Tag Archives: FCPA

Latest Developments, December 7

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Climate loopholes
The Guardian reports that India is taking wealthy countries to task at the climate change talks in Durban, insisting they need to get serious about cutting emissions.
“To bolster its argument that rich countries must do more, India referred to a recent study by the Stockholm Environment Institute of the pledges made last year in Cancún by all countries. It shows that developing countries are pledging 30%-50% more cuts than the rich, and that the rich may be able to avoid taking any action whatever to meet their pledges by taking advantage of accounting loopholes.
Sivan Kartha and Peter Erickson of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) said: ‘Developing countries pledges amount to more absolute mitigation than all developed countries. Unless accounting rules for Annex 1 countries are made more stringent, then Annex 1 countries will be able to formally comply with their pledges with very little actual mitigation and possibly none at all.’”

Climate debt
The Inter Press Service reports on opposition in Nepal to the government’s acceptance of millions of dollars in loans for climate change mitigation projects.
“‘Nepal has one of the lowest greenhouse gas emission levels in the world due to its low industrialisation,’ [secretary of the All-Nepal Peasants’ Federation, Hari] Parajuli adds. ‘It also has forests covering nearly 40 percent of its land. Yet, the developed countries that cause pollution are now seeking to make Nepal take loans and pay them interest.’
Parajuli says the protests are also against the involvement of the World Bank.
‘We don’t regard it positively,’ he says. ‘It is not service-oriented but works for profit.’”

Naming land grabbers
A new Oakland Institute report argues that at while the EU and US give food and emergency aid to victims of famine and war, their development and energy policies harm Africa’s people and environment.
“Development agencies including USAID and the World Bank Group are often the architects of these [unregulated land] deals that promise benefits for Africans but fail to deliver. Furthermore, the research shows that US and EU energy policies that tout the benefits of agrofuels and carbon credits–key elements of these land deals–are actually making climate change a bigger problem.
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[The Oakland Institute’s Anuradha] Mittal noted that people can follow the supply chain to identify the bad actors–who claim benefits for Africa but seldom deliver: so-called developers who determine how land will be used (such as Iowa-based based AgriSol Energy and Texas-based Nile Trading Development), companies that grow non-food crops on the land (including Sun Biofuels and Addax Bioenergy), and groups that buy up agrofuels and timber (including major western airlines such as Lufthansa).”

Food speculation
A new report by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) argues for regulation of “purely financial speculation in commodity derivatives markets” that has spiralled out of control in recent years and is contributing to soaring food prices.
“SOMO calls on European governments to respect the precautionary principle enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty and to act decisively to bring back financial speculation in commodity derivatives markets. The European Parliament currently has an opportunity to do just this by strengthening the proposed Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and Regulation (MiFID and MiFIR).”

Calling out Soros
The FCPA Professor, the alter ego of Butler University’s Mike Koehler, accuses billionaire philanthropist George Soros of not walking his talk on foreign bribery.
“If the Soros funded Open Society Foundations believe that all corporations involved in [a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] enforcement action have a “bad or wrongful purpose,” that current standards “simply do not permit successful prosecution of innocent, mistaken or unknowing persons” and that companies involved in an FCPA enforcement action are corrupt, then why does Soros Fund Management LLC invest in so many FCPA violators or companies subject to FCPA scrutiny?
The Fund’s recent 13F filing (in a 13F filing institutional investment managers disclose fund holdings) indicates substantial investments in the following companies that have recently resolved FCPA enforcement actions or are otherwise the subject of current FCPA scrutiny:  Alliance One International, El Paso, Flowserve, Halliburton, Hewlett-Packard, KBR, Motorola Solutions, Parker Drilling, Pfizer, Tidewater, Weatherford International, Tyco International, and Lyondellbasell Industries.”

Drone boom
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Trevor Timm argues that, with the unmanned aircraft market worth nearly $100 billion across more than 50 countries, the debate about drones needs to extend well beyond their use or misuse by the US military.
“Whether they are being used for surveillance or all-out combat, drones will soon pose serious risks for all of the world’s citizens. They can offer governments, police departments, or private citizens unprecedented capabilities for spying, and given their security vulnerabilities, the potential consequences could be endless.”

