy sources like wind farms can be co-used with other activities like farming.”

The Grid
One advantage of nuclear power, often overlooked by detractors, involves the grid—that is, connecting the power source to the electricity grid systems. Power plants, set up to provide electricity to consumers, can be converted to integrate nuclear power easily.

This isn’t the case with renewable energy sources like solar and wind, which would require the rewiring and transformation of the grid to supply electricity to consumers. This would entail an enormous investment and require zoning boards and regulators’ approval.

Despite these advantages, nuclear plants have recorded no more than 10 new grid connections a year in the last decade, states Leman in his 2022 article; in some years, it’s many fewer. Scaling that up to meet the demand for capacity in the U.S. is simply not possible, according to skeptics of nuclear power. Read more

How To Make Recyclable Plastics Out Of CO2 To Slow Climate Change

• by: Ann Leslie Davis

Ann Leslie Davis – Photo: LinkedIn.com

12-23-2023  Chemists are manipulating carbon dioxide to make clothing, mattresses, shoes, and more.

It’s morning, and you wake up on a comfortable foam mattress made partly from greenhouse gas. You pull on a T-shirt and sneakers manufactured using carbon dioxide pulled from factory emissions. After a good run, you stop for a cup of joe and guiltlessly toss the plastic cup in the trash, confident it will fully biodegrade into harmless organic materials. At home, you squeeze shampoo from a bottle that has lived many lifetimes, then slip into a dress fashioned from smokestack emissions. You head to work with a smile, knowing your morning routine has made Earth’s atmosphere a teeny bit cleaner.

Sound like a dream? Hardly. These products are already on the market around the world. And others are in the process of being developed. They’re part of a growing effort by academia and industry to reduce the damage caused by centuries of human activity that has sent CO2 and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

The need for action is urgent. In its 2022 report, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, stated that rising temperatures have already caused irreversible damage to the planet and increased human death and disease.

Meanwhile, the amount of CO2 emitted continues to grow. In 2023, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted that if current policy and growth trends continue, annual global CO2 emissions could increase from more than 35 billion metric tons in 2022 to 41 billion metric tons by 2050.

Capturing—and Using—Carbon
Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is a climate mitigation strategy with “considerable” potential, according to the IPCC, which released its first report on the technology in 2005. CCS traps CO2 from smokestacks or ambient air and pumps it underground for permanent sequestration; controversially, the fossil fuel industry has also used this technology to pump more oil out of reservoirs.

As of 2023, almost 40 CCS facilities operate worldwide, with about 225 more in development, according to Statista. The Global CCS Institute reports that, in 2022, the total annual capacity of all current and planned projects was estimated at 244 million metric tons. The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $3.5 billion in funding for four U.S. direct air capture facilities.

But rather than just storing it, the captured carbon could be used to make things. In 2022, for the first time, the IPCC added carbon capture and utilization, or CCU, to its list of options for drawing down atmospheric carbon. CCU captures CO2 and incorporates it into carbon-containing products like cement, jet fuel, and the raw materials used for making plastics.

CCU could reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 20 billion metric tons in 2050—more than half of the world’s global emissions today, the IPCC estimates.

Such recognition was a significant victory for a movement that has struggled to emerge from the shadow of its more established cousin, CCS, says chemist and global CCU expert Peter Styring of the University of Sheffield in England, during a 2022 interview. He adds that many CCU-related companies are springing up, collaborating with each other and with more established companies, and working across borders. London-based consumer goods giant Unilever, for example, partnered with companies from the United States and India to create the first laundry detergent made from industrial emissions.

The potential of CCU is “enormous,” both in terms of its volume and monetary prospects, said mechanical engineer Volker Sick at an April 2022 conference in Brussels following the IPCC report that first included CCU as a climate change strategy. Sick, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, directs the Global CO2 Initiative, which promotes CCU as a mainstream climate solution. “We’re not talking about something that’s nice to do but doesn’t move the needle,” he added. “It moves the needle in many, many aspects.”

