Showing posts with label exploitation. Show all posts

WSJ Documentary On Wagner Group: Mining the Absence of Environmental Leadership

WSJ Documentary On Wagner Group: Mining the Absence of Environmental Leadership

The new 2023 Wall Street Journal Documentary on Russia's Wagner Group - Shadow Men: Inside Wagner, Russia's Secret War Company - deserves a Pulitzer Prize. I try to embed it below, but follow the link above if that does not work.

It's a story linking the exploitation of extracted natural resources to war crimes. First in Syria - which offered Wagner Group 25% of the money at oil fields they protected - to become a "lilly pad" expansion to Libya, Central African Republic, and other weak states. The gold mine they took over in Central African Republic is now a major source of funding for Wagner Group and Russia's war on Ukraine.

What I will add here for commentary is that the colonial forced extraction of virgin raw materials, in unregulated and poverty stricken lands, demands we re-read Heart of Darkness. But my liberal and environmentalist colleagues largely draw the absolutely wrong lesson from that. The mostly well intentioned left tries, through Basel Convention Amendments and R2 and E-Steward Certifications - to label suspect, racially profile, and boycott trade in everything that is NOT virgin material extraction.

The "cultural lobotomy" of denying Africa's Tech Sector to come test and buy used equipment comes out of a fear of exploitation. We want to keep our consciences shiny, and good enough on you for that. But watch the documentary below. Wagner understands what immense power a hundred dollar bill has to an African or a Russian prisoner. They pay people to be brutal, they recruit sharp-elbowed youth, and they succeed in taking over governments precisely because people in those places are so inexpensive.

Why environmentalists what to deny those people good jobs in repair and recycling is not so much unfathomable as it is a symptom of tragic misunderstanding. Hanlon's Razor. I get frustrated at groups like Basel Action Network and SERI at times, but don't want to overstep and mistake ignorance or stupidity for malelovence. But when we don't allow the Youth in Emerging Markets to create valuable recycling and repair jobs - like our litter collection offset project underway in Cameroon - it just leaves a vacuum which allows exploitation of hopelessness by filthy new Belgian Leopolds (the king who did not annex Congo, but made the Congolese people his personal property) like Yevgeny Prigozhin become the de facto job market for high school graduates.

Boycotting or shaming trade as "exploitation" is, de facto, removing your privileged ass from environmental leadership. Contract managers, certification bodies, regulators, and activists who would prevent me from employing geeks of color in these same emerging markets are helping to supply the labor Wagner relies on to brutalize freedom seekers.

Watch.

What $20,000 Means: Blog to Sasha Rainbow, Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal, @PlaceboWorld

Dear Directors, Producers, and Stars of the Music Video "Life Is What You Make It",

About two weeks ago, I ran across the release of your new Placebo music video through my organization, Fair Trade Recycling / WR3A, which researches public posts on Agbogbloshie. Despite recognizing some of Placebo's hits from the past two decades, I admit I was not at all acquainted with the artists. Over the course of 2 weeks, I've developed a much greater appreciation for not just the art, but the social justice that Brian and others with the band strive for.

I know a lot more about African recycling than I know about music. I've been to Abgogbloshie and Old Fadama several times with our members from Tamale, Ghana. We have translated for or been interviewed by several documentary and print journalism investigations on so-called e-waste dumping in Africa. Here are 4 good articles and films on the topic of export.

3Sat
Aljazeera
Smithsonian
SciDev

But let me explain how we can work together to create clean and sustainable recycling jobs for the "workers of Agbogbloshie". There's a win-win here, and there are plenty of other people besides me you can go through if I've tarnished the relationship by introducing the subject. ("Alright then, I'll go to hell," often starts here).

Latest Pics of Kids at Dumps - #TakingTuesday #FloggingAgbogbloshie

Pics of Kids at Dumps - The Gift that Keeps on Taking.

See today's solicitation from our friends at Basel Action Network, photo of scrapper at Agbogbloshie. It implies your donation for #GivingTuesday will benefit "Children aged 11-18" scavenging at dumps to earn $1-3 per day. Another waste NGO flogging Agbogbloshie.

Ages 11-18?? B******t. See Journal of Health, Exploratory Health Assessment of Chemical Exposures at E-Waste Recycling and Scrapyard Facility in Ghana (Jack Caravanos, DrPH, CIH; Edith E. Clarke, DrPH, MPH; Carl S. Osei, MD, MPH; Yaw Amoyaw-Osei⁾

Demographic Characteristics: "The ages of the 87 e-waste exposed subjects from Agbogbloshie ranged from 15 to 73 years. The mean age was 32 years with a standard deviation of 5.6..."