Treating symptoms
Dean Chahim, a University of Washington student and co-founder of the Critical Development Forum, calls on young people to engage in more political activism at home in order to change the global order.
“My generation has been sold a dogma of the individual as the solution to inequality and poverty. The older generation glorifies our individual achievements as “social entrepreneurs” while brushing the total failure of our economic system under the rug. Is it any wonder our youth think that if they start enough NGOs, go abroad two weeks at a time, design a new widget, or send a few bras – all will be well in the world?”

Spam tax
Oxfam’s Duncan Green mines the comments section of a Financial Times blog to provide a “lovely analogy” for a proposed financial transaction tax (Tobin/Robin Hood tax).
“Think of spam email: when sending emails is essentially free, sending out millions of spam emails can be profitable even if a fraction of respondents would take the bait. But if you had to pay even a nominal charge, even less than a penny, per email sent, that ‘business model’ would essentially become loss making in many cases. The Tobin tax would have a similar effect on a lot of this ‘phantom liquidity’ we get across many markets through high frequency traders – who, after all, are playing a zero sum game mostly, with their profits essentially being losses for a lot of other players. A small transaction cost might just be enough to discourage a lot of this socially useless activity.”

Latest Developments, December 5

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Unravelling social contract
A new report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says its member countries are experiencing their highest levels of inequality in over 30 years and calls on governments to revise their tax systems so that wealthy individual pay “their fair share of the tax burden.”
“Launching the report in Paris, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said ‘The social contract is starting to unravel in many countries. This study dispels the assumptions that the benefits of economic growth will automatically trickle down to the disadvantaged and that greater inequality fosters greater social mobility. Without a comprehensive strategy for inclusive growth, inequality will continue to rise.’”

Ethiopia’s financial losses
Global Financial Integrity’s Sarah Freitas estimates that Ethiopian losses due to illicit financial outflows amounted to $3.26 in 2009, which was more than the combined value of the development assistance it received and the products it exported.
“What can be done? The first step the international community should take is to hamper the ability of corrupt and tax-evading Ethiopians to launder their money in the global financial system.  This could be accomplished by establishing a global system of automatic exchange of tax information. In this way, Ethiopian authorities could much more easily track the bank accounts their tax evaders have established around the world. Furthermore, the G20 governments could push for an end to shell companies by calling for beneficial owners of all companies, trusts and foundations to be known to government authorities.  This would make it far more difficult for the corrupt and the criminal to hide their ill-gotten gains behind a wall of corporate secrecy.”

SEC contrivances
Butler University’s Mike Koehler, a.k.a. the FCPA Professor, writes about a recent court ruling in New York that pertains to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s practice of resolving cases – whether involving allegations of foreign bribery or not – without requiring an admission or denial of guilt from the defendants.
“In prior cases, Judge Rakoff has said that this policy contributes to a ‘facade of enforcement’ (SEC v. Bank of America) and is a ‘stew of confusion and hypocrisy unworthy of such a proud agency as the SEC.’ (SEC v. Vitesse Semiconductor)
Last week, Judge Rakoff, in denying the SEC-Citigroup settlement, again had pointed words as to the SEC settlement device typically used in FCPA enforcement actions.
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‘An application of judicial power that does not rest on facts is worse than mindless, it is inherently dangerous.  The injunctive power of the judiciary is not a free-roving remedy to be invoked at the whim of a regulatory agency, even with the consent of the regulated.  If its deployment does not rest on facts – cold, hard, solid facts, established either by admissions or by trials – it serves no lawful or moral purpose and is simply an engine of oppression.’
Judge Rakoff stated that the ‘SEC, of all agencies, has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges; and if it fails to do so, this Court must not, in the name of deference or convenience, grant judicial enforcement to the agency’s contrivances.’”

IP enforcement
Intellectual Property Watch reports that a group of civil society organizations has sent a letter to the World Intellectual Property Organization to express concerns over the UN agency’s “approach to enforcement” regarding piracy and counterfeiting.
“The signers highlighted a lack of transparency about WIPO technical assistance activities, the extensive link being made to public health and safety (which they called “questionable and tenuous at best”) as led by industry, and the possibility that WIPO enforcement activities might be undermining existing flexibilities in IP law. Signers included AIDS groups, digital civil liberties groups, and organizations working on development on the ground in countries around the world.”