The Plastics Paradox
The use of carbon dioxide in products is not new. CO2 makes soda fizzy, keeps foods frozen (as dry ice), and converts ammonia to urea for fertilizer. What’s new is the focus on creating products with CO2 as a strategy to slow climate change. According to Lux Research, a Boston-based research and advisory firm, the CCU market, estimated at nearly $2 billion in 2020, could mushroom to $550 billion by 2040.

Much of this market is driven by adding CO2 to cement (which can improve its strength and elasticity) and to jet fuel—two moves that can lower both industries’ large carbon footprints. CO2-to-plastics is a niche market today, but the field aims to battle two crises: climate change and plastic pollution.

Plastics are made from fossil fuels, a mix of hydrocarbons formed by the remains of ancient organisms. Most plastics are produced by refining crude oil, which is then broken down into smaller molecules through a process called cracking. These smaller molecules, known as monomers, are the building blocks of polymers. Monomers such as ethylene, propylene, styrene, and others are linked together to form plastics such as polyethylene (detergent bottles, toys, rigid pipes), polypropylene (water bottles, luggage, car parts), and polystyrene (plastic cutlery, CD cases, Styrofoam).

But making plastics from fossil fuels is a carbon catastrophe. Each step in the life cycle of plastics—extraction, transport, manufacture, and disposal—emits massive amounts of greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, according to the Center for International Environmental Law, a nonprofit law firm with offices in Geneva and Washington, D.C. These emissions alone—more than 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2019—are enough to threaten global climate targets.

And the numbers are about to get much worse. A 2018 report by the Paris-based intergovernmental International Energy Agency projected that global demand for plastics will increase from about 400 million metric tons in 2020 to nearly 600 million by 2050. Future demand is expected to be concentrated in developing countries and vastly outstrip global recycling efforts.

Plastics are a severe environmental crisis, from fossil fuel use to their buildup in landfills and oceans. But we’re a society addicted to plastic and all it gives us—cell phones, computers, comfy Crocs. Is there a way to have our (plastic-wrapped) cake and eat it too?

Yes, Sick. First, cap the oil wells. Next, make plastics from aboveground carbon. Today, there are products made of between 20 and 40 percent CO2. Finally, he says, build a circular economy that reduces resource use, reuses products, and then recycles them into other new products.

“Not only can we eliminate the fossil carbon as a source so that we don’t add to the aboveground carbon budget, but in the process, we can also rethink how we make plastics,” Sick says. He suggests that plastics be specifically designed “to live very, very long so that they don’t have to be replaced… or that they decompose in a benign manner.”

However, creating plastics from thin air is not easy. CO2 needs to be extracted from the atmosphere or smokestacks, for example, using specialized equipment. It must often be compressed into liquid form and transported, generally through pipelines. Finally, to meet the overall goal of reducing the amount of carbon in the air, the chemical reaction that turns CO2 into the building blocks of plastics must be run with as little extra energy as possible. Keeping energy use low is a unique challenge when dealing with the carbon dioxide molecule. Read more

PVV Blog: Introduction ~ The Dutch Party For Freedom. An Analysis Of Geert Wilders’ Thinking On Islam

• by: Jan Jaap de Ruiter

2023/24  The reason for the series ‘The Dutch Party for Freedom. An analysis of Geert Wilders’ Thinking on Islam’ is the election victory of the party in the House of Representatives elections of November 22, 2022, and the shift of the party to the center of power, most probably heading to governing the country.

Throughout his career as party leader of the Party for Freedom, Geert Wilders has spoken out very critically, if not dismissively, if not discriminatingly about Muslims. The Netherlands would be better off without Muslims; Wilders dreams of a Netherlands without Islam. The party’s election manifesto exudes undemocratic and anti-constitutional proposals, especially where Islam and Muslims are concerned: ‘The Netherlands is not an Islamic country: no Islamic schools, Qurans and mosques,’ the program states.

