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      in US Politics

      Biden proposes $6tn budget to boost infrastructure, education and climate

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      Joe Biden set out a $6tn budget proposal on Friday that, if passed, would fund a sweeping overhaul of US infrastructure and pour money into education and climate action, while driving government spending to its highest sustained levels since the second world war.The president’s first budget is largely a political document, and faces months of difficult negotiations in Congress where Republicans are already balking at the scale of his spending plans. But it clearly sets out Biden’s ambition to remake the US after the coronavirus pandemic.“Now is the time to build on the foundation that we’ve laid, to make bold investments in our families, in our communities, in our nation,” Biden told a crowd in Cleveland on Thursday. “We know from history that these kinds of investments raise both the floor and the ceiling of an economy for everybody.”Republicans immediately attacked the plan. Senator Mitch McConnell said it would “drown American families in debt, deficits, and inflation.”The White House has set out a two-part plan to overhaul the US economy by upgrading its infrastructure and expanding its social safety net. The costs of the programmes would lead to the US running annual deficits of over $1.3tn over the next decade and debt rising to 117% of the value of economic output by 2031.Alongside rebuilding bridges, roads, airports and other infrastructure, Biden has proposed a $13bn federal investment to roll out broadband internet access. Democrats are also pushing to expand and reform the US’s social programmes with government money for paid family leave and universal pre-school.In part the plan would be funded by tax increases on corporations and the very wealthy. Biden has already proposed increasing US corporation taxes to 28% from 21%, a plan opposed by all Republicans and some Democrats.Biden has said he is willing to negotiate with his political opponents on the shape and size of his proposals, but he will struggle to find Republican support for his agenda. No Republicans voted for his $1.9tn Covid stimulus bill and he has already been forced to scale back his infrastructure bill to $1.7tn from the originally proposed $2.2tn effort.The economy has improved markedly since Biden took office and the pandemic began to wane in the US. More than half of the country is now fully vaccinated and hiring has picked up as the economy has reopened.But the Biden administration believes the pandemic highlighted many structural issues with the US economy that need to be addressed by federal spending.Unemployment rates for Black and Latino Americans remain disproportionately high and women were hit particularly hard by the pandemic recession – in many cases because a lack of affordable childcare prevented them from working.A huge increase in government spending has fueled concerns about rising inflation. Prices on goods including lumber, cars and chicken have soared in recent months, and the commerce department said on Friday that the personal consumption expenditures index, a key measure of inflation, increased by 3.1% in April from a year ago, its highest level since 1992.On Thursday the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said the budget would push US debt above the size of the US economy, but said the proposed plan was responsible and would not contribute to inflationary pressures.“I believe it is a fiscally responsible program,” Yellen told a House appropriations subcommittee. More

