tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post115128404423956596..comments2024-03-24T11:01:27.668-04:00Comments on Resource Insights: Russia's plight: A cautionary tale about the need to relocalizeKurt Cobbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-1525156394054972552010-04-20T09:53:44.836-04:002010-04-20T09:53:44.836-04:00Harald wrote:
"And there isn't a "d...Harald wrote:<br /><br /><i>"And there isn't a "dieoff" going on in Russia, people aren't starving to death, and even though the AIDS epidemic is severe, it's not what's causing the population decline."</i><br /><br />Actually Harald, there is. It is something I've been barking about for years: that the Die Off will not be seen as a "Die Off". It will be attributed to secondary or tertiary causes. Medical System disruptions or dysfunction. Economic stress. Bad planning. Lousy [X].<br /><br />The problem is, the [X] in question is always not seen as a failed position in the thermodynamic gradient for resource acquisition. It's ALWAYS seen as "something else" but never energy / resources quantities or acquisition system / systemic quality failures.<br /><br />And: it always will be, as the socio-political elites need to keep people in the dark about the material facts and facture of their own existence. If people achieve the consciousness of these things on a mass basis, it would sweep away capitalism and quickly dismantle the industrial work process, and immediately bring about a nature based society of sustainable (and by sustainble I mean, permanent, and by permanent I mean something close to forever) technologies.Henry Warwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16051313050545406852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-1155557880370234142006-08-14T08:18:00.000-04:002006-08-14T08:18:00.000-04:00But Russia is well placed in the strategic game fo...But Russia is well placed in the strategic game for oil, since they <A HREF="http://energikrise.blogspot.com/2006/07/produsenter-og-eksportrer-av.html" REL="nofollow">have a lot of it</A>.And there isn't a "dieoff" going on in Russia, people aren't starving to death, and even though the AIDS epidemic is severe, it's not what's causing the population decline.<BR/>The decline in Russia's population has been a long time in the making. They have had below-replacement fertility levels for a long time. They were the first modern country to legalize abortion, in 1920 (although Stalin forbade it again, out of population growth concerns). Since that was the only form of "prevention" at the time, they had a head start in population decline. <BR/><BR/>Also, in the Soviet Union and in russia, surgical abortion was (and is ) used instead of prevention. Along with alcoholism, which aslo has a long history in the east, it may be connected to the high infertility levels in Russia.<BR/><BR/>Also, look at the mindset. There was little incentive to economic success. Religion was supressed. The meaning of life that the communist party preached was completely discredited even before its fall. What did they have to left live for? In that nihilistic soup that is today's russia, there is little place for children, and much for life-subsitiutes like drugs and alcohol.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-1151317329634186632006-06-26T06:22:00.000-04:002006-06-26T06:22:00.000-04:00The example of Russia is always a good one, and I ...The example of Russia is always a good one, and I think it also highlights that "Die off" is certainly not as closely linked to fossil fuel use as harsh economic injustice.<BR/><BR/>From <A HREF="http://www.channel4.com/more4/documentaries/doc-feature.jsp?id=43" REL="nofollow">"Death of a Nation"</A><BR/><BR/><I>- In the first six months of 2005, the Russian population fell by half a million;<BR/><BR/>- By the middle of this century Russia could lose up to half of its people, according to Russian government stats;<BR/><BR/>- Life expectancy for men is 56 years, the same as Bangladesh;<BR/><BR/>- Ten years ago, the life expectancy for men in Russia was 63;<BR/><BR/>- The World Health Organisation says that at a conservative estimate more than a million people will have died because of AIDS in Russia by 2020;<BR/><BR/>- Every other newborn baby is diagnosed with a disease at birth;<BR/><BR/>- There are more abortions every year in Russia than babies are born;<BR/><BR/>- Thanks to ill-health, 10 million Russians are infertile;<BR/><BR/>- A quarter of the population lives below the poverty line;<BR/><BR/>- Paradoxically, Moscow has more billionaires than any other city in the world;<BR/><BR/>- Although Russia's population is in freefall, they're still throwing people out. Thirty thousand Meshket Turks have recently had to seek asylum in America, having been forced from their homes in the south of the country by discriminatory laws and racist attacks.</I><BR/><BR/>Although I would add that Moscow's number of billionaires whilst 1/4 live below the poverty line is certainly no paradox.