The mantra of global agribusiness is that it cares about farmers. It also really cares about humanity and wants to help feed a growing world population by using its patented genetically modified (GM) seeds.

It says it wants to assist poor farmers by helping them grow enough to earn a decent income. Seems like it’s a win-win situation for everyone!

If you listen to the PR, you could be forgiven for believing that transnational agribusiness companies are driven by altruistic tendencies and humanitarian goals rather than by massive profit margins and delivering on shareholder dividends.

To promote itself and its products, the US multinational company Union Carbide came out with a series of brochures in the 1950s and 60s with powerful images depicting a large ‘hand of god’ in the sky, which hovered over a series of landscapes and scenarios in need of ‘fixing’ by the brave new world of science and the type of agricultural technology to be found in a pesticide canister.

One such image is of a giant hand pouring chemicals from a lab flask upon Indian soil, with a pesticide manufacturing factory in the distance and Mumbai’s Gateway of India opposite (see image, right).

It was a scene where science met tradition, where the helping hand of God, in this case Union Carbide, assisted the ignorant, backward Indian farmer who is shown toiling in the fields. The people at Union Carbide didn’t do subtlety back then.

We can now look back and see where Union Carbide’s hubris got the people of Bhopal and the deaths caused by that pesticide factory depicted in the image. And we can also see the utter contempt its top people in the US displayed by dodging justice and failing the victims of Bhopal. There’s humanitarianism for you: playing god with people’s lives and avoiding accountability for the death and havoc created.

The supposed humanitarian motives of global agribusiness are little more than a sham. If these companies, their supporters, media shills and PR mouthpieces really want to feed the world and assist poor farmers in low income countries, as they say they do, they would do better by addressing the political, economic and structural issues which fuel inequality, poverty and hunger.

And that includes the role of agribusiness itself in determining unfair world trade rules and trade agreements, such as the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which help grant it access to agriculture across the globe and recast it for its own ends (US agribusiness and the transformation of food-sufficient countries into food-deficit ones has long been bound up with the projection of Washington’s global power.)

Laughing all the way to the bank at the farmer’s expense

Many of the people these companies supply their inputs to and make a profit from are smallholder farmers who live on a financial knife edge in low income countries. Monsanto has appropriated around $900 million from India’s farmers over the last decade or so – illegally according to Vandana Shiva. By way of contrast, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant brought in $13.4 million in 2014 alone, according to Bloomberg.

Writing in India’s Statesman newspaper, Bharat Dogra illustrates the knife-edge existence of the people that rich agribusiness profits from by discussing the case of Babu Lal and his wife Mirdi Bai who have been traditionally cultivating wheat, maize, and bajra (millet) on their farmland in Rajasthan. Their crops provided food for several months a year to the 10-member family as well as fodder for farm and dairy animals which are integral to the mixed farming system employed.

Dogra notes that company (unspecified – but Monsanto and its subsidiaries dominate the GM cotton industry in India) agents approached the family with the promise of a lump-sum payment to plant and produce Bt (GM) cotton seeds in two of their fields. Babu Lal purchased pesticides to help grow the seeds in the hope of receiving the payment, which never materialised because the company agent said the seeds produced had “failed” in tests.

The family faced economic ruin, not least because the food harvest was much lower than normal as the best fields and most labour and resources had been devoted to Bt cotton. There was hardly any fodder too. It all resulted in Babu Lal borrowing from private moneylenders at a high interest rate to meet the needs of food and fodder.

Things were to get much worse though as the company’s agent allegedly started harassing Babu Lal for a payment of about 10,000 rupees in lieu of the fertilisers and pesticides provided to him. Several other tribal farmers in the area also fell into this trap, and reports say that the soil of fields in which Bt cotton was grown has been badly damaged.

The promise of a lump-sum cash payment can be very enticing to poor farmers, and when companies use influential villagers to get new farmers to agree to plant GM cotton, tribal farmers are reluctant to decline the offer. When production is declared as having failed, solely at the company’s discretion it seems, a family becomes indebted.

According to Dogra’s piece, there is growing evidence that the trend in tribal areas to experiment with Bt cotton has disrupted food security and has introduced various health hazards and ecological threats due to the use of poisonous chemical inputs.

What seed companies are doing is experimenting with farmers’ livelihoods and lives. ‘Success’, regardless of the impact on the farmer, is measured in terms of company profits. However, failure for the farmer is a matter of life and death. Look no further than the spike in suicides across the cotton belt since 1997. Even ‘success’ for the farmer may not amount to much when the costs of the seeds and associated chemical inputs are factored into any possible increase in yield or income.

Despite constant denials by Monsanto and its supporters in the media that Bt cotton in India has nothing or little to do with farmer suicides in India, a new study directly links the crisis of suicides among Indian farmers to Bt cotton adoption in rain-fed areas, where most of India’s cotton is grown.

As outlined in the case of Babu Lal above, many fall into a cycle of debt from the purchase of expensive, commercialised GM seeds and chemical inputs that then often fail to yield enough to sustain farmers’ livelihoods.