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      in US Politics

      Republicans’ blocking of the Capitol commission shows how deep the rot is

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      The question now is not so much whether the Republican party can be saved any time in the foreseeable future. It is what Joe Biden and the Democrats should do when faced with a party determined to subvert democracy through any means necessary, including violence.On Friday Republicans in the Senate torpedoed an effort to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the deadly insurrection by Donald Trump’s supporters at the US Capitol on 6 January, deploying the procedural move known as the filibuster to stop it even being debated.Fearful perhaps of what such a commission might uncover about their own role as co-conspirators, most brushed aside personal pleas by Gladys Sicknick, the mother of a police officer who was that day sprayed with a chemical, collapsed and later had a stroke and died.“A country that cannot even agree to investigate an assault on its Capitol is in big trouble, indeed,” observed Susan Glasser in the New Yorker magazine.Tellingly Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, who previously condemned Trump’s role in the riot, reportedly asked senators to nix the commission as a “personal favour”. It was a sign that the rot now goes deeper than a cult of personality into the foundations of the Grand Old Party (GOP).It is a party that still has room for Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman under investigation over sex trafficking allegations, who this week appeared to incite supporters to take up arms. “We have a second amendment in this country, and I think we have an obligation to use it,” he said.Gaetz was speaking in Georgia on his “America First” tour alongside local congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently compared coronavirus mask mandates to the Holocaust. The pair of mini-Trumps are taking his playbook of attention-grabbing outrage to new extremes.Bill Kristol, director of the Defending Democracy Together advocacy organisation, tweeted on Friday morning: “Marjorie Taylor Greene bragged yesterday that she and Matt Gaetz are taking over the GOP. Today Senate Republicans are set to block a January 6th commission that could make that somewhat more difficult. Violence and authoritarianism has enablers as well as instigators.”One of America’s two major parties now falls outside the democratic mainstream – think “far right” in European terms. But are Democrats taking the existential threat sufficiently seriously or sleepwalking towards disaster in the next election cycle?Joe Manchin, a moderate senator from West Virginia, had said Republicans have “no excuse” to oppose the commission. Yet he also repeated his refusal to contemplate abolishing the filibuster, effectively giving Republicans carte blanche to block infrastructure spending, voting rights legislation, statehood for the District of Columbia and more.Minutes after Friday’s vote, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, seemed to get it, arguing that Republicans acted out of “out of fear or fealty” to Trump and made his false claim of a stolen election their official policy. “Trump’s big lie is now the defining principle of what was once the party of Lincoln,” Schumer said. “Republican state legislatures, seizing on the big lie, are conducting the greatest assault on voting rights since the beginning of Jim Crow.”But national voting rights legislation that would counter such steps is in deep trouble on Capitol Hill. Biden’s deadline for a police reform law named after George Floyd has come and gone due to Republican objections. His ambitious infrastructure investment is stalling as Republicans seek to shave billions off.Whatever the president’s head tells him, his heart has always favoured bipartisan compromise. He may also feel obliged to make a show of reaching across the aisle to satisfy moderates such as Manchin. Yet Democratic majorities are painfully narrow and each day brings the midterm elections closer.Fred Wellman, a military veteran who is executive director of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, tweeted: “We need to fight for our Republic. I don’t understand at all what the Democratic leadership is thinking. Stop fucking around. Stop letting McConnell walk all over you. For God’s sake act like you are the majority. We are all out here fighting. Where are you?”That question just became even more urgent and the case for abolishing the filibuster, passing Biden’s agenda and acknowledging that the Republican party has gone rogue just became stronger. More

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      in World Politics

      Rebalancing the Power Asymmetry Between Israel and Palestine

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      Shortly after the International Criminal Court announced its decision to investigate Israel for war crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Tel Aviv continued its annexation of East Jerusalem through forced expulsions in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The residents protesting their eviction were met with excessive force from the Israeli military, including the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, in the midst of the holy month of Ramadan, and attacking peaceful worshippers. Hamas, a Palestinian faction that controls Gaza, reacted by launching thousands of rockets into Israel, approximately 90% of which were intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome defense system.

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      In retaliation, Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes on Gaza, killing over 200 Palestinians, including 65 children. On May 14, an airstrike leveled a Gaza tower block housing media organizations, among them Al-Jazeera and Associated Press. This attack on press freedom caused an uproar around the world, including in the United States. A week later, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Egypt. Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories continues.

      The Power Imbalance

      This series of events demonstrates the power imbalance between Israel and Palestine. This asymmetry is a result of decades of British and US support — political, economic and military — for the Zionist settler-colonial project. Over the decades, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has, in essence, consisted of Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing against Palestinians and being met with resistance. The latest bout of fighting emphasizes Washington’s tendency to justify Israel’s behavior while perpetuating the false narrative that Palestinian violence is terrorism. As such, there is an urgent need to rebalance the equation to protect Palestinian rights and lives through changing the narrative, supporting Israeli civil society and ending US weapons sales to Israel.

      Embed from Getty Images

      US leaders typically bring up the legitimacy of armed violence only when violence is being perpetrated by Palestinians. For instance, instead of condemning Israel’s bombing of civilian areas, President Joe Biden, like all of his predecessors, claimed that Israel has a right to self-defense. Although he did call for a ceasefire, Biden’s words fall flat. First, the US has repeatedly blocked UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Second, on May 5, Biden went on to approve a whopping $735-million sale of precision-guided weapons to Israel. Third, the ceasefire brokered by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Egypt does not address the core issues of Palestinian statehood and Israeli occupation. Rather, it manages armed violence in the short term, promising to rebuild the same Gaza that was destroyed by US weapons.