Jan Jaap de Ruiter has written two books about the ideas of the PVV; one, De ideologie van de PVV. Het kwade goed en het goede kwaad (in Dutch; translation title: The ideology of the PVV. The evil good and the good evil) (2012) is a refutation and criticism of the book De schijn-élite van de valse munters. Drees, extreem rechts, de sixties, nuttige idioten, Groep Wilders en ik (in Dutch as well: Dutch title: The apparent elite of the counterfeiters. Drees, the extreme right, the sixties, useful idiots, Group Wilders and I) written by Martin Bosma, party member from the very beginning and now elected Speaker of the House.
The second book, The Dutch Party for Freedom. An Analysis of Geert Wilders’ Thinking on Islam (previously published as The Speck in Your Brothers’ Eye – The Alleged War of Islam Against the West -2012) is an analysis of the book Marked for Death. Islam’s War Against the West and Me.

Both books by de Ruiter can be freely downloaded here (scroll down).

In this blog, Jan Jaap de Ruiter follows the vicissitudes of the Party for Freedom in the cabinet formation and he compares the actions and statements, especially those related to Muslims, of party leader Wilders and party ideologue Martin Bosma with their own ideology. For years the party was able to work on its ideas and did everything it could to spread it. Now that the party is in the center of power, it can actually realize its ideas. How will the party act? Does the party attack democracy or does democracy resist the party? The future will tell.

The series appears in Dutch on this link (Nieuw Wij).

Jan Jaap de Ruiter (1959) is an Arabist affiliated with Tilburg University. He writes this series in a personal capacity. Contact de Ruiter at this mail address. Each new part of the series is announced on Facebook, X and LinkedIn.

Next posts

Blog 1: Geert Wilders: ‘Islam Is Not A Religion. It Is A Totalitarian Ideology.’
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-1-geert-wilders-islam-is-not-a-religion-it-is-a-totalitarian-ideology/

Blog 2: The Evil French Revolution Has Made Islam Even More Evil
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-2-the-evil-french-revolution-has-made-islam-even-more-evil/

Blog 3: A Leopard Cannot Change It Spots, Can’t He?
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-3-a-leopard-cannot-change-its-spots-cant-he/

Blog 4:
The Dutch Parliament, Allegedly Created By The Threat Of Islam
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-4-the-dutch-parliament-allegedly-created-by-the-threat-of-islam/

Blog 5:
The ‘Monocultural Confession’ Of The Dutch Party For Freedom
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-5-the-monocultural-confession-of-the-dutch-party-for-freedom/

Blog 6:
Geert Wilders Is A Fascist
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-6-geert-wilders-is-a-fascist/

Blog 7: Remembrance Day
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-7-remembrance-day-2024/

Blog 8: The Party For Freedom Really In Power Now: A Black Day
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-8-the-party-for-freedom-really-in-power-now-a-black-day/

Blog 9: An Ideology Of Exclusion In Power
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-9-an-ideology-of-exclusion-in-power/

Blog 10: The Ideology Of The PVV (Party for Freedom) In Practice
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-10-the-ideology-of-the-pvv-party-for-freedom-in-practice/

Blog 11: The Ideology Of The PVV  In Practice: Conclusion
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-11-the-ideology-of-the-pvv-in-practice-conclusion/

See also: 

Jan Jaap de Ruiter – De ideologie van de PVV. Het kwade goed en het goede kwaad. (in Dutch)
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/de-ideologie-van-de-pvv-het-kwade-goed-en-het-goede-kwaad/

Jan Jaap de Ruiter – The Dutch Party for Freedom. An Analysis of Geert Wilders’ Thinking of Islam.
(Previously published as The Speck In Your Brother’s Eye)
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/the-dutch-party-for-freedom-an-analysis-of-geert-wilders-thinking-on-islam/

PVV Blog 1: Geert Wilders: ‘Islam Is Not A Religion. It Is A Totalitarian Ideology’

• by: Jan Jaap de Ruiter

12-23-2023 Great was the surprise and shock when the exit poll of the parliamentary election on November 22nd indicated that Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom would have secured 35 seats, a gain that became even greater the next day. With 37 seats in the chamber, the PVV left the other parties far behind, with GroenLinks-PvdA coming in second with 25 seats. The result was a surprise for the party leader himself and a big shock for the left-wing electorate and the VVD, which had led the government for 13 years.