Asbestos pushing
Canada’s biggest opposition party is criticizing the government for throwing its weight behind the country’s controversial asbestos industry during negotiations for a trade agreement with India.
“In response to questions from [International Trade critic Brian] Masse, the Chief Negotiator for the Canada-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement admitted Canada is currently working to eliminate tariffs on asbestos exports to India. Currently there is a 10 per cent duty on asbestos exports to India, the world’s second largest consumer of asbestos.
‘We already dump hundreds of thousands of tons of asbestos each year into developing nations – and now we want to make it easier for asbestos magnates to do so?’ said MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre). ‘This is deplorable and Canadians need to let their government know they will not put up with this any longer.’”

Blood diamond casualty
Global Witness has announced it has left the Kimberley Process, a certification program it helped establish in the hopes of cleaning up the international diamond trade.
“The Kimberley Process’s refusal to evolve and address the clear links between diamonds, violence and tyranny has rendered it increasingly outdated, said the group. Despite intensive efforts over many years by a coalition of NGOs, the scheme’s main flaws and loopholes have not been fixed and most of the governments that run the scheme continue to show no interest in reform.”

A greener Green Revolution
In a Q&A with the Inter Press Service, International Fund for Agricultural Development President Kanayo Nwanze calls for a new kind of agricultural revolution.
“The Green Revolution was successful because it focused on very clear messages: increased fertiliser use, increased improved seeds and irrigation. But we found out in the long term that it is not sustainable. So now we need to look for sustainable approaches to production that do not destroy the environment and are available to a wide spectrum of farmers in Africa and in the world as a whole.”

Transnational coordination
University of California at Santa Barbara’s William Robinson argues the current “global political economy can no longer be contained through consensual mechanisms of social control” and predicts a protracted period of conflict.
“It is noteworthy that those struggling around the world have been shown a strong sense of solidarity and are in communications across whole continents. Just as the Egyptian uprising inspired the US Occupy movement, the latter has been an inspiration for a new round of mass struggle in Egypt. What remains is to extend transnational coordination and move towards transnationally-coordinated programmes.
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In my view, the only viable solution to the crisis of global capitalism is a massive redistribution of wealth and power downward towards the poor majority of humanity along the lines of a 21st-century democratic socialism in which humanity is no longer at war with itself and with nature.”

Latest Developments, October 26

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License to bribe
Main Justice reports that a co-author of a US Chamber of Commerce proposal to water down the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has just become the FBI’s general counsel.
“In its report ‘Restoring Balance: Proposed Amendments to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act’ the Chamber said that the FCPA is a costly burden to business and ‘there is also reason to believe that the FCPA has made U.S. businesses less competitive than their foreign counterparts who do not have significant FCPA exposure.’ The paper called for five specific reforms including limiting a company’s ‘successor liability’ for the prior actions of a firm it has acquired and giving a clear definition of ‘foreign official’ under the statute.
The Open Society Foundation, a George Soros-funded organization issued a report, charging that [Andrew] Weissmann’s plan would ‘significantly reduce the scope and efficacy of the FCPA while substantially undermining more than 30 years of successful U.S. leadership in promoting global anti-corruption standards.’ ‘[T]he Chamber’s proposal looks more like a license to commit pervasive and intentional bribery than a modest attempt to eliminate the risk of prosecutorial over-reach,’ the report said.”

Proposed EU legislation I: A victory for transparency
Tearfund’s Jonathan Spencer welcomes proposed EU legislation that would require extractive industry companies listed in Europe and operating abroad to disclose what they pay to host governments on a project-by-project basis.
“[This information] will play a key role in releasing resources for development, improving transparency and engaging citizens with their governments. Evidence from other countries has shown that where details of budgets and projected expenditure is published, the money is much more likely to reach its intended destination and support development.”

Proposed EU legislation II: Bad for business
But a number of the companies – including Anglo American, Rio Tinto, Shell and Total – that would be subject to the proposed legislation have argued in a letter to the European Commission that such regulations are misguided and would be bad for business.
“One example is oil or gas fields which cross borders, where governments are understandably careful to safeguard the confidentiality of the terms they offer to investors,” said the letter.
“Further damage to competitiveness will be caused by the additional cost and administrative burden of project-level reporting.”