      Emboldened by Israel’s actions and the context of impunity, some Israeli settlers in the occupied territories have formed mobs to sporadically attack Palestinians in the streets. With ethnic clashes engulfing the country, the Israeli settlers will get to have their day in a civil court while Palestinians are subject to Israeli military courts. In fact, Israel has arrested over 1,550 demonstrators since May 9, many of whom are children. Among those detained, over 70% are Arab citizens of Israel. This disproportionality exemplifies the impunity of Jewish Israeli citizens vis-à-vis Palestinians and highlights the power imbalance inherent in Israel’s judicial system.

      Palestinians, often armed only with rocks, are commonly condemned as terrorists by Israel. Yet a nuclear Israel, backed by the most powerful country in the world, is always justified in its self-defense. Hamas is a security threat to Israel, but the damage it inflicts is usually contained to the few rockets that manage to get through the Iron Dome. Furthermore, conflating Palestinians, especially Gazans, with Hamas is a dangerous assumption that has a direct cost for Palestinian lives.

      As part of this power asymmetry between Israel and Palestine, Tel Aviv has long controlled the narrative around the conflict, resulting in a paradigm in which any criticism of Israel is perceived as anti-Semitism. This makes legitimate dialogue and policy reevaluation challenging. However, the narrative is slowly changing thanks to long-standing Palestinian activism.

      Peace Beyond Borders

      How can the power imbalance be offset and peace achieved? A simple answer would be ending the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, restoring the 1967 borders and respecting the rights of Palestinians. Short of this, there are three additional steps that can go a long way in improving the facts on the ground for Palestinians.

      First, human rights activists, and especially journalists, have a moral responsibility to counter the narrative that opposing Israeli apartheid is anti-Semitic, that Tel Aviv’s actions are justified in the name of self-defense, and that Palestinian resistance is terrorism. Thanks to social media, Palestinian activists have slowly shifted this narrative, with many leaders and protesters around the world denouncing Israel’s actions and advocating for Palestinian rights.

      Second, Israeli citizens themselves must recognize the atrocities upon which their state was built. Human rights groups within Israel, such as B’Tselem, voice concern and attempt to raise awareness, but it is up to ordinary citizens to decide if ethnically cleansing Palestinians is the right way to build a nation. Israelis committed to a democracy built around values of liberty, equality and reciprocity have a responsibility to oppose their government’s policy, including the targeting of NGOs that promote Palestinian rights.

      Third, the US must halt weapons sales to Israel and push for the protection of Palestinian rights. Currently, Israel receives $3.8 billion in military aid from the US annually and is equipped with high-technology defense systems such as the Iron Dome.

      In a marked shift of mood, US congress members are standing up for Palestinian rights. For instance, Rashida Tlaib (herself a Palestinian-American), Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have condemned Israel’s use of armed force against civilians, as well as its annexation policy. On April 15, these representatives co-sponsored Betty McCollum’s bill defending the human rights of Palestinian children and families living under occupation. Senator Bernie Sanders also introduced a bill to block a weapons sale recently approved by President Biden.

      These are positive steps toward rebalancing the power dynamic between Israel and Palestine, but without a comprehensive shift of the narrative to more accurately reflect the complex reality on the ground, correcting decades of asymmetry will be hard to achieve.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      First Thing | Senate Republicans set to block Capitol riot commission