Planned obsolescence of the Indian farmer

Dogra’s story is about one family’s plight, but it is a microcosm of all that is wrong with modern agriculture and that could be retold a million times over in India and across the world:

• the imposition of cash monocrops and the subsequent undermining of local food security (leading to food-deficit regions and to a reliance on imports);
• the introduction of costly and hazardous (to health and environment) chemical inputs and company seeds;
• crop failure (or, in many cases, the inability to secure decent prices on a commercial market dominated by commodity speculators in the US or rigged in favour of Western countries);
• and spiralling debt.

The situation for India’s farmers is dire across the board. Consider that 670 million people in India’s the rural areas live on less than 33 rupees a day (around 50¢US) a day. And consider that 32 million quit agriculture between 2007 and 2012. Where did they go? Into the cities to look for work. Work that does not exist.

Between 2005 and 2015, only 15 million jobs were created nationally. To keep up with a growing workforce, around 12 million new jobs are required each year. Therefore, if you are going to place the likes of Babu Lal and millions like him at the mercy of the ‘helping hand’ of giant agribusiness companies or the whims of the market, you may well be consigning him and millions like him to the dustbin of history given the lack of options for making a living out there.

In fact, that is exactly what the Indian government is doing by leaving farmers like him to deal with agribusiness and the vagaries of the market and having to compete with heavily subsidised Western agriculture / agribusiness, whose handmaidens at the WTO demand India reduces import restrictions. Little wonder then that 300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide since 1997.

While the West tries to impose its neoliberal agenda of cutting subsidies to agriculture and dismantling price support mechanisms and the public distribution system that if effectively run would allow Indian farmers to receive a decent stable income, farmers are unsurprisingly leaving the sector in droves as agriculture becomes economically non-viable.

Forcing farmers to leave the land is a deliberate strategy. Just like it is a deliberate strategy to give massive handouts to industry and corporate concerns who are not delivering on jobs. It’s all about priorities. And farmers are not a priority. They are being driven from farming, while all the advantages are being given to a failing corporate-industrial sector.

With 300,000 having killed themselves in the last 18 years and many more heavily indebted or existing on a pittance, what we are witnessing is the destruction of the Indian farmer. Structural violence doesn’t require guns or knives – economic policies and political choices will do just fine.

This type of violence involves the uprooting of indigenous agriculture and replacing it with a chemical-intensive Western model of agriculture, whereby those farmers left on the land are to be recipients of the inputs and knowledge of agribusiness companies.

This began with the ‘green revolution’, which selected certain locations, farms and crops to bring about spectacular yields thus maximising impact and promoting this model of farming above any notion of ‘helping farmers’ in general, and is continuing apace today courtesy of GM cotton seeds and possibly GM food.

But let us not forget that GM is a fraudulent enterprise supported by fallacious arguments in an attempt to spread the technology within India and is surrounded by various spurious claims (which are deconstructed here).

Crisis management or R&D?

This model of agriculture stresses agribusiness inputs, which have led to a continuous process of crisis management (under the banner of ‘research and development’) and short-termism: new products – destined to fail – to replace the older products that have already failed. This scenario is only good for one thing – the profit sheets of the agribusiness cartel as it pushes its never-ending stream of ‘innovations’ onto the hapless farmer.

For example, going back a couple of years, a report in Business Standard (BS) stated that Bt cotton yields in India had dropped to a five-year low. India approved Bt cotton in 2002 and, within a few years, yields increased dramatically. However, most of the rise in productivity seemingly had nothing to do with Bt cotton itself and more to do with non-GM hybrid seeds.

What’s more, since Bt has taken over, yields have been steadily worsening. According to BS, bollworms are developing resistance. Contrary to what farmers were originally told, the Monsanto spokesperson quoted by BS says that such resistance is to be expected.

However, when Bt cotton arrived in India, farmers were told that they wouldn’t have to spray any more. All that farmers had to do was plant the seeds and water them regularly. They were told that, as GM seeds are insect resistant, there was no need to use huge amounts of pesticides.

But, according to Monsanto’s spokesperson, the bollworm problem is all the Indian farmers’ fault because “limited refuge planting” is one of the factors that may have contributed to pink bollworm resistance. Using the ‘wrong’ biotech seed is another. The answer from the biotech sector to combat falling yields is continuous R&D to develop new technologies and new strains of GM seeds to try to stay ahead of insect resistance or falling yields.

Agribusiness corporations are engaged in managing and thus profiting from the crises they themselves have conspired to produce with their destruction of traditional agriculture and local economies and their chemical inputs and genetic engineering. By its very nature – by tampering with nature – US agribusiness is designed to stumble from one crisis to the next.

And it will do so by hiding behind the banners of ‘innovation’ or ‘research and development’. But, it’s all good business. And that’s all that really matters. There’s always money to be made from blaming the victims for the mess created and from a continuous state of crisis management.