Proposed EU legislation III: No legal teeth
On the other hand, France’s Citizen Forum for Social and Environmental Responsibility argues the European Commission’s proposal lacks legal teeth.
“In fact, notwithstanding progress in certain areas such as reporting obligation, the [European Commission’s] statement on social and environmental responsibility does not address other crucial questions. The proposal lacks concrete measures to improve the legal responsibility between the parent company and its subsidiaries: companies based in Europe cannot, therefore, be considered responsible for violations perpetrated by their subsidiaries and subcontractors in the South. Nor does the statement spell out the legal avenues that would guarantee real access to justice for all victims of violations.” (Translated from the French.)

South-South cooperation
The Guardian has reproduced part of an IRIN series on how countries like Brazil, India, China and South Africa are changing the world of aid as they become increasingly significant donors.
“Many are not new at all – India, Brazil and China have been giving aid for decades – but what is new is that a group of non-western donors is giving more humanitarian and development aid year on year, and reporting it more consistently to official trackers, such as the UN’s Financial Tracking System (127 donors reported aid in 2010).
As they “emerge”, the traditional hegemony held by western donors over how and where aid is dispersed is starting to be dismantled.”

South-South colonization
While many within the development industry speak of the growing importance of South-South cooperation, Al Jazeera uses the issue of African land grabs to raise the question of possible South-South colonization.
“What would Gandhi say today were he to know that Indians, who were only freed from the shackles of colonialism in recent history, were now at the forefront of this “land-grabbing” as part of the race for foreign control over African land and resources; currently being called the Neo-Colonialism of Africa?,” ask the Ethiopian authors of an open letter to the people of India.

One-step solutions
The University of Ottawa’s Rita Abrahamsen argues that attempts to rein in trading of “conflict minerals” are well-intentioned but may not be particularly helpful for ending African conflicts.
“The danger is that by making illegal mining the only story about the conflict in eastern Congo, other causes—requiring more complex solutions—will be ignored. Meanwhile, the international community will invest vast sums in cumbersome tracking procedures that may be easily avoided in an environment of weak institutional capacities and porous borders.
Ultimately, then, the campaign against conflict minerals might do more to restore Canada’s image abroad and make Canadians feel like ‘good global citizens’ than it does to bring peace to the DRC.”

Size doesn’t matter
The UN Population Fund has released its annual State of World Population just as the number of Earth’s inhabitants is set to hit 7 billion, but its authors are more concerned with how people live than with raw numbers.
“Environmental journalist Fred Pearce echoes the view that a small proportion of the world’s population takes the majority of resources and produces the majority of its pollution.
The world’s richest half billion people— about 7 per cent of the global population— are responsible for about 50 per cent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, a surrogate measure of fossil fuel consumption. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 per cent are responsible for just 7 per cent of emissions, Pearce wrote in an article for Yale University’s “Environment 360” website. ‘It’s overconsumption, not population growth, that is the fundamental problem,’ Pearce argued”

Latest Developments, October 14

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Responding to Occupy Wall Street
The University of Manitoba’s Hari Bapuji and the University of Massachusetts’s Suhaib Riaz examine the nature of the Occupy Wall Street protests and advise US business leaders on how best to respond.
“So if Occupy Wall Street is leaderless and unfocused, why isn’t it going away? The persistence of the ‘occupations’ is a signal that there is authentic, deep-seated unhappiness with the failings of the U.S. economic system. It’s an indicator that economic inequality is perceived as an important issue — one requiring business’s immediate attention.
The demonstrators are asserting that they are stakeholders in American business, and they’re correct — they are stakeholders, as consumers, as employees, and as citizens affected by the financial system in general. Businesses would do well to accept that fact and engage with the protesters, rather than trying to demonize or dismiss them.”

Constructive criticism
The Globe and Mail reports Mark Carney, the governor of Canada’s central bank and a potential chairman of the Financial Stability Board tasked with reforming international banking rules, has called the Occupy Wall Street and related protests “entirely constructive.”
“In a television interview, Mr. Carney acknowledged that the movement is an understandable product of the ‘increase in inequality’ – particularly in the United States – that started with globalization and was thrust into sharp relief by the worst downturn since the Great Depression, which hit the less well-educated and blue-collar segments of the population hardest.”