Since its foundation in 2006, the Freedom Party has not failed to proclaim its vision on society and in particular on Islam and Muslims and has been beating the drum about the danger of Islam for the entire world all these years. The party’s election manifesto speaks of a Netherlands without the Koran, without mosques and in fact the party advocates a Netherlands without Islam and therefore without Muslims.

Together with the victories of two other parties, Pieter Omtzigt’s New Social Contract with 20 seats and Caroline van der Plas’s BBB with seven, and possibly tolerated by the VVD (24 seats), it now seems that the PVV can start its march to the center of power. Prime Minister Wilders, who would have thought, taking over the reins from VVD Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Mark Rutte, who, oh the irony of history, refused to collaborate with the PVV after the debacle of his first cabinet, which stumbled in 2012, supported by the PVV, and fell due to that same PVV.

The PVV already achieved its first success with the election of PVV MP and veteran, and party ideologue Martin Bosma as the chairman of the House of Representatives.

The question that naturally arises after the election victory is what the PVV (Party for Freedom) will do when it comes to implementing the anti-Islam program. Before the elections, the PVV leader had repeatedly indicated in debates that he would put his overly extreme and factually undemocratic proposals regarding Islam and Muslims “on hold,” but what are these assurances worth when, for the past 20 years, he has been beating the drum of discrimination and sowing hatred?

In fact, party leader Wilders contradicted himself in his very first speech. Of course, he celebrated the significant victory, but afterward (neglecting the democratic tradition of congratulating winning parties), he told his supporters that the PVV would give the country back to the “Dutch.” He didn’t specify who these Dutch people are and from whom the country should be taken. Furthermore, he vowed to be a potential prime minister for all people, whether, in his words, they were “Christian, Muslim, or unbeliever.”

He mentioned the word “Muslim,” declaring that all people are equal to him should he become prime minister, while simultaneously expressing the intention to give the country back to “the Dutch.” There is clearly a contradiction here, and we can better understand it by reading what Wilders once wrote about Islam and Muslims.

In his book Marked for Death. Islam’s War Against the West and Me, Wilders writes: ‘Islam is not a religion at all… but primarily a political ideology under the guise of a religion’.

According to Wilders, ideology is harmful, and nothing good can come from it. He associates ideology with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and also with France during the French Revolution in 1789. Islam should not be “treated more leniently than other political ideologies such as communism and fascism, just because it claims to be a religion.” Such an approach has significant consequences. He succinctly puts it, “That is the core of Islam: it is an ideology that strives for a global war.” Surprisingly, he softens his view on Islam as a violent ideology by stating the following: “I am talking about the ideology of Islam, not about individual Muslims. There are many moderate Muslims, but that does not change the fact that the political ideology of Islam is not moderate – it is a totalitarian sect with global ambitions.” However, the mitigating circumstances are minimal because, according to Wilders, moderate Muslims are people who have not yet realized how violent their religion is, and if they do, they all become potential dangers to democracy and world order, even in the Netherlands. What Wilders states in his book, he has repeated many times, including in 2015 in a discussion with the then Minister of Social Affairs for the PvdA (Labour Party), Lodewijk Asscher, in which he said: “If anything is unconstitutional, it is Islam itself: totalitarian, violent, hateful towards apostates, homosexuals, women, and Christians.”

If Wilders considers Islam as a totalitarian ideology rather than a religion, then Muslims are not believers, and, therefore, they do not have the right to freedom of religion as stated in Article 6 of the Dutch Constitution. Hence, according to him, any proposed laws by Wilders concerning Islam are not in conflict with the constitution. Islam itself is considered unconstitutional.

Wilders’ statement that Muslims have nothing to fear if he becomes prime minister sharply contrasts with the above. I believe that if the PVV (Party for Freedom) truly comes to power, there is much for Muslims to be concerned about. The party may not immediately introduce anti-Islamic legislation, but if it sees any opportunity to implement such laws, it will not hesitate to do so.
Only time will tell, and I will keep you informed.

Previous post:
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-introduction-the-dutch-party-for-freedom-an-analysis-of-geert-wilders-thinking-on-islam/

Next post:
https://rozenbergquarterly.com/pvv-blog-2-the-evil-french-revolution-has-made-islam-even-more-evil/