Ultimately, this is what this con-trick is all about: planned obsolescence – planned obsolescence of products, in order that profits can be made from a stream of new ‘wonder’ products and, as far as India is concerned, planned obsolescence of farmers as agribusiness sets out to uproot tradition and shape farming in its own corporate image. And the great con-trick is that it attempts to pass off its endless crises and failures as brilliant successes.

Case study: Bt cotton and whitefly

If anything highlights how this traditional knowledge and practices are being cast aside, it is the recent case of Bt cotton and whitefly. In the cotton belt of Punjab and Haryana, the tiny whitefly has caused extensive damage.

They sprayed this way and that way with pesticides. The agritech companies blamed farmers for not spraying correctly. The companies blamed each other for selling the wrong chemicals to farmers. It’s a repeat of the bollworm blame game. In any case, the pesticide use failed to kill the whitefly that ravaged cotton crops.

Writing on his blog, food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma says that the only time whitefly did not destroy crops was when pesticides were not used. Instead, farmers used ‘insect equilibrium’ and their knowledge of which insects kill crop-predator pests. This knowledge has been built over centuries of trial and error and which did not come courtesy of a white-coated figure in a lab. Now it is in danger of being wiped out as farmers are being turned into consumers of agritech products.

Sharma notes in that the areas where extensive pesticide use failed to defeat the whitefly, they “stand like an oasis in a heavily polluted chemical desert.” In the areas that were not ravaged, pesticides have not been used for several years. Benign insects are used to control harmful pests. They allowed the natural predators of whitefly to proliferate, which in turn killed the whitefly.

Sharma says he has met women who can identify 110 non-vegetarian insects and also as many as 60 vegetarian insects (a few years back, he also reported how insect equilibrium was managing a mealy bug problem too).

For agribusiness, though, it is more profitable to hijack agriculture and recast it in its own ‘hand of god’ image. It can then serve up its industrial poisons and GMOs to farmers courtesy of politicians who handed agriculture to it on a plate.

The need for change

Fast forward 50 years from that Union Carbide image and today global agribusiness tries to be a little bit subtler in its approach. But the underlying messages and attitudes remain: that backward, ignorant farmers are in need of a giant ‘helping hand’; that these companies know best; and that debt, economic distress and farmer suicides are not of its making or concern.

On the back of some cooked-up notion about wanting to help the poor, endlessly repeated by prominent politicians and neoliberal apologists, who show little more than contempt for the poor in their own countries, global agribusiness is playing fast and loose with poor people’s lives and is profiting handsomely.

It aims to cement a future that is committed to the destruction of indigenous agriculture and which is dominated by powerful business interests (see this on the Gates Foundation in Africa) and chemical-intensive farming based on patented GM seeds.

Rather than side-line the recommendations of various reports that conclude agroecological approaches are more suitable for the global south and that GM and chemical-dependent practices are inappropriate, policy makers would do better by acknowledging and accepting that agroecology has a major role to play. Its benefits are clear to see.

Colin Todhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher, based in the UK and India.

Support Colin’s work here.

This article is a revised and updated (by the author) version of one originally published on Colin’s website.

Bibliography

1. This report on the tremendous success of agroecology in Africa from the Oakland Institute;

2. This report from Tamil Nadu on rolling back the damage caused by the green revolution by using agroecology;

3. This 2013 UN trade and development report, which states that farming in rich and poor nations alike should shift from monoculture towards greater varieties of crops, reduced use of fertilisers and other inputs, greater support for small-scale farmers, and more locally focused production and consumption of food;

4. This peer-reviewed paper (from the journal Environment, Development and Sustainability) showing that agroecological approaches offer opportunities to substantially increase food production, while preserving the natural resource base and empowering rural communities;

5. This section of the GMOs Myths and Truths report, which refers to peer-reviewed papers and various reports to support the claims made about agroecology, not least that increased productivity with fewer external inputs is but one advantage of the model;

6. The renowned the IAASTD report, which involved nearly 400 internationally respected experts and concluded the need for a fundamental shift in our present global agricultural systems towards multi-functional systems that recognised and accounted for “the complexity of agricultural systems within diverse social and ecological contexts.”

The wringing of hands among environmentalists was a perfectly reasonable reaction to the February 9th Supreme Court announcement that it had stayed implementation of the White House Clean Power Plan approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency last August.

After all, the Supreme Court more typically issues stays of execution in death penalty cases. In this instance, the Court tried to deliver its own death penalty to climate change mitigation.

But before a pall settled too heavily over our crushed clean air optimism, we were urged to take heart.

Or, more specifically, to look at the empirical evidence – a runaway renewable energy train that has left the five renegade Justices – although no longer including the now deceased Antonin Scalia – and other climate deniers standing on the platform. Without their luggage.

The Supreme Court stalls the Clean Power Plan – but the US is decarbonizing anyway

Writing in the Washington Post, reporter Chris Mooney pointed out that while the Court may have stalled the Clean Power Plan, the country at large wasn’t really taking any notice.