International media bias
The Institute for Security Studies’ Arthur Chatora accuses the international media of uneven and perhaps agenda-driven coverage of human rights abuses in the Libyan conflict.
“This biased media coverage raises questions about the credibility of media organisations and their agenda. Is it because the presence of widespread evidence of racially motivated human rights abuses committed by the TNC forces raises moral and ethical questions that challenge the validity of the notion of a “humanitarian war”? The responsibility assumed by NATO and the TNC forces to protect civilian lives from abuse by Gaddafi forces is also questionable, as it appears this mandate does not seem to extend to the protection of black Libyans and African immigrants.”

International legal bias
The International Institute for Environment and Development’s Lorenzo Cotula argues the current international legal regime encourages land grabs in Africa.
“National and international legal developments have strengthened the protection of companies against adverse action by the host government. But much less progress has been made to strengthen the rights of local people. As a result, the ‘shadow’ that the law casts on interactions between large companies and local villagers presents different shades of grey: those already benefiting from greater access to capital, expertise and influence also enjoy stronger rights.”

Tax agreement inequality
swissinfo.ch reports that not everyone is convinced Switzerland’s new tax agreement with India – one of 70 negotiated by the European country since its government pledged to reduce its famous banking secrecy in 2009 – is much more than window dressing.
“‘As seen by the recent cases of Germany and the United Kingdom, a good [double tax agreement] is not enough. These powerful neighbours have already negotiated new agreements which provide easier access to tax information. The Indian government got the maximum it could as an emerging market but influential industrial countries can get more information,’ [according to Alliance Sud’s Mark Herkenrath].
The Alliance Sud specialist said it would be extremely difficult for India to get the tax information it needs via a DTA and the Indian government would have to request an additional agreement for a withholding tax and special information disclosure clauses.”

Intellectual property vs access to medicines
Daniele Dionisio, a member of the European Parliament Working Group on Innovation, Access to Medicines and Poverty-Related Diseases, voices concern about a new plan introduced by the US during last month’s Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
“Taken together, the non-transparent dynamics bound up with TEAM [Trade Enhancing Access to Medicines] compound fear that this initiative would be something that backs big pharma rather than making headway on non-discriminatory access to medicines in developing countries. This is particularly worrying owing to the fact that TEAM will probably play as the basis for future agreements between the US and other developing and developed countries. This concern seemingly harmonizes with a swipe taken by the US rep on 14 September at the WTO trade policy review of India, maintaining that India’s IP trade policy is out of sync with international best practices.”

The business of corruption
ECONorthwest’s Ann Hollingshead uses some real-world examples to take on the US Chamber of Commerce’s contention that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is a threat to American business.
“Has an American company never lost a contract in the history of the FCPA because its officers were not allowed to bribe? No. But does the FCPA provide a systematic impediment to American business competitiveness abroad? No. When an American businessman refuses to pay a bribe, it doesn’t mean the official necessarily goes looking elsewhere. As in Mexico, often the FCPA allows for a shift in the business dynamics, changing the playing field for everyone involved. Moreover, as the Argentine case shows, many businesses welcome this assurance and can use it to their benefit.”

Race to the bottom
The Economist looks at the growing movement against tax havens and the relative ineffectiveness of regulations to this point in stopping the race to the bottom.
“One avenue for reform is to place a greater duty on companies to explain what profits they make where. That would help prevent the worst abuses of transfer pricing scams, in which tax havens play a handy role. The muddled Dodd-Frank reforms, passed by Congress in America and now being implemented by regulators, supposedly go some way towards this; so does legislation being drafted in the EU.”