<BR/><BR/>From "The possibility of progress" by Mark Braund, chapter 4, "The State of the World":<BR/><BR/><I>It [neoliberalism] is certainly not working for the people of Russia. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the resulting social and economic chaos has seen male life expectancy fall from 66 to 59 in just ten years. In a survey in 2002, the Russian Ministry of Health discovered that 60 per cent of children were unhealthy. Half of Russia's 18-year-olds were rejected for military service on health grounds. Since 1985, life expectancy among men has fallen by ten years, principally as a result of widespread alcoholism, but also due to the re-emergence of previously eradicated diseases such as tuberculosis. Less than half of teenage boys on Russia today will reach the age of 60. Empolyment, virually guaranteed under the communist system, is no longer secure for many: 40 per cent of Russians now live below the poverty line. The country has an estimated six million users of hard drugs out of a population of only 150 million. In many new republics, organised crime operates as a virtual shadow government, controlling a black market which provides for the needs of the few, while the formal economy fails to meet the needs of the many. By 1994 murders in Russia were averaging 83 per day, or 30,000 a year, this rate shows no sign of reducing and is way ahead of the United States.<BR/><BR/>The poorly planned move to a capitalist economy has had little impact in the way of economic liberalization, or in reviving the economy to feed, clothe and house the Russian people. The privatization of state enterprises has led to oligarchic arrangements under which a tiny politically connected elite control much of the economy, in what has been described as the tycoon model of capitalism. Profitable elements of the economy are under the control of this political elite: non-profitable elements, such as food production, are left to the people. Between 1991 and 1998, production within the formal economy almost halved.<BR/>Millions of people have no money; they survive through subsistence farming on small plots and by barter. The absence of traditional agricultural planning, and the failure to develop adequate market-driven mechanisms for food produciton, has left tens of millions of Russian struggling to feed themselves. This experience suggests that certain conditions must hold in order for a market-based economy to provide adequate opportunities for all members of society. ...<BR/><BR/>Despite Mikhail Gobachev's attempts to prioritize environmental concerns, the condition of the land, water and air in Russia is amongst the worst in the world, and is deteriorating. Super-polluting factories which were shut down for environmental reasons have been reopened in exactly the same condition. The quality of food and water available to the population is heavily compromised; people have neither the means nor the motivation to put things right. As Vladimir Tsirkunov of the World Bank noted: 'If you are dying of hunger, what do you care if you are going to die of cancer in ten years time. Environment is an abandoned child.'<BR/><BR/>Perhaps the most tragic aspect of Russia's situation is that since the fall of communism this huge country, rich in resources, and steeped in cultural tradition, has neither created nor invented anythong of worth. The carcass of an exhausted economy has been divided up among a tiny minority, and that part of it on which the people depend for their basic needs, discarded.<BR/><BR/>The Russians have swapped the failings of a command economy, which deprived consumers of choice, for a desperately flawed attempt at emulating the market economies of the West, which seem likely to make them among the poorest and most deprived in the world. Whatever human rights violations were committed under the communist system, and they were very many and serious, virtually the entire population had its basic needs guaranteed for forty years following 1945. Under the economic reforms introduced by Boris Yeltsin and now taken up by Vladimir Putin, most Russians have seen their life savings become worthless as their currenceis have been devalued. John Gray suggests that western politicians are equally to blame, As he says, 'The crackpot policies that were foisted on Russia had nothing to do with the country's needs and everything to do with the neo-liberal hubris that had gripped western governmtents.' The shelves that stood empty for decades may now be full of consumer goods, but few can afford to buy them. When the Soviet Union broke up, the fate of Russia was far from inevitable, but forcing Russians to play by the rules of a game in which only a few can possibly be winners, the West ensured that it would be the direst aspects of the legacy of Stalin and Brezhnev which would emerge to lead the Russian people in to darkness.</I><BR/><BR/>From "Death of a Nation"Gareth Doutchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07863385900194288584noreply@blogger.com