These are the reflections of an internationalist woman from Catalonia who joined the YPJ defence of North and East Syria. Originally published in Spanish here.
I arrived in March, it was very cold and everyone welcomed me warmly. They all crowded together by the stove, brought tea and cigarettes. They looked at me with big eyes, asked me: “Where are you from?” Someone said quietly… “she’s from Europe”. “How did you get here? Do you understand Kurdish?”
I felt an emotion not easy to explain… I had them before my eyes, members of YPJ, from the unit of Serekaniye. Young comrades, some mothers of children being cared for by their own mothers because they joined the People’s Defence Forces, some who had joined by escaping from their families because they did not want to be slaves to unknown husbands and unwanted babies, some from families ravaged by war, some convinced of the defence of Democratic Confederalism and the words of Serokatî, some for avenging fallen relatives and friends; Arabs, Kurds, Muslims… all together under the same promise. And I, who did not yet know all that I would be taught about the meaning of life and of being born a woman in the Middle East.
France. The strangely intermittent general strike in opposition to proposed pension reforms in france is neither “general”, nor truly a “strike”. If the movement is soon to enter its third month, with another day of protest scheduled for today (Yesterday, Paris-luttes.info), the strike has never succeeded in paralysing the country’s economy (indeed, it barely reaches…
PUSL.- Dos años y ocho meses después del último juicio del grupo de presos políticos conocido como el Grupo Gdeim Izik, estos 19 saharauis detenidos en las cárceles marroquíes siguen siendo maltratados. Los presos políticos en Gdeim Izik siguen sin atención médica, la cual es rechazado en repetidas ocasiones por las autoridades marroquíes, aunque la […]
Corporate Watch “The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.” – Utah Phillips London is one of the main worldwide hubs of ecocidal capitalism. This city is home to oil and gas giants including BP and Shell, as well as many of the world’s […]
Fossil fuel companies hold vast oil, gas and coal riches that they frequently tout to the investing universe to help elevate their market values. However, not a single energy company has ever told investors about the potential effects on the environment if all their hydrocarbon reserves were burned..
And certainly few, if any, have ever told investors that a large chunk of these assets could be doomed to forever remain buried in the ground – and essentially worth nothing – should environmental regulations tighten.
Yet, the specter that these assets might one day end up stranded and theoretically worthless as the clamor for clean energy heats up looms large.
According to estimates in the Financial Times’ Lex column, nearly $900 billion worth of reserves – or about one-third of the value of big oil and gas companies – is at risk of one day becoming worthless as market and policy forces continue to undercut hydrocarbon economics due to the threat of climate change.
In effect, these companies could see a third of their value evaporate if governments aggressively attempt to restrict the rise in temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the rest of this century and avert catastrophic climate change as per Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates.
Consequently, investors are likely to increasingly price in the risk of asset writedowns by the world’s leading oil and gas companies unless a solution to the ongoing climate change is found within the next decade.
High Risk Investments
The effects of such a huge scale in writing off frozen assets – gradually at first and then at an accelerated rate – is likely to be keenly felt across the business world.
´´Capitalism on edge of Mega Crash> In league with the Fossil Fuel mafia the US has decimated oil production in Venezuela, Iran, Libya, Syria, etc to boost its own frack oil and gas, using every means short of open war… but still oil and gas prices keep falling as world trade spirals down. Distrust in the system spreads like coronavirus. . Ubiquitous US sanctions prove to be a self defeating Protection Racket, as consumption falls and climate change and ecological collapse begin to snowball. Perhaps we will see real cuts in CO2 emissions yet in 2020!”
We could argue that notoriously secretive national oil companies (NOCs) and not independent oil companies (IOCs) are the biggest financial risk since they control ~$3 trillion in oil and gas assets and an estimated 90 percent of all known reserves. Nevertheless, considering that publicly traded energy companies have collectively lost $400 billion in their fundamental value over the past five years, losing anything in that ballpark over the next five could be disastrous for the sector.