Mooney observed: “the US has been going through something that looks a lot like the kind of transition it is meant to prompt even without the plan in place. Namely: The nation has been slowly decarbonizing its electricity system, through the growth of renewables and the switching from burning coal to burning natural gas.”

And indeed the numbers are encouraging. The Factbook released on February 4th by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that 8.5 gigawatts of new wind capacity and 7.3 gigawatts of new solar photovoltaics were installed in 2015.

Other key findings include: American energy productivity has increased by 13% from 2007 to 2015; total US investment in clean energy topped $56 billion in 2015, the second highest in the world; 2015 US power sector carbon emissions fell to their lowest annual level since 1995.

Similar numbers released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) have solar and wind well outpacing new installation of natural gas at 5.94 gigawatts and leaving coal in its own dust at just 3 megawatts.

New nuclear installation remained at a big, beautiful zero. This non-entity status will continue in 2016 at least until the TVA Watts Bar 2 reactor gets switched on this summer, having taken a record-breaking 43 years to reach green light status.

But that will be it. TVA just canceled its two planned new reactors at Bellefonte in Alabama, and crippling and expensive delays continue to plague the only other new nuclear construction sites, in Georgia and South Carolina.

No stopping renewables in 2016 and beyond

Meanwhile, there will be no stopping renewables in 2016 and beyond. The February Short-Term Energy Outlook released by the US government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) “expects total renewables used in the electric power sector to increase by 8.1% in 2016” in electricity and heat generation.

Departing from the traditional – and continued – solar growth in rooftop PV panels, the EIA also “expects utility-scale solar capacity will increase by about 80% (10 GW) between the end of 2015 and the end of 2017, with 4.1 GW of new capacity being built in California.”

The nod to California is significant and exposes the red herring arguments tossed out by Michael Shellenberger and his pro-nuclear Breakthrough Institute, who continue to insist that shutting California’s nuclear power plants – the twin reactors at San Onofre officially closed in 2013; Diablo Canyon ought to follow – will be the death knell for the state’s carbon emissions reductions.

What the Breakthrough Institute most particularly fails to admit is that by far the biggest challenge to California’s GHG emissions reduction goal is to be found in the transportation sector. According to the California Environmental Protection Agency, 37% of CO₂ emissions in the state come from transportation, “the single largest source of CO₂ in California.”

Unlike Shellenberger and friends, the California EPA does not advocate keeping nuclear power plants going to address this problem since it’s clearly irrelevant. Just 11% of the state’s emissions come from power generation, or 20% including imports.

Instead it urges people to “Help reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by driving less, switching to a more fuel efficient vehicle, and saving electricity at home and at work!”

Solar industry adding jobs in US 12 times faster than rest of the economy

The White House pointed out with some buoyancy during the Clean Power Plan rollout that: “Since Obama took office, the administration has made the largest investments in clean energy in American history.”

It continued: “In 2014 renewables accounted for half of new electricity generation capacity placed in service. As of October, renewables were on pace to account for over 60 percent of new generation capacity placed in service in 2015. Solar installations climbed 30 percent.” And the solar industry, the Plan said, “is adding jobs 12 times faster than the rest of the economy.”

The Supreme Court may have frozen the Clean Power Plan for the time being, even as Scalia’s death has plunged it into a firestorm of controversy.

But the Court can’t hold back the determination of cities and states around the country, who have no intention of missing out on the inevitable and welcome renewable energy revolution.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a Takoma Park, MD environmental advocacy group.

A rhino lies dead; her horn hacked from her skull, the remnants dug out deeply from her sinus cavity.

All is quiet except for a rustling behind the body; a small calf emerges, only a few weeks old.

What will be the fate of this rare animal that is hunted daily for its horn, carrying a street value higher than cocaine?

Seems strange that this inept substance, made of nothing more than keratin, to which our fingernails are made of, can be fuelling such crime around the world.

Sadly, this is a regular occurrence in South Africa, where poaching has reached an all-time high. Rhinos are now unable to reproduce at the same rate to which they are slaughtered every year.

However, all is not lost, as I have heard of a reservation lying to the East of Kruger called Balule, where the Black Mambas, a 26-strong all-female anti-poaching unit, has managed to reduced bush meat and rhino poaching by a staggering 76%.

Founded by Transfrontier Africa in 2013, they have so far removed more than 1,000 snares, destroyed five poachers’ camps, put two bush meat kitchens out of action, and had six poachers arrested. And they arrive in the UK this weekend to receive the prestigious Helping Rhinos ‘Innovation in Conservation’ Award.

I was determined to find out just why this project has been so successful and also to meet the strong women who have made this a reality.

Alongside Simon Jones of Helping Rhinos and presenter and producer Nigel Marven, we all pack our cases and head off to Balule, to film alongside the Mambas, to truly live their lives, to find out their passions, their fears and why their presence has been so successful, not just for the animals, but also for the poor communities they support.

Combatting indiscriminate carnage of cable snares

The Mambas rise at 5am every morning, taking shifts to walk a gruelling 20km to check the boundary fences for incursion. The baking 40 degree heat means that their duties need to be wrapped up early.

