The privatisation of nature

So, if a plant breeder like Morton develops his own variety of lettuce and the lettuce matches any of the traits of a patented variety – whether it be color, the curliness of the leaf or a trait that makes it conducive to a particular climate – the breeder is technically in violation of patent law and risks getting sued by the patent owner. There are utility patents for “Brilliant White Cauliflower”, “Pleasant Tasting Melons”, “Red Lettuce” and “Heat Tolerant Broccoli”. Some patents are so extensive in what they cover that they are nearly 50 pages long.

“They are essentially just doing obsessive-compulsive descriptions of plants and laying claims to those traits, so if anyone else has those traits, they are in violation,” Morton said.

The US patent system was designed to encourage competition and promote innovation. However, the patent system has opened the door for large corporations to patent thousands of plant varieties and traits, locking up genetic resources seed savers have relied on for generations.

Today, just four companies – Bayer, DowDupont/Corteva, ChemChina-Syngenta and BASF – control over 60% of the seed market worldwide.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/25/plant-patents-large-companies-intellectual-property-small-breeders

#capitalism #agribusiness #food

Here's Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) on the *permanence* of wealth disparity in the USA...
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The factual: America is not a bootstrap-friendly land. If you have money in America, chances very good are you inherited it.

American wealth is now dynastic, perpetuating itself and growing thanks to a whole Versailles' worth of courtiers: money managers, lawyers, and overpaid babysitters who can keep even the most Habsburg-jawed nepobaby in turnip-sized million-dollar watches and performance automobiles and organ replacements for their whole, interminable lives.

But it's not just that the American rich stay rich – it's that the American poor stay poor. America is a world-trailing loser in the international social mobility league-table. If you change classes in America, chances are you're a middle class person becoming poor, thanks to medical costs or another of the American debt-traps; or you're a poor person who is becoming a homeless person thanks to America's world-beating eviction mills.

As a factual matter, America just isn't the land of bootstraps; it's a land of hereditary aristocrats. Sustaining the American narrative of meritocracy requires a whole culture industry, novels and later movies that constitute a kind of state religion for Americans – and like all religious tales, the American faith tradition is riddled with gaps and contradictions.
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FULL ESSAY -- https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/10/declaration-of-interdependence/

#Politics #USA #Capitalism #Inequality

So longtime friend of the Topless Topics community mrich (as we all know him by) and I have been tossing around a #podcast idea for a while (I know, I know...this one will be good though, I promise ;p) and I could use y'alls help in solidifying the concept before we jump in to making it.

Basically, the thought is to provide two different but respectful opinions on a variety of subjects--I'm a cis white woman "coastal elite" from California, he's a cis black man from the South, and we're both #progressive #leftists and huge nerds (especially #gaming !) We're also both #normalizeNudity (and of course #freeTheNipple / #topless #equality ) supporters, raised #nudist / #naturist though I reject the specific label these days (I got a whole video about it at toplesstopics.org/nomorenudism if you're curious), and #sexPositive - I'm #bisexual and #polyamorous , he's straight and monogamous, but totally cool with other models, as long as it's all #consensual . We also (so many commonalities!) are both quite #artistic - he's mainly into #portrait #photography while I'm into #illustration both #digitalIllustration and #traditionalIllustration .

While we're still figuring out the structure of the podcast, the idea is to have a few somewhat disparate sections to it - gaming/ #comics / #cosplay /etc, then brief reaction to current #politics / #news (like #feminism , #LGBTQ , #racialJustice , anti- #capitalism , and so much more), and (hopefully) an interview with someone interesting ( #sexWorker , #activist , #artist , etc...whoever we can find that seems like they'd be a good fit for the pod! Then finally, maybe an "ask us anything" advice/reaction section to round out the episode.