A good case in point is Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX), which recently reported a large $10.4B shale asset writedown. ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) also recently found itself in the hot-seat over its failure to make disclosure about climate risk even as shareholder pressure for risk disclosure mounts. It was later absolved.
Here’s a rundown of the financial risk burden that fossil fuel companies carry:
Stranded Assets – the assets currently contributing to the market value of many fossil fuel companies that cannot actually be developed and sold will lower their overall valuations
Loss of market capitalization – downward pressure on energy stocks from divestiture efforts especially by institutional investors could hurt your mutual funds and stocks
Cost of capital – in December, we reported that Goldman Sachs had ruled out financing drilling in the Arctic as well as new thermal coal mines anywhere in the world and that other large banks were likely to follow suit. Fewer banks willing to finance fossil fuel projects will make it progressively more expensive to bring these buried assets to market
Scarcity of insurance – by the same token, fewer insurance companies will be willing to back such projects, thus increasing both the cost and time to get the necessary insurance to build them
Insufficient renewables investment – faced with this critical disruption in the well-established fossil fuel model, it would be smart to develop substantial lines of business that do not carry these risks. Yet, current investment in low carbon energy sources by fossil fuel companies is less than 1 percent, way too little to move the revenue needle for the vast majority
Market risk – there might be seismic changes in how the market begins to value fossil fuel reserves
The Dirtier, The Riskier
Although the Lex report sounds decidedly bearish, let’s not forget that even a more benign case where governments target a 2C rise in temperature – which is what they targeted at the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change meeting – energy companies would still have to write off more than 50 percent of their reserves as stranded assets.
Meeting the 1.5C threshold would mean leaving over 80 per cent of hydrocarbon assets worthless.
In a recent piece on climate change, we reported that global energy emissions are showing serious signs of slowing down due to a more aggressive clean energy push.
Global CO2 emissions climbed just 0.6 percent in 2019 compared to 3.4 percent in 2018 thanks to China’s green energy push. Better still, the IEA sees CO2 levels in 2050 clocking in at 4 percent below 2019 levels despite an otherwise healthy economy, thanks in large part due to coal power retirements while natural gas consumption – with a lower carbon footprint – is expected to increase quite dramatically. Related: Peak Shale Will Send Oil Prices Sky High
Ultimately, we could be at the cusp of one of the biggest ever shifts in the allocation of capital in the energy sector. Investors need to be wary of the risks that could come with this shift.
A recent study from Harvard, published in Geophysical Research Letters by Turner et al used satellite data over the US and found a 30% increase in methane releases since 2002.
Our comrade Gabriel, arrested on January 25 in Portugal, is still locked in the cells of the judiciary of Porto waiting for a possible extradition. The second part of the trial started on 27 January. It still hasn’t begun yet, but it will take place in the next few days. Originally published by 325. Until…
Update: Gabriel resists extradition as Spain asks 16 yrs more .. he already did 30 yrs!
After about a year and a half in hiding, on January 25, 2020, Gabriel Pombo Da Silva was arrested in Portuguese territory. Gabriel previously spent more than 30 years in prison
With an international arrest warrant for a residual theoretical sentence of over ten years (a personal vendetta converted into a “legal detail”), Gabriel continued to contribute to the anarchist struggle with his writings.
This 28 page collection of writings by Gabriel Pombo da Silva is available here to download..
The zine is written in Gabriel’s amazingly raw, imaginative style and shows why the German and Spanish authorities tried to suppress him forever – Read his words, be inspired and take action!!
Gabriel Pombo da Silva is a well-known Galician anarchist militant who has spent more than 30 years in prison. Always at the crossroads of repression, both Spanish and from other European States, for his commitment to the anti-capitalist struggle, he wrote a book during his stay in jail – Diario e ideario de un delincuente -, as well as different booklets – gathered in the book Parte de un appido— and other writings.
On Monday, January 27, 2020, the trial (*extradition) against our comrade began on Portuguese soil, the first stage during which the following emerged in summary.
Portugal has so far accepted the paralysis of extradition to the Spanish state and the defence has about 20 days to add documentation that further supports the importance of non-extradition..
The defence has immediately challenged the calculation of the residual penalty that the Spanish State claims to apply to our comrade, namely 16 years! Without going into too much legal detail, it can be seen from the documentation justifying this count, that it is a “legal revenge” (but what state revenge is not?).
For the moment, Gabriel remains detained at the Oporto Judicial Police, waiting to appear before the judge more or less in mid-February. He can receive visits every other day from anyone. He is well and he is strong, combative, determined and ironic as always!
On the same morning of Monday, January 27, the houses of Elisa Di Bernardo’s mother, father, sister and brother-in-law were searched with the aim of seizing computer equipment.
The public prosecutor’s office of Brescia issued yet another 270bis [subversive association with purpose of terrorism or subversion of the democratic order] for Elisa and Gabriel accusing them of belonging to a subversive cell with international base and support (shakes earth, shakes!).
This new (but old, crushed and retracted) repressive wave obviously does not facilitate Gabriel’s legal situation and the regime press of the three countries has already done its duty by exalting the close investigative collaboration between Italy, Spain and Portugal.
To journalists, our historical enemies’ puppets, their duty… to us our revolutionary duty (and let each one call it what he wants, je je).
Updates will follow.
Freedom for Gabriel! Freedom for all! Long live anarchy!
Ardire, Scripta Manent, Operation Buyo … Do they mean anything to you? These are only a few of the police judicial “operations” that our “clan” has lived on its own skin for being and remaining anarchists to the extreme consequence.We are a nomadic clan that goes from country to country in search of accomplices who practice anarchism without asking for approval or consensus, who act without worrying about the “politically correct” discourse (so much in vogue in our times) that haunts our little shops today. We are also not interested in “aesthetics”, but “ethics”, the practical, the real.
We are looking for an anarchism that dirties our hands, keeps us awake and always on guard (as opposed to any complacency); this anarchism that is not liked by and disturbs the servants of the State, who have not abandoned their efforts to imprison us.
It is not easy to go from one place to another. It’s even more difficult along with our daughter, that little beauty we called Iraultza, and a canine companion that we will never fail to take with us, because she is an integral part of our clan.
Apparently, the Spanish State has not stopped wanting to put me in prison for a “residual sentence” that exists only in its putrid mind and its disgusting papers.
That being how things are, we have decided to live in the shadows, bringing our invisible contribution to all the projects that are of interest to us and with which we feel complicit.
We express all our subversive solidarity for the DESERVING comrades on trial in Italy and the world. We have no declarations to make in the courts of the “gowned” because we don’t give a shit about their theatres and farces, their accusations and acquittals.
The best way to propagate Anarchy is to live it intensely, not by representing it. We are not for farce or comedy.
There will be no more “communiques” from our clan: We are free and we are dangerous.
For Anarchy!
The nomad-anarchist clan. Elisa-Gabriel-Iraultza and the quadruped.
Received 18.3.19, and translated to English by Act for freedom now! original in Italian HERE
Portugal: Dirección para escribirle al compañero anarquista Gabriel Pombo Da Silva — Publicacion Refractario
A pesar de que no tenemos novedades, nos es grato anunciar que es posible escribirle a nuestro querido Gabriel Pombo Da Silva a la siguiente dirección:
Write to Gabriel here *feb 2020
Gabriel Pombo Da Silva
EPPJ Porto Rua Assis Vaz,
109 4200-096 Porto
Portugal
De momento, continuará detenido en Portugal hasta la mitad de febrero. Mantendremos informando con más actualizaciones de su caso. […]
By: Isaín Mandujano TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ, Chis. (Proceso Digital) State Police repressed students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College and parents that search for their 43 disappeared sons with tear gas when they were attempting to carry out a roadblock jointly with students from the Mactumatzá Rural Teachers College. With a balance of several people injured, […]
The Free 