They check for signs of entry, as well as for snares laid in the night. Their role is like a British ‘bobby on the beat’ – to provide a physical presence in the area. I walk with two Mambas Siphiwe Sithole and Felicia Mogakane.

“What did your family think when you told them you wanted to join The Black Mambas?” I ask.

“They were scared that it would be dangerous and I would be eaten by a lion”, Siphiwe answers.

“How has being a Mamba helped your family?” I ask Siphiwe.

“It has helped me a lot, because now I can take care of my kids, I know if I want to do something now, I’ve got something in my pocket … I am the bread winner.”

As we walk through the bush, The Mambas chance upon a dead Cape Buffalo which had been trapped by its leg by a wire snare. The Mambas explain to me that it could have taken up to five weeks to die, as buffalo are equipped to deal with extreme draught.

We find several snares in one patch and set to clearing them. There are two types of snare, fine wire snares and larger thicker cable snares. It’s the cable snares which are responsible for dismembering large animals such as elephants, as their strong wire cuts deeply through the legs.

Inspiring conservation role models for Africa’s youth

Later on, as we are driving to a local school, I can’t help but notice that the wilds of Africa seem to be a distant memory; everything is electrically fenced in and owned by game lodges. I ask, “Do you feel that the local people poach because they feel that the land and the animals do not belong to them any more?”

Siphiwe answers, “In their mentality, there is that thing that conservation is for white people. Did you see a black person running a private lodge or a private game reserve? So they feel that they have to finish the animals so the white people won’t have them.”

This makes me sad that this is a common feeling amongst the communities out there, however The Mambas explain that they feel that poaching is still inexcusable and a lazy way out, but the monetary rewards are so high that it’s a quick way to make huge amounts of money, so poaching rhinos is driven by greed. The rich gangsters use poor local trackers to find the rhinos, so they don’t have to do their own dangerous work.

Finally we arrive at Masake primary school, it is still early, around 9.30am, and we see children eating lunch. Black Mamba education officer, Lewyn, explains that this is often the only meal the children get a day, as they come from such poor backgrounds.

Lewyn’s conservation lessons named The Bush Baby Programme is really fun, uplifting and the children learn in English. Black Mambas Siphiwe and Felicia attend lessons often as conservation role models. I can see that the children are really taking in the positive message these strong ladies are conveying.

The day ends with a visit with a Rhino Orphanage run by charity Rhino Revolution, supported by The Black Mambas who provide security for these precious, rhino calves. I feed Fatty, the largest rhino and my heart melts. Each rhino costs about £450 a month to wean and if this orphanage is to expand to take in the huge amounts of orphan victims, it will need to raise much more funds and fast. With dedicated staff and the Mambas supporting this project, I truly hope it gets the support it deserves.

All in all, I can conclude that the Black Mambas are a very strong presence in Balule and with a record drop in poaching in their reserve by 75%, it is definitely working. This concept is a fantastic one and hopefully it will set precedent for similar units to be set up all over Africa.

Siphiwe: “If the world out there can give a hand and help him to expand the group of Black Mambas, I think that at the end of the day we will win this war, because at each and every corner we will be there. The poachers will know that they don’t have a chance.”

Anneka Svenska is a conservationist & broadcaster who specialises in films covering serious wildlife crime, wildlife & environmental conservation and education surrounding misunderstood apex predators.

Most recently Anneka has returned from filming alongside Image Impact Films and producer/presenter Nigel Marven in South Africa, where they created a short film to highlight the work of The Black Mambas and charity Helping Rhinos.

UK visit schedule

Sunday 21st Feb – Black Mambas arrive in the UK.

Monday 22nd Feb – Black Mambas and Richard Vigne (CEO of Ole Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya) give a talk at Port Lympne Reserve in Kent.

Tuesday 23rd Feb – Black Mambas and Richard Vigne give a talk to staff at London Zoo.

Thursday 25th Feb – Black Mambas sightseeing in London, including a trip to the House of Commons.

Friday 26th Feb – Black Mambas return to South Africa in the late afternoon.

The Black Mambas trip to the UK is sponsored by RACS Group.

More information

Black Mamba official website.

United Nations Champions of the Earth Award.

Sponsor the work of the Black Mambas via Helping Rhinos.

The wringing of hands among environmentalists was a perfectly reasonable reaction to the February 9th Supreme Court announcement that it had stayed implementation of the White House Clean Power Plan approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency last August.

After all, the Supreme Court more typically issues stays of execution in death penalty cases. In this instance, the Court tried to deliver its own death penalty to climate change mitigation.

But before a pall settled too heavily over our crushed clean air optimism, we were urged to take heart.

Or, more specifically, to look at the empirical evidence – a runaway renewable energy train that has left the five renegade Justices – although no longer including the now deceased Antonin Scalia – and other climate deniers standing on the platform. Without their luggage.