Latest Developments, August 22

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The unexpected appearance of a smiling, victory sign-flashing Saif al-Islam Gadhafi after he had supposedly been arrested by rebel forces suggests there may yet be a few twists in the Libyan conflict that has already lasted six months despite roughly 20,000 NATO aerial missions. Nevertheless, with the apparent crumbling of the Gadhafi regime over the last few days, all those nagging questions about Libya’s rebels and what they would do with power may be about to be answered. Beyond concerns about the ability of such disparate groups to work together without the focus provided by a common enemy, the New America Foundation’s Barak Barfi wonders if they have the competencies required for the work that lies ahead: “Short on skilled experts, a post-Qaddafi Libya risks becoming dependent on foreign assistance, much like the Palestinians, who live largely from international aid rather than from their own economic activity.” But as far as Europe is concerned, the business news coming out of Libya is good for now.

As for assessing the NATO mission, the Financial Times reports: “Few, if any, civilian casualties were incurred on the ground; no alliance aircraft or personnel were lost; and the mission saw no flagrant breaches of the remit it received from the UN, which defined the goal of the operation as the protection of civilians on the ground.” But media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has some questions (as does Amnesty International) about reports of civilian deaths, and US congressman Dennis Kucinich argues “the war against Libya has seen countless violations of United Nations security council resolutions (UNSCRs) by Nato and UN member states.”

The Wall Street Journal reports the US Justice Department is getting creative in trying to go after foreign officials who demand bribes, even though the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is intended for the pursuit of those involved in the supply side of corruption. But lawyers for the ex-governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand and her daughter are challenging the money laundering charges against their clients: “No court has allowed the making of a payment that is an essential element of the predicate unlawful activity—such as a bribe in bribery case—constitute ‘promotion’ of that same activity.”

Ghana’s Adom News reports tension is growing between Canadian miner Xtra Gold and inhabitants of a community who say their drinking water has been polluted and their lands expropriated, and are threatening to “deal ruthlessly” with the company. Local MP Kwasi Amoako Atta said the company needed to learn how to conduct business in the area: “Even if you have the required documents to back your operations you need to seek clearance from the town leaders, the mere fact that you have the license does not give you the permission to jump into people’s land and start mining.”

The Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Mark Weisbrot has a grim update on the state of reconstruction and resettlement in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince: “Nineteen months after the earthquake, almost 600,000 Haitian people are still living in camps, mostly under tents and tarps. Despite the billions of dollars of aid pledged by governments and donors since the earthquake, there are probably less than 50,000 that have been resettled. And for the 600,000 homeless, the strategy seems to be moving in the direction of evictions – without regard as to where they might end up.”

The Center for Global Development’s Michael Clemens presents an economic argument for opening the world’s borders to free movement of people. According to his calculations, taking such a step could increase global GDP by 20-60 percent or tens of trillions of dollars. University of Toronto political scientist Joseph Carens has long called for open borders but he does so on moral grounds: “Citizenship in Western liberal democracies is the modern equivalent of feudal privilege—an inherited status that greatly enhances one’s life chances. Like feudal birthright privileges, restrictive citizenship is hard to justify when one thinks about it closely.”

UN Under Secretary General Philippe Douste-Blazy argues revenues from the tax on financial transactions (re)proposed by the leaders of France and Germany last week should not just go to helping Europe’s struggling economies: “If the crisis is destroying jobs at home, it is destroying lives in the South.” He believes such a “micro-tax” could raise $100-$200 billion a year and would help “globalize solidarity.”

While the Overseas Development Institute’s Jonathan Glennie notes the World Bank “has had a bad couple of decades,” he also believes the it remains important in its ability to raise the profile of certain issues and mobilize governments to take action. But he says it “needs to become a bank for the world, ditching its history of favouring the interests of a few powerful shareholders.” To illustrate his point he takes the example of the debt cancellation campaign which started in the 1980s but did not convince the bank to cancel debts until 2005, “and then only with neoliberal strings attached.” The decades of delay, according to Glennie, were “because the bank is set up to look after the interests of the creditor countries, rather than the debtors, however hard decent officials seek to change that.” Until that changes, he believes the World Bank will be unable “to fulfil its idealistic mandate.”

The Guardian’s George Monbiot writes on the delusions and ravages of perpetual growth: “To sustain the illusion, we have inflicted more damage since 1950 to the planet’s living systems than we achieved in the preceding 100,000 years. The damage will last for centuries; the benefits might not see out the year.” He points to Tim Jackson’s 2009 Prosperity Without Growth as “the beginning of a plan.”