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      Good morning.Senate Republicans are expected to stymie the Democrats’ efforts on Friday to set up a bipartisan, 9/11-style investigative commission into the 6 January Capitol attack.Debate on legislation to form the commission was set to begin late on Thursday, but work on another bill pushed consideration to Friday after the Senate adjourned at 3am. Friday is set to be another long day, with the Republicans expected to filibuster the House-approved commission.
      If successful, “Filibuster Friday” will be the first filibuster in the Biden presidency to halt Senate legislative action, with the Senate evenly split 50-50 and a filibuster requiring a vote of 60 to cut off debate.
      Today’s vote comes as a Guardian analysis found that at least 70% of people charged over the 6 January attack had been released as they wait for trial, in stark contrast to the 25% of federal defendants who are typically released before their trial.
      Legal experts believe the disparity indicates a likelihood that many of the alleged rioters may not serve any prison time at all, even if they are convicted or plead guilty.
      US investigating if Ukraine interfered in 2020 electionFederal prosecutors in New York are investigating whether Ukrainian officials attempted to undermine Joe Biden and help Donald Trump win the 2020 presidential election, according to a report from the New York Times.Part of the investigation includes looking into whether the officials used Rudy Giuliani, then Trump’s personal lawyer, to spread misleading claims about Biden.Arizona preparing to start killing death row inmates againArizona has “refurbished” its gas chamber after 22 years of disuse as the state prepares to restart executions.The move comes seven years after the botched lethal injection of Joseph Wood in 2014, and after the Guardian revealed last month that Arizona had spent $1.5m on a batch of pentobarbital, a sedative which it intends to use as its main lethal injection.10 dead in mass shooting in San Jose, CaliforniaMore details have emerged about the shooting at a San Jose rail yard this week that left 10 people dead, including the shooter.
      Authorities have identified the victims as bus and light rail operators, mechanics, linemen and an assistant superintendent: Paul Delacruz Megia, 42; Taptejdeep Singh, 36; Adrian Balleza, 29; Jose Dejesus Hernandez III, 35; Timothy Michael Romo, 49; Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40; Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, 63, and Lars Kepler Lane, 63. A ninth victim, Alex Ward Fritch, 49, was transported to a local hospital in critical condition and died on Wednesday evening, the coroner’s office said.
      The county sheriff has identified the shooter as a longtime maintenance worker at the facility. The shooter’s ex-wife said he had talked about killing people at work more than a decade ago.
      In other news…
      Three Washington state police officers charged in killing of Manuel Ellis: Moments before his death, the 33-year-old Black father of two called out: “I can’t breathe.” The charges filed against three Tacoma police officers mark the first time first time the state attorney general’s office has filed criminal charges against police officers for unlawful use of deadly force.
      California launches a $1.5m Covid vaccine lottery, becoming the latest state to incentivize people to get vaccinated with the country’s largest single prize draw.
      Whistleblower known to speak out about UFOs claims Pentagon tried to discredit him: Luis Elizondo, who headed the Pentagon’s now-defunct Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, lodged a complaint with the defense department’s inspector general alleging that his former agency threatened to tell people he was crazy.
      Vaccination rate patterns in Wisconsin reflect those nationwide in that they vary widely between rural and urban areas and political, religious and racial groups.
      The Biden administration is facing criticism for backing a Trump-era oil drilling project in Alaska.
      Texas Democratic lawmakers killed a transphobic bill intended for student athletes by stalling until it passed its deadline.
      Bill Cosby’s parole petition was denied after he refused therapy for sex offenders.
      Stat of the day: 89% of new tobacco smokers are addicted by the age of 25The number of smokers worldwide has reached an all-time high of 1.1 billion, with 8 million killed in 2019, according to a new study.Don’t miss this: a conversation about American colonialism and sovereigntyJacqueline Keeler, founder of the #notyourmascot hashtag that highlighted the way sports teams use Native American mascots to perpetuate racist caricatures, spoke to the Guardian about her new book, Standoff, which explores the differences between two recent attempts to assert sovereignty on American soil: the Bundy clan’s far-right interpretation of Oregon’s constitution, and the Standing Rock Sioux protest over the Dakota Access pipeline.Last Thing: A glass case of emotionAmazon was torn apart on the internet on Thursday after sharing a video of “AmaZen”, a booth installed in an Amazon warehouse for employees to go focus on their mental health. “I feel like liveable wages and working conditions are better than a mobile Despair Closet,” writer Talia Levin tweeted.Sign upSign up for the US morning briefingFirst Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.Get in TouchIf you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com More

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      in Elections

      Senate Republicans will likely sink Democrats’ bid to set up Capitol attack commission