The Supreme Court stalls the Clean Power Plan – but the US is decarbonizing anyway

Writing in the Washington Post, reporter Chris Mooney pointed out that while the Court may have stalled the Clean Power Plan, the country at large wasn’t really taking any notice.

Mooney observed: “the US has been going through something that looks a lot like the kind of transition it is meant to prompt even without the plan in place. Namely: The nation has been slowly decarbonizing its electricity system, through the growth of renewables and the switching from burning coal to burning natural gas.”

And indeed the numbers are encouraging. The Factbook released on February 4th by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that 8.5 gigawatts of new wind capacity and 7.3 gigawatts of new solar photovoltaics were installed in 2015.

Other key findings include: American energy productivity has increased by 13% from 2007 to 2015; total US investment in clean energy topped $56 billion in 2015, the second highest in the world; 2015 US power sector carbon emissions fell to their lowest annual level since 1995.

Similar numbers released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) have solar and wind well outpacing new installation of natural gas at 5.94 gigawatts and leaving coal in its own dust at just 3 megawatts.

New nuclear installation remained at a big, beautiful zero. This non-entity status will continue in 2016 at least until the TVA Watts Bar 2 reactor gets switched on this summer, having taken a record-breaking 43 years to reach green light status.

But that will be it. TVA just canceled its two planned new reactors at Bellefonte in Alabama, and crippling and expensive delays continue to plague the only other new nuclear construction sites, in Georgia and South Carolina.

No stopping renewables in 2016 and beyond

Meanwhile, there will be no stopping renewables in 2016 and beyond. The February Short-Term Energy Outlook released by the US government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) “expects total renewables used in the electric power sector to increase by 8.1% in 2016” in electricity and heat generation.

Departing from the traditional – and continued – solar growth in rooftop PV panels, the EIA also “expects utility-scale solar capacity will increase by about 80% (10 GW) between the end of 2015 and the end of 2017, with 4.1 GW of new capacity being built in California.”

The nod to California is significant and exposes the red herring arguments tossed out by Michael Shellenberger and his pro-nuclear Breakthrough Institute, who continue to insist that shutting California’s nuclear power plants – the twin reactors at San Onofre officially closed in 2013; Diablo Canyon ought to follow – will be the death knell for the state’s carbon emissions reductions.

What the Breakthrough Institute most particularly fails to admit is that by far the biggest challenge to California’s GHG emissions reduction goal is to be found in the transportation sector. According to the California Environmental Protection Agency, 37% of CO₂ emissions in the state come from transportation, “the single largest source of CO₂ in California.”

Unlike Shellenberger and friends, the California EPA does not advocate keeping nuclear power plants going to address this problem since it’s clearly irrelevant. Just 11% of the state’s emissions come from power generation, or 20% including imports.

Instead it urges people to “Help reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by driving less, switching to a more fuel efficient vehicle, and saving electricity at home and at work!”

Solar industry adding jobs in US 12 times faster than rest of the economy

The White House pointed out with some buoyancy during the Clean Power Plan rollout that: “Since Obama took office, the administration has made the largest investments in clean energy in American history.”

It continued: “In 2014 renewables accounted for half of new electricity generation capacity placed in service. As of October, renewables were on pace to account for over 60 percent of new generation capacity placed in service in 2015. Solar installations climbed 30 percent.” And the solar industry, the Plan said, “is adding jobs 12 times faster than the rest of the economy.”

The Supreme Court may have frozen the Clean Power Plan for the time being, even as Scalia’s death has plunged it into a firestorm of controversy.

But the Court can’t hold back the determination of cities and states around the country, who have no intention of missing out on the inevitable and welcome renewable energy revolution.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a Takoma Park, MD environmental advocacy group.

A rhino lies dead; her horn hacked from her skull, the remnants dug out deeply from her sinus cavity.

All is quiet except for a rustling behind the body; a small calf emerges, only a few weeks old.

What will be the fate of this rare animal that is hunted daily for its horn, carrying a street value higher than cocaine?

Seems strange that this inept substance, made of nothing more than keratin, to which our fingernails are made of, can be fuelling such crime around the world.

Sadly, this is a regular occurrence in South Africa, where poaching has reached an all-time high. Rhinos are now unable to reproduce at the same rate to which they are slaughtered every year.

However, all is not lost, as I have heard of a reservation lying to the East of Kruger called Balule, where the Black Mambas, a 26-strong all-female anti-poaching unit, has managed to reduced bush meat and rhino poaching by a staggering 76%.

Founded by Transfrontier Africa in 2013, they have so far removed more than 1,000 snares, destroyed five poachers’ camps, put two bush meat kitchens out of action, and had six poachers arrested. And they arrive in the UK this weekend to receive the prestigious Helping Rhinos ‘Innovation in Conservation’ Award.

I was determined to find out just why this project has been so successful and also to meet the strong women who have made this a reality.

Alongside Simon Jones of Helping Rhinos and presenter and producer Nigel Marven, we all pack our cases and head off to Balule, to film alongside the Mambas, to truly live their lives, to find out their passions, their fears and why their presence has been so successful, not just for the animals, but also for the poor communities they support.