I'm thinking we aim for <= 2 hours, one episode per month, but if we really get into it, maybe an episode every other week. I'm still gonna have to edit it and I have a lot else on my plate so I don't want to overextend myself too much. If we happen to stumble into wild success maybe I could hire someone else to do that part in the future, then we could record more often 😛

On some subjects, of course I will defer to his expanded first-hand experience, like #racialInequality . And on other subjects, it'll be mostly my turn to step onto the soapbox, namely about what it's like to be a woman in this #misogynist #sexist world. We've chatted for many hours over the years and always gotten along swimmingly, so I don't anticipate undue friction in the longterm (a benefit of having so many like-minded opinions already). But I still think we have enough difference in life experiences to provide an interesting perspective on a variety of topics.

What do you think? Does any of that seem interesting to you? What kinds of things / people to interview would you like to see on a podcast created by a pair of different similar leftist nerds? Would you listen to such a podcast? Please, lay your feedback on me! All replies welcome, as long as you're not being a total jerk ❤️

I don't have any problem with a market economy, per se, but I do have a BIG problem with capitalism.

In my preferred version of state socialism, there is no accumulation of capital, and thus no capitalism. All large industries and large-scale services are socialized, owned by the people and managed by the state (or by worker cooperatives, where practical).

In my version of a market economy, people can own and run small companies, hire employees, set prices, make a profit... that's all fine. But they can't buy their competitors and either take them over or put them out of business. They can't open franchises, where they sell (or rent) the right to operate a different company with the same name. They're not allowed to buy their suppliers and create a conglomerate. They aren't permitted to grow so large that the market no longer operates fairly. And every business owner's wealth will be capped with a highly progressive tax structure (which is the price of using the commons to turn a profit).

So, the marketplace as such is not the problem. The problem is capitalism.

#Capitalism #Socialism #Economics #Politics

Here is a somewhat comical but also highly indignant commentary about the folly of “Net Zero by 2050”…
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We insiders — by which I mean anyone paying attention — know that the plan to mitigate the climate catastrophe with Net Zero by 2050 is complete bullshit. But maybe you’ve absorbed that knowledge without really understanding why. So let’s talk about it.

What does Net Zero actually mean? Net Zero is the point at which the CO2 burden in the atmosphere is no longer increasing. We’re still putting some up, but we’re also taking just as much out.

This definition immediately tips off two major problems.

The “still putting some up” part is a major issue because the fossil fuels industrial/political complex hears that and stops listening. The “still putting some up” part is their job, and somebody else can do the “take just as much out” part.

In other words, it's Business As Usual for fossil fuels, including continuing growth. Someone else can do the preserving-life-and-the-climate part.

The second obvious problem with Net Zero is the very idea of “taking just as much CO2 out of the atmosphere each year as the fossil fuel industry is adding to it each year.” We know of only two ways to reduce the CO2 load of the atmosphere. One is time. But CO2 stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years, so time is not on our side.

The other way to reduce CO2 is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Carbon is “captured” from the atmosphere using a chemical solvent that absorbs CO2, after which it can be buried in the ground where the CO2 will stay safely out of the atmosphere virtually forever.

CCS technology both does and does not exist.

CCS does exist in that there are many ingenious systems for doing it, including several pilot programs demonstrating direct air capture, the holy grail of CCS. Many fossil fuelled electricity generation plants have been removing CO2 from their smokestack emissions for decades. Unfortunately, much of the currently captured CO2 is being injected into played-out oil wells, forcing more of the remaining oil to be recoverable, to burn as fuel. Totally self-defeating, as far as reducing the CO2 load in the atmosphere.

But CCS also does NOT exist in terms of a significant contributor to Net Zero. They remove so little CO2 from the atmosphere, and at such a cost, as to make them completely impractical. To make a dent in carbon emissions, hundreds of thousands of CCS plants are needed, if not millions. The cost is prohibitive. Not to mention the carbon costs of manufacturing all those plants.

But surely CCS technology will improve over the next decade or two. Maybe someone will even find a miraculous breakthrough that will make it truly practical?

Sorry, but no. It’s not that there hasn’t been enough research into CCS. It has been heavily researched and the science is known. It’s actually some pretty simple chemistry. We can tweak around the efficiency edges, but there are no breakthroughs waiting in the wings to be discovered.
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://lannierose.medium.com/net-zero-by-2050-get-the-joke-946c2d0c0530

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual
#CO2 #Emissions