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      Senate Republicans were poised on Thursday to kill an attempt by Democrats to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the 6 January attack on the Capitol in which a pro-Trump mob ransacked the building in an attempt to disrupt the formalization of Joe Biden’s winning of the presidency.The bill was intended to set up a 9/11-style commission that would examine its causes and impact and exactly who was involved.Donald Trump is still powerful in the Republican party and has reacted angrily to the idea of such a commission. Observers believe that many top Republicans are fearful of antagonizing Trump and his loyal followers and also worried about what such a commission might uncover, including potential links between Republican lawmakers and some of those who invaded the building.The Thursday vote would mark the first successful use of a filibuster in the Biden presidency to halt Senate legislative action, and is likely to boost pressure on the president to get rid of the Senate tradition that requires a vote by 60 of the 100 senators to cut off debate and advance a bill.With the Senate evenly split 50-50, Democrats needed the support of 10 Republicans to move to the commission bill, sparking fresh debate over whether the time has come to change the rules and lower the threshold to 51 votes to take up legislation.The House had already approved the measure with 35 Republican votes. Democrats have warned that if Republicans are willing to use the filibuster to stop an arguably popular measure, it shows the limits of trying to broker compromises, particularly on bills related to election reforms or other aspects of the Democrats’ agenda.“There is no excuse for any Republican to vote against this commission,” said Senator Joe Manchin before the vote though the centrist Democrat still made it clear that he would not support efforts to do away with the filibuster. “I’m not ready to destroy our government,” Manchin said.Before the vote, Gladys Sicknick, the mother of the late Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick, along with Sicknick’s girlfriend Sandra Garza and two officers who fought the protesters that day, met with several Republican senators to try to persuade them to act.Sicknick was among many officers protecting the building, some seen in videos in hand-to-hand combat with the mob. He collapsed immediately after engaging with the rioters and died the next day.In a statement Wednesday, Gladys Sicknick was more blunt: “I suggest that all congressmen and senators who are against this bill visit my son’s grave in Arlington national cemetery and, while there, think about what their hurtful decisions will do to those officers who will be there for them going forward.”Republican opposition to the commission, however, was carefully marshaled by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who has declared the bill a “purely political exercise”, since Senate committees are already looking into security shortfalls during the Capitol attack.McConnell, who once said Trump was responsible for “provoking” the attack on the Capitol, now says of Democrats: “They’d like to continue to litigate the former president, into the future.” More

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      in World Politics

      Europe’s Thirst for Virtual Water: Blueberry Fields Forever?

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      Blueberries have long established themselves among the superfoods. They are tasty, low in calories and full of beneficial nutrients. Most importantly, they are a rich source of antioxidants that serve to protect against a range of diseases, most notably cancer. This might explain why the demand for blueberries has steadily increased over the past few years. Between 2015 and 2019, Europe’s blueberry imports increased from 45,000 tons to 113,000 tons. Between 2018 and 2019 alone, the volume of imports rose by more than 40%.

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      Blueberries consist mostly of water. In fact, some 85% of the fruit is H2O. And that’s where the problem starts. In Western Europe, most of the blueberries you find in supermarkets today are imported from Spain; more precisely, from one province in the autonomous region of Andalusia, Huelva, located in the southwest, where Spain borders Portugal. Andalusia is known for the beauty of its major cities like Seville, Granada and Cordoba, and its beach resorts of Marbella, Torremolinos and Malaga.

      Andalusia also happens to be among the poorest autonomous regions in Spain. In 2019, it ranked close to the bottom with respect to GDP per capita; only Estremadura and Melilla ranked lower. In 2016, around 40% of the population lived in poverty; among children, the poverty rate stood at 44%.

      The Blueberry Dark Side

      Andalusia has also been the launching pad for Vox, Spain’s radical populist right. In the regional elections of 2018, Vox gained 11% of the vote, which put the party in a pivotal position. Since neither the left nor the right commanded a majority in the region’s parliament, Vox found itself in a position of kingmaker. At the time, Vox came out in favor of the center right. In Huelva, like across Andalusia, Vox is a major political player. In the November national election of 2019, Vox garnered more than 20% of the vote in Huelva, second only to the socialists who won 36%.

      Vox is a political force to be reckoned with. The party promotes itself as an ardent defender of ordinary hardworking people and of the unity of the Spanish state, threatened by Catalan and Basque independence aspirations. At the same time, the party has vigorously rejected any human responsibility for climate change. Environmental concerns are certainly not on the party’s agenda.

      This brings us back to blueberries from Spain. Over the past several years, the cultivation of blueberries in Huelva province has progressively expanded. Between 2016 and 2020, blueberry spring exports (February to May) increased by more than 80% in volume and more than 40% in value. At the same time, land devoted to blueberries increased from 4.4 squared miles to roughly 14 square miles. As a result, production more than doubled, from 20,815 tons in 2014-15 to 45,506 tons in 2019-20. Altogether, the cultivation of the three major “red fruits” produced in Huelva — blueberries, strawberries and raspberries — provides employment to over 100,000 people, generating roughly €1 billion ($1.2 billion) in revenue.

      Embed from Getty Images

      This is one side of the equation, one that Huelva’s authorities like to propagate. Unfortunately for them, the other (dark) side has once again been making international headlines. Here the focus is on the disastrous impact that cash crops have had on the natural environment, in particular on the Donana national park, a wetland reserve and UN Heritage site that is a refuge for over 2,000 different species of wildlife and serves as a way station for millions of migratory birds every year.

      The national park was already on the receiving end of an environmental catastrophe that severely affected its delicate ecological balance. In 1998, a dam burst at a mine near Seville, releasing up to 5 million cubic meters of toxic slush into the Guadiamar River, the main water source for the park. Cleaning up the mess cost the Spanish state some €90 million. It spent a further €360 million to restore parts of the park. Some of the money came from the European Union. It took several years for the park’s wildlife to recover.

      Yet little was learned from the disaster. By 2016, UNESCO threatened to put the park on its danger list. And for good reason: As The Guardian reported at the time, Donana was “said to have lost 80% of its natural water supplies due to marsh drainage, intensive agriculture, and water pollution from the mining industry.” The article cited a report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) that charged that farmers had been drilling more than 1,000 illegal wells that accelerated “the park’s destruction, as drought-resistant plants replace water-dependent ones in the region.”

      Ecological Crisis

      The expansion of cash crop cultivation in Huelva has only added to the ecological crisis, once again ringing alarm bells not only in individual countries that are among Huelva’s most important customers, such as Germany and the United Kingdom, but also in Brussels. A recent report on the website of Germany’s premier news program, ARD’s “Tagesschau,” set the tone: “Spain’s national park is drying out.” The main reason: Huelva’s red fruit industry has not only encroached on park land but, more importantly, has systematically starved the park of its most important lifeline — water. According to the report, estimates are that roughly 1,000 of the wells dug to irrigate the plantations are illegal. In other words, nothing had changed since 2016.

      By 2020, the European Commission had had enough. It took Spain to court. In December, it charged that Spain had looked the other way and allowed the continued illegal appropriation of groundwater, in the process inflicting serious damage to the nationally and internationally protected Donana wetlands. For all practical purposes, the failure lay largely with the regional Andalusian government. Five years ago, the regional government advanced a plan to protect Donana; five years later, according to an article in Spain’s leading newspaper El Pais, only 17% of the measures had been realized, 43% were incomplete, the rest — nada.

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      The regional government has, however, made an effort to go after Huelva’s most egregious water thieves. In March, two ex-mayors — one a socialist, the other a conservative — were put on trial together with 13 farmers, all of them accused of illegal appropriation of water. At the same time, the government has tried to shut down illegal wells. But with over a thousand currently in operation, the backlog is great, and more often than not the authorities have met with determined resistance.

      At the same time, however, the regional government has continued to license new water rights. In 2017, for instance, the government conceded more than 270,000 cubic meters of public groundwater to a cooperative society, which allowed the cooperative to more than double its production of blueberries in the Sierra de Huelva. All this, as a public official in charge of water management claimed, was done in the name of “sustainable development.” Donana’s endangered wildlife would probably disagree. But then, they don’t have a voice, and those speaking in their name, such as the WWF, have to a large degree been unheeded.

      Virtual Water

      Spanish blueberries produced in Huelva are a prime example of the ludicrousness of a development strategy based on international trade. Spain is a semi-arid, water-poor country. The distribution of water across the national territory is highly unequal. Water is relatively abundant in the north and relatively scarce in the south. Agriculture accounts for a large junk of the country’s total water use, roughly 60%. Yet agriculture contributes just 3% to the country’s GDP and employs roughly 4% of the active workforce. Particularly in the south, decades of agricultural practices have exhausted the soil and turned once fertile land into desert, shrinking the supply of arable land.

      Under the circumstances, producing a crop as water-intensive as blueberries in a semi-arid region borders on the absurd. The amount of water required to produce a certain amount of a product is generally referred to as a water footprint. The water footprint of blueberries is around 840 liters per one kilogram of fruit. This means that embedded in every kilo of blueberries for sale in the local supermarket are more than 800 liters of water. This is what is nowadays known as “virtual water” — the amount of water hidden from and invisible to the end consumer. Virtual water has become an increasingly important concept in international trade theory. What it means in practical terms is that with every kilo of blueberries we import from Spain, we bring in more than 800 liters of water.

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      By now, the absurdity of the situation should be obvious. Not only do we import water from a water-scarce region, but by importing the virtual water embedded in blueberries, we contribute to the depletion of a scarce resource in the exporting region which, in turn, is a major cause of the gradual destruction of one of Western Europe’s largest natural wetlands. And things are likely to get even worse. The upsurge in demand for blueberries and other red fruits has brought new producers into the market.

      As a result, prices have substantially declined, compelling producers to expand production and explore new market opportunities. Just the other day, after years of negotiations, Brazil gave a green light to the importation of blueberries from Huelva after the red fruits industry passed an on-the-ground inspection by a delegation of Brazilian authorities. And Brazil might only be the beginning. Huelva authorities have already set their eyes on even larger markets, notably China and India. In the meantime, environmental advocates are pinning their hopes on the European Court of Justice, which is supposed to consider the case over the next few months. Judgments rendered by the court are binding. Member states are obliged to comply with court decisions without delay. If found guilty, Spain might have to pay heavy fines.

      The WWF, which has been among the most vocal and determined advocates of the Donana national park, is confident that the court will rule in its favor. As Juan Carlos del Olmo, the secretary general of WWF Spain, put it, “Spain is about to be condemned for allowing the destruction of Doñana, a heritage that belongs to all Europeans.” He emphasized that the “Spanish authorities and especially the Regional Government of Andalusia, which have both turned a blind eye to this situation for years,” need “to take real measures to halt the degradation of Doñana.” This means, above all, closing the illegal wells that are “looting the aquifer and destroying biodiversity.”

      2020 marked the fifth anniversary of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, to which Spain has committed itself “at the highest level.” This includes ensuring “the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources.” It is not entirely obvious how the export of massive amounts of virtual water from Huelva’s blueberry fields is supposed to contribute to the latter goal.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden officials condemned for backing Trump-era Alaska drilling project

      by

      Joe Biden’s administration is facing an onslaught of criticism from environmentalists after opting to defend the approval of a massive oil and gas drilling project in the frigid northern reaches of Alaska.In a briefing filed in federal court on Wednesday, the US Department of Justice said the Trump-era decision to allow the project in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska’s north slope was “reasonable and consistent” with the law and should be allowed to go ahead.This stance means the Biden administration is contesting a lawsuit brought by environmental groups aimed at halting the drilling due to concerns over the impact upon wildlife and planet-heating emissions. The US president has paused all new drilling leases on public land but is allowing this Alaska lease, approved under Trump, to go ahead.The project, known as Willow, is being overseen by the oil company ConocoPhillips and is designed to extract more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day for the next 30 years. Environmentalists say allowing the project is at odds with Biden’s vow to combat the climate crisis and drastically reduce US emissions.“It’s incredibly disappointing to see the Biden administration defending this environmentally disastrous project,” said Kristen Monsell, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that have sued to stop the drilling. “President Biden promised climate action and our climate can’t afford more huge new oil-drilling projects.”The Arctic is heating up at three times the rate of the rest of the planet and ConocoPhillips will have to resort to Kafkaesque interventions to be able to drill for oil in an environment being destroyed by the burning of that fuel. The company plans to install “chillers’ into the Alaskan permafrost, which is rapidly melting due to global heating, to ensure it is stable enough to host drilling equipment.Monsell said the attempts to refreeze the thawing permafrost in order to extract more fossil fuel “highlights the ridiculousness of drilling in the Arctic”. Kirsten Miller, acting executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said Willow “is the poster child for the type of massive fossil fuel development that must be avoided today if we’re to avoid the worst climate impacts down the road”.The Willow project will involve drilling up to 250 wells and associated infrastructure, such as a processing facility, hundreds of miles of new pipelines and roads and an airstrip, in the north-eastern corner of the petroleum reserve, which is a federally owned tract of land roughly the size of Indiana.Trump’s administration approved the drilling late in the former president’s term and activists hoped Biden would reverse this decision to meet his climate goals. A recent landmark report by the International Energy Agency found that there can be no new fossil fuel projects anywhere if the world is to avoid dangerous global heating.Native Alaskan groups have also opposed the project over fears it will adversely impact the abundant local wildlife, such as polar bears, fish and migrating caribou.“This project is in the important fall migration for Nuiqsut,” said Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, a resident of Nuiqsut, a community in the north slope. “It should not happen. The village spoke in opposition and the greed for profit should not be allowed over our village.” More