Combatting indiscriminate carnage of cable snares

The Mambas rise at 5am every morning, taking shifts to walk a gruelling 20km to check the boundary fences for incursion. The baking 40 degree heat means that their duties need to be wrapped up early.

They check for signs of entry, as well as for snares laid in the night. Their role is like a British ‘bobby on the beat’ – to provide a physical presence in the area. I walk with two Mambas Siphiwe Sithole and Felicia Mogakane.

“What did your family think when you told them you wanted to join The Black Mambas?” I ask.

“They were scared that it would be dangerous and I would be eaten by a lion”, Siphiwe answers.

“How has being a Mamba helped your family?” I ask Siphiwe.

“It has helped me a lot, because now I can take care of my kids, I know if I want to do something now, I’ve got something in my pocket … I am the bread winner.”

As we walk through the bush, The Mambas chance upon a dead Cape Buffalo which had been trapped by its leg by a wire snare. The Mambas explain to me that it could have taken up to five weeks to die, as buffalo are equipped to deal with extreme draught.

We find several snares in one patch and set to clearing them. There are two types of snare, fine wire snares and larger thicker cable snares. It’s the cable snares which are responsible for dismembering large animals such as elephants, as their strong wire cuts deeply through the legs.

Inspiring conservation role models for Africa’s youth

Later on, as we are driving to a local school, I can’t help but notice that the wilds of Africa seem to be a distant memory; everything is electrically fenced in and owned by game lodges. I ask, “Do you feel that the local people poach because they feel that the land and the animals do not belong to them any more?”

Siphiwe answers, “In their mentality, there is that thing that conservation is for white people. Did you see a black person running a private lodge or a private game reserve? So they feel that they have to finish the animals so the white people won’t have them.”

This makes me sad that this is a common feeling amongst the communities out there, however The Mambas explain that they feel that poaching is still inexcusable and a lazy way out, but the monetary rewards are so high that it’s a quick way to make huge amounts of money, so poaching rhinos is driven by greed. The rich gangsters use poor local trackers to find the rhinos, so they don’t have to do their own dangerous work.

Finally we arrive at Masake primary school, it is still early, around 9.30am, and we see children eating lunch. Black Mamba education officer, Lewyn, explains that this is often the only meal the children get a day, as they come from such poor backgrounds.

Lewyn’s conservation lessons named The Bush Baby Programme is really fun, uplifting and the children learn in English. Black Mambas Siphiwe and Felicia attend lessons often as conservation role models. I can see that the children are really taking in the positive message these strong ladies are conveying.

The day ends with a visit with a Rhino Orphanage run by charity Rhino Revolution, supported by The Black Mambas who provide security for these precious, rhino calves. I feed Fatty, the largest rhino and my heart melts. Each rhino costs about £450 a month to wean and if this orphanage is to expand to take in the huge amounts of orphan victims, it will need to raise much more funds and fast. With dedicated staff and the Mambas supporting this project, I truly hope it gets the support it deserves.

All in all, I can conclude that the Black Mambas are a very strong presence in Balule and with a record drop in poaching in their reserve by 75%, it is definitely working. This concept is a fantastic one and hopefully it will set precedent for similar units to be set up all over Africa.

Siphiwe: “If the world out there can give a hand and help him to expand the group of Black Mambas, I think that at the end of the day we will win this war, because at each and every corner we will be there. The poachers will know that they don’t have a chance.”

Anneka Svenska is a conservationist & broadcaster who specialises in films covering serious wildlife crime, wildlife & environmental conservation and education surrounding misunderstood apex predators.

Most recently Anneka has returned from filming alongside Image Impact Films and producer/presenter Nigel Marven in South Africa, where they created a short film to highlight the work of The Black Mambas and charity Helping Rhinos.

UK visit schedule

Sunday 21st Feb – Black Mambas arrive in the UK.

Monday 22nd Feb – Black Mambas and Richard Vigne (CEO of Ole Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya) give a talk at Port Lympne Reserve in Kent.

Tuesday 23rd Feb – Black Mambas and Richard Vigne give a talk to staff at London Zoo.

Thursday 25th Feb – Black Mambas sightseeing in London, including a trip to the House of Commons.

Friday 26th Feb – Black Mambas return to South Africa in the late afternoon.

The Black Mambas trip to the UK is sponsored by RACS Group.

More information

Black Mamba official website.

United Nations Champions of the Earth Award.

Sponsor the work of the Black Mambas via Helping Rhinos.

The world is undergoing a populist revival.

From the revolt against austerity led by the Syriza Party in Greece and the Podemos Party in Spain, to Jeremy Corbyn’s surprise victory as Labour leader in the UK, to Donald Trump’s ascendancy in the Republican polls, to Bernie Sanders’ surprisingly strong challenge to Hillary Clinton – contenders with their fingers on the popular pulse are surging ahead of their establishment rivals.