Mean age 32. Median age of 25.5 years. That's not "child labor". The mean age of women giving childbirth in Ghana is 22.2 years, for crying out loud. The employment data at the recycling yard shows far less child labor than agriculture sector, in fact it's above average for workforce in Accra.

Remember, this is from the organization that "never, ever stated" 80% of used electronics were dumped. They are shameless in their "data" when it's used to solicit donations. They have a view of math, as something that your wishes and intentions give you mysterious powers over. And it's full of accidental racism, bigotry, povertyporn, and profiling. Yuck.

The art of making up very specific, scientificky sounding stats and numbers is bad for environmentalism and development. But you know what's REALLY offensive to the workers in Agbogbloshie (who I'm still in touch with every week)? That they are raising money with POSTER CHILDREN and they do not share one penny with anyone whose photos they use.

NONE. I think this qualifies for worst non-profit EVER. They can't even do #PovertyPorn right.

Welcome to #TakingTuesday

The Zen of Economics Poem

Silly poem with a side order of Tom Waits Underground (Robots) to Friz Lang's Metropolis.

Term Paper Required Reading: Waste Policy Haves and Have Nots

Here are three background reading assignments:

A: History of the light bulb (Arizona State University INVSEE)
B: Rapidly Urbanizing Populations Face Unique Challenges (WorldWatch Institute)
C: Network of Tinkerers - 2007 US Bureau of Labor Statistics

Network of Tinkerers - Bureau of Labor Statistics
	[PDF] www.bls.gov/ore/pdf/ec070120.pdf File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View by PB Meyer - 2007 - Cited by 5 - Related articles Nov 5, 2007 – Network of Tinkerers: A Model of Open-Source Technology Innovation. Peter B. Meyer, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Working Paper 413 ...

When you fail to understand that "waste" is relative, and you apply the precautions over past waste in present contexts, you would take the used printing press from Benjamin Franklin, you'd take the used RCA victrolas from from Japan Victrola Corporation.

The movement of used goods from "haves" to "have nots" is a story of opportunity. Sales of working product (USA producing new cars and selling them to Europe) is an exchange from "haves" to "have nots". Donations of rice to children is an exchange. Purchase of coffee from a country that has coffee, for consumption in a country that does not have coffee, is an exchange between haves and have nots.

When you study the history of development, and the history of tinkering, and the history of new products, from light bulbs to flush toilets, you prepare yourself to do a better job trading in commerce. Or you can tell yourself that prohibition, boycotts, and bans on commerce are the answer... if you ignore the history of prohibition, bans, and boycotts.

Holy Slashdot! Look at the Certainty over Fake Data!

So sure of themselves. Feel the righteous indignation peculating the internet... It gives environmentalists super powers. Enfused with the right amount of coffee, the enraged altruist can hurdle statistics and peer reviewed studies and protect Africa from the proven innocent. In our latest episode, e-waste bans will protect Americans from a future "epidemic of cyber crime!"

Race!
Income!
Epidemic!
Globalization!
Exploitation!
Environmental waste!

Insert your cognitive risk here: ________________________

Below are responses to my post in Slashdot.org ("news for nerds, stuff that matters") about the three studies (Kahhat/Williams, UNEP, and BAN's own adviced Kenya Study) which report that 80-90% of imported electronics goods (paid for by the importer, after all) are reused, while 85% of the "e-waste" filmed at Agbogbloshie, etc. is generated by Africans after decades of reuse.

Mon dieu! The outrage! People really sure that if it comes from developed nations, and is purchased by "backwards" Africa, that it's gotta be bad. Lots of caffeine evident in discussions of e-waste. The superpower of Certainty! The power of Smug.

Seems (according to one self-identified ewaste pro) that I "have got a chip on my shoulder". Or another quips that that I haven't read "customs reports", or I'm "missing the point", and that even if the imports are mostly good, that "it's still a useful myth to shame Westerners into doing the right thing" (that being... to boycott black people?). My usual favorite shows up - that eventually working equipment will become e-waste. ERGO... Egyptians shouldn't be allowed to purchase working equipment until they have e-waste processes established. (Let's try applying that to the next i-Device sold in USA)...

Meanwhile, BAN.org director Jim Puckett agreed with me, face to face, that there were no CRTs at the end of the Hong-Kong-CBS-Wasteland trail, and that the SKD factories he objects to are reusing and recycling the elective upgrades ... he just objects to the parts refurbished. He hoped the poor will "leapfrog" us, he once told me.

Now, as good as those contract manufacturing factories may be, it's the principle of repairing and refurbishing them prior to export which BAN professes. Puckett hopes he will create USA CRT monitor refurbishing jobs by requiring "pre -repair" facilities to remove bad capacitors (or working ones that may be upgraded by better ones), effectively eliminating any incentive for the sale to overseas repairpeople. Banning the export, we'll repair them here! Tell that to California, which didn't even TEST the working ones when exports were banned - they just shredded them, and now California companies have requested permission to landfill the shredded glass. That's what created the sellers market, forcing Africans to buy from people willing to stoop to doing business with them.

Safer to stand back, and to clap when they are arrested. Chains... prison bars... defamation...

Boycotts!! Boycott the poor dammit!!! It's the only solution to globalization!!!

Subjugation vs. Exploitation: Fear and Guilt

A black slave in South Carolina stands up and talks to the other slaves about learning to read.

A woman in puritan New England demonstrates cunning.

A woman in Saudi Arabia wants to tuck back her veil and drive a car.

A labor contract manufacturer begins to make their own brand on a third shift from reused parts.

An Indian woman elopes to marry outside her caste, erasing the dowry negotiations of her parents.

sub·ju·ga·tion
[suhb-juh-gey-shuhn] noun

the act, fact, or process of subjugating, or bringing under control; enslavement: The subjugation of the American Indians happened across the country.

- - - -

This is about the cultural cognition of risk, leveraged by a combination of quasi-religious faith and societal leveraging of a zero-sum concept of "exploitation", to subjugate groups for financial reasons.

Fallacy: Correlation and Causation

The debate about Electronics Recycling is about a correlation with poverty. From Wikipedia:

"Correlation does not imply causation" (related to "ignoring a common cause" and questionable cause) is a phrase used in science and statistics to emphasize that a correlation between two variables does not automatically imply that one causes the other (though correlation is necessary for linear causation in the absence of any third and countervailing causative variable, it can indicate possible causes or areas for further investigation; in other words, correlation is a hint).^[1]^[2]

The opposite belief, correlation proves causation, is a logical fallacy by which two events that occur together are claimed to have a cause-and-effect relationship. The fallacy is also known as cum hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for "with this, therefore because of this") and false cause. It is a common fallacy in which it is assumed that, because two things or events occur together, one must be the cause of the other. By contrast, the fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc, requires that one event occur after the other, and so may be considered a related fallacy.

Most of the debate about globalization comes down to trade between "rich" and "poor". Yes, there are certainly economic incentives to move lower wage and higher polluting activities to places (note a place is not a nation) where unemployment is high and environmental enforcement is low. Basel Action Network and Greenpeace have this as a foundation in their proposal to ban trade in used recyclables and repairables between OECD countries (roughly 1 billion) and non-OECD (roughly 6 billion) people.

There is a lack of organic waste from food leftovers in poor nations... Perhaps if we waste more food, we will increase wealth. The fact that the poor eat every scrap of food does not mean that eating increases starvation. It is a stupid, banal example. But it also demonstrates ten years of debate about scrap recycling, and why scraps are exported from rich to poor countries.

Here is a link to a site "Poor Economics", which I've found but haven't exploited yet.

Think Again, Again

Poverty and development can sometimes feel like overwhelming issues – the scale is daunting, the problems grand. Ideology drives a lot of policies, and even the most well-intentioned ideas can get bogged down by ignorance of ground-level realities and inertia at the level of the implementer...

In fact, we call these the “three I’s” – ideology, ignorance, inertia – the three main reasons policies may not work and aid is not always effective.

But there’s no reason to lose hope. Incremental, real change can be made. Sometimes the change seems small, but by identifying real world success stories, facing up to real world failures, and understanding why the poor make the choices they make, we can find the right levers to push to free the poor of the hidden traps that keep them behind.

The dialogue is refreshing, the discussion seems to be open minded. I found it while searching for a map of world poverty (by nation, not pixelized by slum-to-ghetto-to-emerging city). The map is also a pretty good predictor of where someone would invest in hard rock metal mining, and where you'd find scrap recycled down to the bone.

The incentives for the trade / exchange between rich and poor do not necessarily represent the cause the problems associated with poverty any more than medicine causes (correlates to) disease. When I lived in Africa, the most likely cause of death for children was fever (malaria), and the most likely cause of death of women was childbirth, and the most likely cause of death for men was accident, violence, or trauma.

People recoil from photos of children in poverty, and we recoil from the word "exploitation".

Fundamentally, however, the trade in recyclables and repairables, like the purchase of medicine, originates inside the emerging markets. People need, people look for, and people find opportunity. People from over there fly over here and buy stuff with their own money.

If "exploitation" applies at all, the act is initiated by the buyer who, I argue, is "exploiting" a weak repair market in a wealthy nations. Poor neighborhoods in the USA "exploit" used cars which they purchase from neighborhoods who buy new cars before their other car is worn out. The car seller is not "exploiting" the used car buyer, nor is the transaction of trading the car causing the poverty of the poor neighborhood.

Memorial Day: Fear and Greed Part 1

The more I try to crystallize the issue in this blog, the more it is about trade and exchange between rich and poor. The exchange is a value, and the fear of exploitation is a value. Some make their value in the margins of exchanges they make, others make their money through their authority over those transactions.

Whether we draw two big circles on a map and call them "OECD and non-OECD", or seven circles for continents, or 193 nations, or circles which show cities and peasants in those countries, or draw lines within a city between the high property values and the ghettos, it's ultimately about the transfer of wealth and value. When a rich man employs a poor man, or a poor man buys something from a rich person, or a daughter marries across an economic line, opinions and suspicions sharpen.

Is trade between wealthy and poor exploitation, or opportunity? Who is the authority or referee?

Jim Puckett says in his interviews in CBS 60 Minutes and Frontline that the deck is stacked against the poor in any exchange. The economic have-nots will be abused and worse off due to the trade of second hand goods. This line of thinking has some friendly listeners in the "environmental justice" arena, and the anti-globalization movement of Seattle.

I was a critic of how the USA's most toxic industry - hard rock non-ferrous mining - moved to rain forests where no one complains about the cyanide, mercury, and other toxic runoff. Those concerns brought me into the recycling field, in fact. And here I am in a battle of wits with a fellow environmentalist over how our raw material policy should play out worldwide.

My concerns about hard rock mining, however, were never pinned on a false hope of economic segregation. Boycotting and segregating people we are uncomfortable or uncertain about has led to many "trail of tears", and many burned bridges. Doing the right thing means doing something, but it isn't to throw a garbage can through the collective window of the recycling industry. Fair trade makes more sense, and is not something Basel Action Network should try to make people afraid of.

Tech, Toxics, and Ju-Ju: Leverage fear, create authority

In his editorial response to my first widely published column, "We Shouldn't Have to Make that Choice" (reprinted in E-Scrap in 2009), Jim Puckett said that he didn't think Fair Trade meant "poisoning people". Toxics is a scare word. Jim was clearly trying to make people afraid of the economic exchange. He tells people that replacing or upgrading a part is hazardous, toxic, polluting. He knows he's wrong, he just doesn't recognize why he's doing it. It is not, as he claimed, about a "loophole" of reuse. If it's resolved, his authority diminishes, and he's not ready to retire.

Create concern, especially visceral concern (photos of children). Promote yourself as an authority to reduce this concern. Sell certification. Profit!

You do not create "environmental justice" by creating a vacuum or boycott of trade. Justice is, by definition, a judgement call, a negotiation, and a settlement. You do not stop exploitation by labeling people and segregating them.

Missing children, typical used car sale

It's a modest New Year's proposal.

The most toxic product Americans own in their lifetime is the automobile.

Filled with toxics, flammables, carcinogens, ewaste, inhalants and pollutants, and capable of violent safety violations, the cars have an agency, the Department of Motor Vehicles, to ensure proper stewardship, from cradle to grave.

Unfortunately, our government has let us down!

Stop the feeding of used antifreeze to poor kids

Automobiles don't last forever. Americans like buying new automobiles. Especially middle class and wealthy Americans. We spend billions getting the latest new wheels. But what happens with the old cars we discard?

Sadly, wealthy neighborhoods have a dirty little secret. The used car dealerships and junk car lots are never found on Fifth Avenue. Old, used cars are passed along to poor people, with all their toxics along for the ride. Whenever you buy replace your old car, you are complicit in exploitation and environmental crime.

Watchdog groups indicate that eighty percent of used car sales go to people with less money than the people who bought new cars. All the problems and headaches of the old car inevitably flow to people with less means to deal with the toxic tons of deadly waste.