Today’s populist revolt mimics an earlier one that reached its peak in the US in the 1890s. Then it was all about challenging Wall Street, reclaiming the government’s power to create money, curing rampant deflation with US Notes (Greenbacks) or silver coins (then considered the money of the people), nationalizing the banks, and establishing a central bank that actually responded to the will of the people.

Over a century later, Occupy Wall Street revived the populist challenge, armed this time with the Internet and mass media to spread the word. The Occupy movement shined a spotlight on the corrupt culture of greed unleashed by deregulating Wall Street, widening the yawning gap between the 1% and the 99% and destroying jobs, households and the economy.

Donald Trump’s populist campaign has not focused much on Wall Street; but Bernie Sanders’ has, in spades. Sanders has picked up the baton where Occupy left off, and the disenfranchised Millennials who composed that movement have flocked behind him.

The failure of regulation 

Sanders’ focus on Wall Street has forced his opponent Hillary Clinton to respond to the challenge. Clinton maintains that Sanders’ proposals sound good but “will never make it in real life.” Her solution is largely to preserve the status quo while imposing more bank regulation.

That approach, however, was already tried with the Dodd-Frank Act, which has not solved the problem although it is currently the longest and most complicated bill ever passed by the US legislature.

Dodd-Frank purported to eliminate bailouts, but it did this by replacing them with ‘bail-ins’ – confiscating the funds of bank creditors, including depositors, to keep ‘too big to fail’ banks afloat. The costs were merely shifted from the ‘people as taxpayers’ to the ‘people as creditors’.

Worse, the massive tangle of new regulations has hamstrung the smaller community banks that make the majority of loans to small and medium sized businesses, which in turn create most of the jobs. More regulation would simply force more community banks to sell out to their larger competitors, making the too-bigs even bigger.

In any case, regulatory tweaking has proved to be an inadequate response. Banks backed by an army of lobbyists simply get the laws changed, so that what was formerly criminal behavior becomes legal. See, for example, CitiGroup’s redrafting of the ‘push out’ rule in December 2015 that completely vitiated the legislative intent.

What Sanders is proposing, by contrast, is a real financial revolution, a fundamental change in the system itself.

His proposals include eliminating Too Big to Fail by breaking up the biggest banks; protecting consumer deposits by reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act (separating investment from depository banking); reviving postal banks as safe depository alternatives; and reforming the Federal Reserve, enlisting it in the service of the people.

Time to revive the original populist agenda?

Sanders’ proposals are a good start. But critics counter that breaking up the biggest banks would be costly, disruptive and destabilizing; and it would not eliminate Wall Street corruption and mismanagement.

Banks today have usurped the power to create the national money supply. As the Bank of England recently acknowledged, banks create money whenever they make loans. Banks determine who gets the money and on what terms. Reducing the biggest banks to less than $50 billion in assets (the Dodd-Frank limit for ‘too big to fail’) would not make them more trustworthy stewards of that power and privilege.

How can banking be made to serve the needs of the people and the economy, while preserving the more functional aspects of today’s highly sophisticated global banking system? Perhaps it is time to reconsider the proposals of the early populists.

The direct approach to ‘occupying’ the banks is to simply step into their shoes and make them public utilities. Insolvent megabanks can be nationalized – as they were before 2008. (More on that shortly.)

Making banks public utilities can happen on a local level as well. States and cities can establish publicly-owned depository banks on the highly profitable and efficient model of the Bank of North Dakota. Public banks can partner with community banks to direct credit where it is needed locally; and they can reduce the costs of government by recycling bank profits for public use, eliminating outsized Wall Street fees and obviating the need for derivatives to mitigate risk.

At the federal level, not only can postal banks serve as safe depositories and affordable credit alternatives, but the central bank can provide a source of interest-free credit for the nation – as was done, for example, with Canada’s central bank from 1939 to 1974. The US Treasury could also reclaim the power to issue, not just pocket change, but a major portion of the money supply – as was done by the American colonists in the 18th century and by President Abraham Lincoln in the 19th century.

Nationalization: not as radical as it sounds

Radical as it sounds today, nationalizing failed megabanks was actually standard operating procedure before 2008. Nationalization was one of three options open to the FDIC when a bank failed. The other two were (1) closure and liquidation; and (2) merger with a healthy bank.

Most failures were resolved using the merger option, but for very large banks, nationalization was sometimes considered the best choice for taxpayers.  The leading US example was Continental Illinois, the seventh-largest bank in the country when it failed in 1984. The FDIC wiped out existing shareholders, infused capital, took over bad assets, replaced senior management, and owned the bank for about a decade, running it as a commercial enterprise.

What was a truly radical departure from accepted practice was the unprecedented wave of government bailouts after the 2008 banking crisis. The taxpayers bore the losses, while culpable bank management not only escaped civil and criminal penalties but made off with record bonuses.

In a July 2012 article in The New York Times titled “Wall Street Is Too Big to Regulate,” Gar Alperovitz noted that the five biggest banks – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs – then had combined assets amounting to more than half the nation’s economy. He wrote: