1524. “Right to Farm” Scam

By Don Fitz, Znet, August 13, 2014

When Monsanto’s home state of Missouri passed the “Right to Farm” on August 5, 2014 the third noose of corporate control tightened around the neck of the US.  Unlike the first two steps of corporate domination of public life, this was a constitutional amendment that would block the state legislature or voters from passing future laws for environmental protection, animal welfare or labeling of contaminated food.  This third wave corporatocracy could well spread across US and globally as it becomes a new form of mass disenfranchisement.

First wave: Corporate “personhood”

State constitutional amendments are the most recent phase in a long march of corporations to extend their direct control of government.  Efforts of corporations to grab the legal rights of persons date to the post-Civil War ear.  In the late 1880s the US Supreme Court first applied the rights of the 14th Amendment to corporations. That amendment had been ratified in 1868 in order to grant former slaves “equal protection under the law.”  As Jane Anne Morris documents in Gaveling Down the Rabble (2008), the court became far more interested in applying it to “corporate persons,” granting them the right to “privileges and immunities, equal protection, and due process.”

This flew in the face of the fact that corporations are created by legislative bodies and must incorporate in order to receive their powers and privileges.  After the initial rulings, legislative and judicial bodies in the US expanded laws and rulings that enhanced corporate power.  In 1938, Justice Hugo Black wrote of court decisions that “Less than ½ of 1% invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than 50% asked that its benefits be extended to corporations.”

Second wave: Free trade

During the decades following World War II, corporations sought to expand their powers internationally via trade agreements.  By the end of the 1980s, they conceptualized the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as a prototype for granting panels of corporate bureaucrats the power to trump national laws.  Designed as an agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico, it would basically tell a poor country, “If you want to increase trade, you must give corporations from rich countries the right to sue you for failing to change your laws to benefit them.”  But Americans balked at the idea that other countries might do the same to them and George Bush could not get NAFTA through Congress.

Bill Clinton persuaded financial backers that a liberal could accomplish what a right winger could not and their money put him in the White House.  “Slick Willy” Clinton had a couple of tricks to get NAFTA approved.  One was authorization of “Fast Track,” whereby Congress agreed not to amend the trade deal, but only vote it up or down.  The other tool was Speaker of the House Dick Gephardt from St. Louis, who pretended to be a “friend of labor,” opposing NAFTA in the US at the same time that he made trips to Mexico promising he would get it passed.

Sharp differences emerged between environmental organizations.  Virtually all small local groups and most big ones (notably Greenpeace and the Sierra Club) opposed NAFTA.  But some organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council backed NAFTA to strengthen their ties to corporate funders.

With the help of Democrats in the White House and Congress, NAFTA became a model for a series of international trade deals lasting through today.  Divisions between environmental organizations also remain.  The deals reflect the modern reality that very little trade has to do with “comparative advantage” — the idea that different countries are better suited to producing different products because of their climate, geography and natural resources.  Nowadays, the “advantages” that countries offer include cheaper labor, greater tolerance of wildlife destruction and more acceptance agricultural chemicals.

Riding the third wave

The first wave of Corporatocracy looked inward: It focused on US businesses power that no author of the Constitution would recognize.  The second wave looked outward: It asked how corporations in overdeveloped countries could use international poverty to their advantage.

The third wave is so new that not even the first chapter of its book has been written.  Its origins are rooted in corporate anger at state and local laws, especially those sparked by citizen initiative and passed by grassroots organizing.  Throughout the US, concerns with confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), soaking crops with pesticide poisons, and genetically contaminated food has led to a groundswell of efforts for laws to protect health and the environment.  The essence of third wave corporatocracy is to alter state constitutions so that they prohibit laws which limit corporate profits by environmental and health restrictions.  This is what characterized the “Right to Farm” amendments passed by North Dakota in 2013 and Indiana in 2014.  The proposed “Right to Farm” Amendment 1 to the Missouri constitution reads:

That agriculture which provides food, energy, health benefits, and security is the foundation and stabilizing force of Missouri’s economy. To protect this vital sector of Missouri’s economy, the right of farmers and ranchers to engage in farming and ranching practices shall be forever guaranteed in this state, subject to duly authorized powers, if any, conferred by Article VI of the Missouri Constitution.

The linchpin in this masterpiece of vagueness is that “farmers and ranchers” refers not only to the 40 acres that grandpa and grandma had, but also to CAFOs cramming thousands of hogs or chickens together, puppy mills cranking out pure-bred animals in deplorable conditions and megafarms of tens of thousands of acres growing genetically contaminated crops.  Please scrutinize the amendment’s wording and notice that it never says that the “farmers and ranchers” have to actually live in Missouri.

Third wave corporatocracy transcends (includes and goes beyond) the first and second waves.  The constitutional amendment assumes the corporate personhood of “farmers and ranchers.”  It also assumes that such corporate persons can be based anywhere in the world.

Swimming against the wave

Groups which quickly picked up on eco-devastation hidden between the lines included Missouri’s Food for America, Humane Society of the United States, Gateway Green Alliance, Missouri Green Party, GMO-Free Midwest, St. Louis Animal Rights Team, Missouri Rural Crisis Center, Universal African Peoples Organization, EarthDance, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Progressive Party of Missouri, and, most interestingly, the Sierra Club.  By April and May 2014 the network expanded and contacted the press and their informal networks.  The message was that everyone had to act quickly to warn as many people as possible by the November, 2014 general election, when it was expected to be on the ballot.

Wes Shoemeyer appeared on Green Time TV, which is broadcast to four areas of Missouri.  Former Lt. Gov. Joe Maxwell (Dem) stumped with the Humane Society of the United States across the state.

The votenoon1.com website explained: “Amendment 1 will guarantee foreign corporations the right to own Missouri farm land and do as they see fit without any check and balance from the people or the legislature.”

The Sullivan Journal wrote:

…if Amendment 1 passes, corporate farms may actually escape regulations concerned with chemical use, animal treatment, and waste disposal… The amendment may also limit municipalities from keeping noxious corporate livestock farms away from citizens. This amendment is not for the little family farmer – it’s for the corporate farms…

The Joplin Globe asked: “…who qualifies as a farmer in Missouri?  Smithfield Foods, for example, owner of Premium Standard Farms? How about Tyson Foods? Both of those are Fortune 500 companies that count their revenue in the billions.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted that supporters of “Right to Farm” amendments “…hope to pre-empt any proposals to ban genetically modified crops similar to ones recently passed in Oregon.”  The article documented that Missouri’s Amendment 1 was bankrolled by “five-figure checks from the state corn and pork associations, the Farm Bureau and businesses with strong financial stakes in rural America…”

John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics University of Missouri Columbia, warned on his website that:

Foreign corporations—including the largest pork, beef, and poultry processors in the U.S.—would be given special constitutional rights; including special exemptions from Clean Water and Clean Air Acts,
Occupational Health and Safety Administration, and legitimate nuisance lawsuits—rights that ordinary American citizens do not have.

Betrayal 1: Democratic Party governor

As Vote-No-on-One forces began to pull together and plan how, within a few short months, they could explain the dangers lurking within the jolly sounding amendment, the first bombshell fell.  Missouri’s Democratic Governor Jay Nixon announced that the vote would be moved forward from the November general election to the August primary.

The Democratic Party governor had given a huge advantage to Yes-on-One forces. For the big ag side, most of their campaign work was buying expensive series of ads to come out 2 to 3 weeks before the election.  Shortening the campaign by three months meant nothing to them.  But for grassroots organizing based on word-of-mouth communication, three months is everything.

As if a super-short campaign was not enough of a gift to big ag, the State of Missouri used ballot descriptive language that was so misleading as to constitute intentional falsification.  Ballots don’t have the actual wording of proposed laws or amendments (which can be quite lengthy) and instead use an abbreviated description.  For Missouri’s Amendment 1 the ballot description read: “Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to ensure that the right of Missouri citizens to engage in agricultural production and ranching practices shall not be infringed?”

This directly contradicts the wording of the amendment itself (above):

1. The ballot description uses the word “citizen,” which means (according to Webster), individuals “born or naturalized” in a state.  Amendment 1 itself never uses the word “citizen,” instead referring to “farmers and ranchers,” which, of course includes “corporate persons.”

2. The ballot description put the word “Missouri” immediately prior to “citizen,” stating unambiguously that those who would benefit from the law would be those residing in the state.  The Amendment itself says no such thing, as it refers to protecting the “Missouri economy” and never suggests that the “farmers and ranchers” who receive protection must reside in the state.

As the propaganda blizt began, Yes-on-One TV ads tunnel-visioned on the wording that voters would see on the ballot description, claiming that Amendment 1 would protect local farmers.  TV reporters and commentators repeatedly predicted a victory for “Right to Farm” because Missouri liked farmers.  They parroted big ad messages as if their advertising revenue depended on it.

Betrayal 2: Democratic Party mayor

On August 4, the day before the primary election, No-on-One organizers in the City of St. Louis were stunned to receive a robo call from Francis Slay, Democratic Party Mayor of the largest city in the state.  Throughout the campaign, his silence on the issue led St. Louisans to believe that he had no bone to pick.  But less than 24 hours before voting began tens of thousands of City residents received an automated call urging them to vote “yes” on Amendment 1.  For the large number of people who were undecided on ballot issues, a last minute call from the mayor could have been the deciding factor.

A couple of days after the election count, I answered my phone to hear, “This is Mayor Slay’s office calling for Barbara Chicherio.”  I was hardly surprised since my wife Barbara was a No-on-One organizer for the St. Louis area and she had planned to call the Mayor.

“She’s not available now.  Could you give me your name and number so she can call you back in an hour?”

“No.  I’ll call her back,” answered the mayoral assistant who refused to identify himself.

He also refused to tell Barbara who he was when he called back.  “I have two questions,” she told him.  “One, when did Mayor Slay decide that he would support Amendment 1?  Two, what went into his thinking that made him wait until the last minute, and, without participating in any public discussion on the issue, make robo-calls the night before the vote?”

His refusal to answer either question was as adamant as his refusal to identify himself.  “It sounds like you are accusing the Mayor of making a deal,” he retorted.

The defensive denial let the cat out of the bag.  Despite abundant speculation, we may never know what deal the Mayor made with whom for what reason or when it was made.

Sierra Club: The unexpected

A funny thing happened on the road to the primary election.  The Sierra Club forgot how to identify the most important issue for mobilizing campaign workers.

Sierra has a history of organizing its active members for election work and was one of the first groups to put information about Amendment 1 on its web site.  So it seemed a no-brainer that Sierra would join the growing coalition to recruit organizers to turn out poll workers on election day.  But everyone’s jaws dropped when Sierra organizers responded that they were going to put all of their efforts into opposing
Amendment 7 and not confuse voters by talking about Amendment 1.

Amendment 7 was very deserving of opposition.  It would have imposed a ¾ cent sales tax to pay for road improvements.  The tax would have let trucking companies, the chief culprits in tearing up roads, pay nothing while people too poor to own a car would foot the bill when they bought food and clothing.  But Amendment 7 defined a temporary tax that would end after a given period of time.  That’s why the Missouri Green Party and other groups distributed literature recommending a “No-on-One” first and “No-on-Seven” on the bottom of the page.

As voting day approached, the importance of person-to-person contact became increasingly evident.  Virtually every day we talked with people, we found some who were ignoring TV ads and eager to hear what we had to say about the dangers of the amendment.

Then came the vote count nightmare: 498, 451 YES and 496,223 NO.  The vote was so close that the Channel 2 website summarized the count as 50% YES and 50% NO.  The constitutional amendment enshrining corporate control of Missouri’s environment passed by one of the narrowest margins in the
state’s history: 2825 votes, barely ¼ of 1% of those cast.

The two Democratic Party betrayals plus Sierra Club standoffishness snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  It is possible that any one of them by itself could have changed the outcome.  And how sweet it would have been to have rebuffed the grab for megafarm supremacy in Monsanto’s home state.

Though there was no shortage of anger at Democratic Party bigwhigs during the days following the election, it is important to remember that sleazy maneuvers is what it takes to rise in the world of professional politicians.  Should you be any more surprised that a Democrat politico backstabs than a rattlesnake bites or a scorpion stings?  That’s what they do.  Stepping on the faces of little people is how they climb their political ladder.

What was truly disturbing was Sierra.  As a group that was central to opposing NAFTA, has protected wilderness areas across the country, and has mobilized for countless political campaigns, its aloofness toward No-on-One in Missouri was egregious.  One apology is that Sierra could not have garnered 2600 additional votes.  This is wrong on multiple counts.

First, people were not only making up their minds two weeks before the election — they were making up their minds when they were at the polls.  Handing out literature urging people to vote for a President, Governor or Senator rarely accomplishes anything since people know who they are going
to vote for.  Not so with ballot initiatives.  Many people go to the polls knowing only the candidates while paying little or no attention to amendments.  Those who worked the polls reported multiple interactions with voters who changed their mind.  Many more than 1% of voters would have changed their vote on Amendment 1 if someone had spoken to them.

Second, the reason for soliciting Sierra’s active involvement was to build a movement that would build enthusiasm as it got larger.  This happened; but, without the Sierra Club (which touts itself as being the largest and most effective grassroots organization in the US) this movement did not grow nearly as large as it might have.  The point was not just to get more Sierra members to work the polls but to get them to do organizing work prior to voting day so that many, many more people would work the polls.

The third illustration of how Sierra involvement might have tipped the scales is that an early poll showed 80% of Missourians favoring Amendment 1 and only 20% opposing it.  If a coalition boycotted by the largest environmental group in the state could increase public opposition from 20% to 50% in 2–3 months, there can be no doubt, that if that organization had actively participated, the “No” vote would have won.

Next round

The skirmish is not over in Missouri as voting irregularities could lead to a recount.  The closer an election is, the more easily computer software can introduce random changes to fix the outcome.  Be as confident that the “Right to Farm” gang honestly won the vote as you are certain that George W. Bush was fairly elected President twice in a row.

“Right to Farm” barely scratches surface of the potential of third wave corporatocracy.  Changing state constitutions to destroy environmental rights can be extended to undoing all gains made during the last century regarding labor, civil rights and human welfare as well as prohibiting future progressive legislation.  In Missouri, right wingers had barely wolfed down the destruction of environmental legislation when they began drooling at the vision of a constitutional amendment to require that teacher pay be based on supervisor evaluations.

Waves of corporatocracy have not been distinct in the sense that one wave stops when the next one starts.  Rather, each wave has developed within the context of the previous wave while seeking to resolve its contradictions.  The first wave for “corporate personhood” focused inward on US law, which left unresolved US domination of the globe.  It was not until after World War II, when the US established its economic supremacy, that it could focus outward on trade deals.  Yet, this left open the possibility of citizens of rich countries insisting on their ability to protect themselves and the survival of their offspring.  Rather than merely overturning such laws, third wave corporatocracy seeks to prevent
such laws from ever being written.

Of course, rulers of every society seek to gain more and more control over those they subjugate; and, in this sense corporatocracy is not unique.  But corporatocracy, especially its second and third waves, is different in that it goes against the general grain of capitalism, revealing a phase of decay.  Most typically, capitalism rules best when it rules indirectly via a stratum of professional politicians whose life work is to wheal and deal while convincing those they swindle that they are their friend.  But in crisis periods of declining profits and declining investment opportunities, the 1% become nervous about the “normal” political process and seek to rule directly, along with their allies in the top 2–3%.  The early 21st century is characterized by increasing economic instability and an energy exhaustion that allows expanded investment if and only if corporations are willing to yank fossil fuels from the bowels of the Earth in ways that threaten the existence of humanity.

Corporations are unraveling the biology of Life by slaughtering millions for the crime of living atop fossil fuels that they crave, subjecting unknown numbers of species to extinction or lives of torture, and
producing chemicals and food that poison their own children.  It is in this context of the most extreme moral depravity that the world has ever seen that corporations are demanding to rule directly, to increase their “rights” as persons, to expand the power of rich countries to overturn laws of poor countries, and, now, to seek constitutional amendments which disallow citizens from protecting their rights and health.

Just as each wave has developed its own contradictions for those who control, each has opened new opportunities of struggle for corporate victims.  The first wave hammered home the way that corporations self-serve by purchasing politicians and judges.  The second wave expanded the link between labor, environmental, and human rights groups in a way that had never happened before.

The third wave occurs in the midst of declining US economic power.  As laws such as “Right to Farm” invite non-US corporations to dominate the well-being of those in Missouri and other states, it dramatizes the way US business practices have decimated the status of US workers.  It emphasizes
that the fight against capital is international and that struggles here must join hands with those across the globe if they are to succeed.  It is time to ask why we must work overtime so that our neighbors lose their jobs while we produce goods that fall apart sooner and are manufactured through industrial processes that poison our communities.

Forging a coalition that is strong enough to win will likely require struggling within many labor, human rights, and environmental organizations to change their orientation from choosing the least bad politico to one of actually confronting economic and political powers.  It may even mean Sierra Club members’ dragging their local leaders kicking and screaming into meaningful battles.  If we can build the sort of
coalition we need to stop the right wing onslaught, we will be setting the stage for that coalition to ask what sort of new society it needs to midwife.

Don Fitz is a member of the Missouri Green Party and Sierra Club, Eastern Missouri Group.  He can be reached at fitzdon@aol.com

1523. A New American Oil Bonanza

By Clifford Kraus, The New York Times, August 28, 2014

THREE RIVERS, Tex. — Whenever overseas turmoil has pushed energy prices higher in the past, John and Beth Hughes have curbed their driving by eating at home more and shopping locally. But the current crises in Ukraine and Iraq did not stop them from making the two-hour drive to San Antonio to visit the Alamo, have a chicken fried steak lunch, and buy fish for their tank before driving home to Corpus Christi.

“We were able to take a day-cation because of the lower gas prices,” said Ms. Hughes.

The reason for the improved economics of road travel can be found 10,000 feet below the ground here, where the South Texas Eagle Ford shale is providing more than a million new barrels of oil supplies to the world market every day. United States refinery production in recent weeks reached record highs and left supply depots flush, cushioning the impact of all the instability surrounding traditional global oil fields.

So oil prices — and those at the pump — are easing.With the Labor Day weekend approaching, the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.43 on Thursday, according to the AAA motor club, nearly a dime lower than a month ago. Energy and travel analysts project the lowest gasoline prices this holiday weekend of any Labor Day since 2010, and the highest level of motor travel since 2008.

“It’s a relief,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at GasBuddy.com, who estimates that American consumers collectively saved as much as $700 million a week through much of August compared with last year. “We can thank Texas, North Dakota and Canada.”

Nowhere is the boom bigger than in Texas, home to two of three of the nation’s biggest shale-oil drilling frenzies. While oil rushes are nothing new to the state of J.R. Ewing and Spindletop, the new bonanza has doubled the state’s crude production over the last two years, suddenly making Texas a bigger producer than either Kuwait or Venezuela.

The Eagle Ford field surrounding this refinery town is responsible for more than half of Texas’ new bounty. The production frenzy here and other shale fields in West Texas and North Dakota, all made possible by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, techniques that crack oil and gas out of hard shale rock with blasts of water, sand and chemicals, has lowered the country’s dependence on imported oil by more than a third in recent years.

Most of the price of gasoline is determined by the world price of crude, now hovering around $100 a barrel. Turmoil in major producer countries like Iraq and Libya does matter. But the new source of American energy means more supply has been added to global markets — almost the exact amount that has been taken off the market at times because of unrest in the Middle East and Africa over the last five years.

“If it weren’t for that, we would be seeing $200 a barrel oil or higher and $7 to $8 gasoline prices,” said Scott D. Sheffield, chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources, one of the most aggressive producers in the Eagle Ford shale field. “It would be another shock to the world economy at a time when we don’t need it.”

The United States now accounts for 10 percent of the world’s oil production. As it sharply curtails imports from countries like Angola and Nigeria, those producers are then compelled to sell their oil to China and other Asian markets at steep discounts, compounding the impact of American production on world markets.

The change can be seen just down the road from the gas station here, where a pipeline that once brought foreign oil from the gulf port of Corpus Christi to Valero’s Three Rivers refinery has been reversed, sending Texas crude to other refineries along the coast for processing into diesel and other products for export to Europe, Africa and Latin America.

“Softening oil prices was inevitable,” said Sadad Ibrahim al-Husseini, former head of exploration and development at Saudi Aramco, referring to the increase in American output. He added that “geopolitical turmoil has been a limited factor in recent weeks” largely because shifting conditions in “Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Ukraine have not actually disrupted any major oil export streams.”

Global oil markets only faintly resemble those of the summer of 2008 when oil prices soared to over $147 a barrel, the all-time nominal record, caused by a combination of unrest in Venezuela and Nigeria, a steady decline in United States production, and soaring consumption in China, India and much of the developing world. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States hit $4.11 that July.

Prices quickly collapsed after the 2008 financial crisis, but had stabilized by 2011. One reason is that growth in demand for oil, particularly in the United States and Europe, slackened because of the weak economy and increasingly efficient vehicles. North American supplies continued to grow, while Saudi Arabia and Iraq increased production to compensate for the loss of Libyan supplies and Iranian exports pinched by Western sanctions.

Last summer, oil and gas prices rose for a time as President Obama considered an attack on Syria and disgruntled Libyan guards blocked major oil ports, but prices quickly retreated. Rising production in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Canada and especially the United States served as a cushion.

Again prices began to rise this year in early June, as Islamic fighters advanced in Iraq and tensions rose in Ukraine. Prices began to retreat again just in time for the Fourth of July weekend.

In a recent report, the AAA auto club predicted that prices would continue to slide through the end of the summer unless a major hurricane hits Gulf of Mexico fields and refineries, or there are other unexpected refinery disruptions.

Dangers remain abroad, of course. The terrorist offensive in Iraq has not yet touched the country’s most productive southern oil fields and exports so far, although future production is in doubt with Western companies removing personnel for security reasons. Sanctions on Russia for its intervention in Ukraine may impede Western financing and technology for future drilling in the Arctic. And while several Libyan oil ports recently reopened, militia violence is escalating.

But that hasn’t stopped Alejandro Alvarado, a restaurant cook in the town of San Diego, Tex., from appreciating the lower prices he is paying at the pump. “When you save on a gallon of gas, it helps pay for the cellphone bill,” he said while pumping fuel the other day. “It helps us buy school clothes and shoes for our four kids.”

1522. The Evolutionary Roots of Human Altruism

By Science Daily, August 27, 2014

Scientists have long been searching for the factor that determines why humans often behave so selflessly. It was known that humans share this tendency with species of small Latin American primates of the family Callitrichidae (tamarins and marmosets), leading some to suggest that cooperative care for the young, which is ubiquitous in this family, was responsible for spontaneous helping behavior. But it was not so clear what other primate species do in this regard, because most studies were not comparable.

A group of researchers from Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy and Great Britain, headed by anthropologist Judith Burkart from the University of Zurich, therefore developed a novel approach they systematically applied to a great number of primate species. The results of the study have now been published in Nature Communications. 

For their study, Burkart and her colleagues developed the new paradigm of group service, which examines spontaneous helping behavior in a standardized way. With the aid of a simple test apparatus, the researchers studied whether individuals from a particular primate species were prepared to provide other group members with a treat, even if this meant missing out themselves (see box). The scientists applied this standardized test to 24 social groups of 15 different primate species. They also examined whether and how kindergarten children aged between four and seven acted altruistically.  

The researchers found that the willingness to provision others varies greatly from one primate species to the next. But there was a clear pattern, as summarized by Burkart: “Humans and callitrichid monkeys acted highly altruistically and almost always produced the treats for the other group members. Chimpanzees, one of our closest relatives, however, only did so sporadically.” Similarly, most other primate species, including capuchins and macaques, only rarely pulled the lever to give another group member food, if at all – even though they have considerable cognitive skills.     

Until now, many researchers assumed that spontaneous altruistic behavior in primates could be attributed to factors they would share with humans: advanced cognitive skills, large brains, high social tolerance, collective foraging or the presence of pair bonds or other strong social bonds. As Burkart’s new data now reveal, however, none of these factors reliably predicts whether a primate species will be spontaneously altruistic or not. Instead, another factor that sets us humans apart from the great apes appears to be responsible. Says Burkart: “Spontaneous, altruistic behavior is exclusively found among species where the young are not only cared for by the mother, but also other group members such as siblings, fathers, grandmothers, aunts and uncles.” This behavior is referred to technically as the “cooperative breeding” or “allomaternal care.”  

The significance of this study goes beyond identifying the roots of our altruism. Cooperative behavior also favored the evolution of our exceptional cognitive abilities. During development, human children gradually construct their cognitive skills based on extensive selfless social inputs from caring parents and other helpers, and the researchers believe that it is this new mode of caring that also put our ancestors on the road to our cognitive excellence. This study may, therefore, have just identified the foundation for the process that made us human. As Burkart suggests: “When our hominin ancestors began to raise their offspring cooperatively, they laid the foundation for both our altruism and our exceptional cognition.”

Test set-up for the altruism study

A treat is placed on a moving board outside the cage and out of the animal’s reach. With the aid of a handle, an animal can pull the board closer and bring the food within reach. However, the handle attached to the board is so far from the food that the individual operating it cannot grab the food itself. Moreover, the board instantly rolls back when the handle is released, moving the food out of reach again, which guarantees that only the other members of the group present are able to get at the snack. In this way, the researchers ensure that the animal operating the handle acts purely altruistically. 

For the comparative behavior study with children, an analogous test apparatus was constructed, which was enclosed in a Plexiglas box and could be operated from outside by the children.

Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University of Zurich. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:

1. J. M. Burkart, O. Allon, F. Amici, C. Fichtel, C. Finkenwirth, A. Heschl, J. Huber, K. Isler, Z. K. Kosonen, E. Martins, E.J. Meulman, R. Richiger, K. Rueth, B. Spillmann, S. Wiesendanger, C. P. van Schaik. The evolutionary origin of human hyper-cooperation. Nature Communications, 2014; 5: 4747 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5747

1521. Book Review: To Change or Reform Capitalism: Addressing the Ecological Crisis

By Lynne Chester, Review of Radical Political Economics, July 2014

The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth. John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Richard York; New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010.

Green Economics: Confronting the Ecological Crisis. Robin Hanhel; Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2011.

Nature, Social Relations and Human Needs: Essays in Honour of Ted Benton. Sandra Moog and Rob Stones (eds); Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis. Chris Williams; Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2010.

There is a burgeoning inter-disciplinary discourse on the causes, consequences, and solutions to capitalism’s contemporary ecological crisis. Four publications are strongly illustrative of the spectrum of perspectives and points of differentiation concerning the contributions of growth and population to ecological degradation, the specificity of the human-nature relation, and if the ecological crisis is inherent or not to capitalism. These four works are: Foster, Clark, and York’s The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth, Hahnel’s Green Economics: Confronting the Ecological Crisis, the edited collection by Moog and Stones Nature, Social Relations and Human Needs: Essays in Honour of Ted Benton, and Williams’s Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis.

Abstract philosophy is the genre within which Nature, Social Relations and Human Needs very much falls whereas the other three works are more directed towards solutions to urgently address the global nature and unparalleled extent of ecological degradation. These solutions range from reforming capitalism or changing it to another form of economic and social organization.

Nature, Social Relations and Human Needs is a festschrift honoring the work of the British sociologist Ted Benton whose scholarship, over four decades, has spanned the philosophy and sociology of science, social theory, Marxism, and ecological sociology.1 The book’s structure reflects this breadth being divided into four parts: Realism, Naturalism, and the Philosophy of the Social Sciences; The Continuing Relevance of Marxism; Philosophical Anthropology and Human Needs; and Ecology, Society and Natural Limits. Benton himself contributes an insightful well-reasoned conclusion commenting on each of the preceding nine chapters and weaving threads between. The editors, Sandra Moog and Rob Stones, also provide an excellent introduction for those less familiar with Benton’s oeuvre and particularly his stratification of reality which asserts that:

higher-level entities . . . are partly explained by their lower-level constituents . . . [but] their emergent . . . distinctive properties and powers result from the effects of their structural combination on the behavior of their constituent elements [and] can exercise a downward causality. (8-9, original emphasis)

This approach endeavors to determine the conditions under which these influences are exercised and relationships between entities.

Benton started his working life as a high school science teacher and the “subsequent shift to philosophy and sociology took with it a continuing respect for the intellectual achievements, methodological rigour, and revelatory character of the natural sciences” (209). Highly influenced by Thomas Kuhn’s work, Benton champions the exceptional capacity of “scientific understand- ing to inform our thinking about our place in the wider world” (210) whilst acknowledging its fallibility and provisional nature. It is this view of science, and commitments to naturalism and realism, which has informed Benton’s “green” historical materialism approach.

Chapters by Sandra Moog and Kate Soper herald Benton’s insightful analysis of what needs to change if the contemporary ecological crisis is to be addressed. Moog’s chapter “Ecological Politics for the Twenty-first Century: Where Does Nature Fit in?” demonstrates the argument of some radical ecologists that environmental problems stem from Western anthropocentrism which views humans as separate from nature. If this is accepted, changing “our very idea of nature” becomes critical to addressing the ecological crisis but “which nature should we get back to . . . finding a solution to our problems cannot be as simple as looking back to recover an earlier and less alienated stance, a less corrupted definition” (154-55). Benton’s approach to this issue is to transcend traditional sociological dualisms, such as humans and animals, and investigate the ongoing dynamic relations between culture and nature. Moog contends that investigation of these complex relationships between different organizational strata or levels, including “the multiple causal networks which encompass nature – non-human and human, internal and external” (164), is facilitated by Benton’s stratified conceptualization of the world, his stratified reality.

Soper’s chapter “Realism, Naturalism and the Red-Green Nexus” extends Moog’s discussion to focus on Benton’s contribution to ecological theory through his distinction “between what is and is not changed when human beings modify nature – in other words, between nature conceived as causal powers and processes and the ‘nature’ which is the outcome of our own interventions” (174) i.e. between “deep” and “surface” natures. Natural laws regulate natural processes and thus, according to Benton, set natural limits “as products of the articulation of specific socio-technical relations and dynamics with the various naturally and socially ‘given’ conditions, resources, and media upon which they rely” (225, original emphasis). Moreover this deep-surface distinction avoids the misleading conceptualization of nature “as that which is untouched by human beings but . . . by reference to parts of the environment that have clearly been modified by us” (174).

An abstract philosophical work from a sociological perspective, this festschrift nevertheless provides discussion of issues about how we can understand the organization of nature and the relationships between humans and nature, and humans as part of a social and natural environ- ment. This discourse is a necessary precursor to positing the transformation of human-nature relationships if our objective is to decrease ecological degradation.

A more empirically grounded work is Hahnel’s Green Economics: Confronting the Ecological Crisis which offers an ecological economics perspective of the environmental crisis. Methodologically pluralist, ecological economics is distinguishable from mainstream environmental economics through inter alia its: condemnation of reliance on technology to solve the problems of scarcity and waste; respect for the complexity and holism of natural systems; scientific approach; use of key ecological concepts such as capacities for assimilation, regeneration, and carrying; vision of the earth as being thermodynamically closed; valuing of nature in bio- physical terms; and, an emphasis on issues of distribution and justice. Ecological sustainability is the primary objective and the approach of ecological economics can be broadly described as to:

First, establish the ecological limits of sustainable scale and establish policies that assure the throughput of the economy stays within these limits. Second, establish a fair and just distribution of resources using systems of property rights and transfers . . .. Third, once the scale and distribution problems are solved, market-based mechanisms can be used to allocate resources efficiently. (Costanza, Perrings, and Cleveland 1997: 83)

So, despite differences with mainstream environmental economics in explaining the economic- environment relation and the current crisis, ecological economics advocates the use of mainstream policy measures – property rights and market-based mechanisms – to achieve ecological sustain- ability. 2 In other words, the ecological destruction of capitalism will be overcome by the “reform” of capitalism using the same policy measures that have accelerated that destruction.

This approach is well reflected in Green Economics which, in many respects, is a fusion of earlier publications (e.g. Hahnel 2002, 2007; Hahnel and Sheeran 2009) and some chapters have subsequently been published albeit in a revised form (e.g. Hahnel 2012a, 2012b). This perhaps explains some of the disjointedness which the reader experiences with the order of material and unfolding of the argument.

Over ten chapters, Hahnel sets out his reasoning for an “environmental economic paradigm” which deploys “insights from mainstream environmental economics . . . that help explain why the economic system puts the environment at risk” (75). A critique, of sorts, is offered of the mainstream’s obsession with the environmentally destructive “growth imperative” and “free- market environmentalism” (chapters 5 and 6), and the values embedded in its highly prized technique of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) (chapter 2). These critiques provide the foundations for his approach to “real-world environmental policy” (chapter 7) to prevent “cataclysmic climate change.” Basically Hahnel advocates tackling climate change with the mainstream policy mea- sures (after a few tweaks) of regulation, taxes, and tradeable permits using property rights, zon- ing, transfer development rights, and community management, and “when we feel safe, it makes sense to engage in CBA” (32). Chapters 9 and 10 focus on the shortcomings of the Kyoto Protocol and “five concrete changes that would make a post-Kyoto cap-and-trade climate treaty more effective, efficient, and equitable” (195).

Despite not being convinced by Hahnel’s argument that the use of adapted mainstream policy measures can effectively and equitably deal with climate change, there are parts of the book which I think warrant attention. The historical and institutional details of international climate change negotiations and the Kyoto Protocol are very well-documented in chapters 8 and 9. The chapter 3 discussion “What on Earth Is Sustainable Development?” is worthy of a read because it highlights the problem of contested conceptualizations which are critical to the ecological cri- sis debate. The book’s conclusion also exemplifies some of the weaknesses inherent to advocacy of capitalist reform as the solution to widespread entrenched social and economic problems.

Hahnel posits that a political coalition is needed which is “determined enough and powerful enough to implement these policies” (229). But herein lies a key weakness in the plausibility of his argument. How are the conflicting interests to be reconciled within his coalition of those most environmentally harmed and those who stand to gain the most from the conversion to renewable energy sources? No explanation is provided. Perhaps it is assumed that fundamental conflicts will be put aside in order to protect the environment. Given the state which society has reached this seems pretty improbable. The plausibility of Hahnel’s argument that policy switches will be sufficient is further weakened when he states that “every policy to reduce pollution or increase environmental protection . . . is merely a stopgap attempt to correct for some destructive dynamic that is an intrinsic part of the way we go about our daily economic business” (232). Now he inti- mates that there is something fundamentally wrong with capitalism but stops short of advocating change to its social relations.

On the contrary, in Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth, Bellamy Foster, Clark, and York argue there must be fundamental changes to the social relations of capitalism if the ecological crisis is to be transcended. This tome, written from a Marxist sociological perspective and running to nearly 550 pages including 87 pages of detailed footnotes and a great deal of repetition, comprises a 40-page introduction and 18 subsequent chapters. Sixteen chapters are revi- sions, some extensive, of previously published journal articles and book chapters which for me, as someone familiar particularly with Bellamy Foster’s scholarship and debates in the Monthly Review, is somewhat disappointing. Nevertheless, there is much to commend.

First, Ecological Rift reinforces the potent message from the Stockholm Resilience Centre Project (Rockström et al. 2009) that climate change, the headline-grabbing hallmark of contem- porary environmental concern, is but one of nine “planetary boundaries” critical to “maintaining an earth-system environment in which humanity can exist safely” (14). The other boundaries are: chemical pollution, land use change, global freshwater use, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, ozone depletion, the nitrogen and phosphorous levels cycles (that impact soil fertility and thus food production), and atmospheric aerosol loading. The project drew from scientific knowledge to quantify boundaries. For aerosol loading and chemical pollution, there are as yet insufficient physical measures; for the other seven, the project concluded that three boundaries have been breached – climate change, rate of biodiversity loss, the nitrogen cycle – and the remainder are on the brink (Rockström et al. 2009).

The mapping out of planetary boundaries in this way gives us a better sense of the real threat to the earth system [sic]. Although in recent years the environmental threat has come to be seen by many as simply a question of climate change, protecting the planet requires that we attend to all these planetary boundaries, and others not yet determined. The essential problem is the unavoidable fact that an expanding economic system is placing additional burdens on a fixed earth system to the point of planetary overload. . .. Business-as-usual projections point to a state in which the ecological footprint of humanity will be equivalent to the regenerative capacity of two planets by the mid-2030s. (17-18)

Second, Marx’s conceptualization of a metabolic rift between humanity and the environment is central to the book and well-articulated for which Bellamy Foster must take much credit. Using the example of soil robbed of nutrients through agricultural intensification and the use of chemi- cal fertilizers, which were transferred to urban areas though food and fiber and contributed to pollution, Marx demonstrated the ruptures created by capitalism in the ecosystem’s regenerative capacities, and thus the never-ending chasm between human society and the natural conditions needed to sustain life. Ecological Rift extends Marx’s analysis to explain the depth and breadth of the contemporary ecological crisis as well as the spatial and technological shifts of capitalism in response to rifts in metabolic relations. It is this analysis which underpins the book’s argument that advanced capitalism’s insatiable quest for growth, through the accelerated use of fossil fuels and serviced by imperialism, directly threatens survival of the human species.

Third, this book discusses in some detail, and effectively rebuts using well-reasoned argument and evidence, mainstream views and “ecological modernization theory” which have become embedded in the responses of nation-states to the growing ecological legacy of capitalism. Yale economist William Nordhaus, a prominent climate change analyst, exemplifies, for the authors, the lack of understanding of the true cost of ecological degradation because of reliance on measuring wealth with the limited concept of GDP and placing little value (through high discount rates) on the welfare of future generations. The different positions of Nordhaus and Nicholas Stern, and the implications of their respective policy prescriptions towards an ecologically unsustainable target, are well-documented through the six chapters forming part one Capitalism and Unsustainable Development.

Using the analogies of the Jevons and paperless office paradoxes – technological efficiencies leading to greater not less resource use – part two of the book, Ecological Paradoxes, argues that

improvements in the efficiency of use of a natural resource and the development of substitutes for a natural resource may not lead to reductions in consumption of that resource – in some circumstances they may even lead to an escalation of consumption of that resource. (191)

Part three is devoted to Dialectical Ecology (chapters 11 to 15) which reads, in part, as a jus- tification of their thinking about the rupturing of metabolic relations and creation of the ecologi- cal rift. Identified as an extension of Engels’s application of the dialectical method beyond society to nature, the authors build the case for their argument by way of contrast with critics such as Lukács. These chapters are akin to the philosophical discussion of Nature, Social Relations and Human Needs and one, “The Sociology of Ecology,” arguing for realism and materialism, pro- vides an interesting adjunct to the earlier discussed contribution by Soper.

Ways Out forms the book’s part four and final three chapters. Not surprisingly, “technological fixes” and “green-market fetishism” are given short shrift. Given the scale and pace of change needed to address the global ecological crisis and its inexorable relationship with capitalism’s incessant drive to accumulate, “what is required is an ecological revolution that would need to be also a social revolution” (426). A social revolution is needed to create a just and sustainable soci- ety. An ecological revolution, it is posited, requires short-term strategies such as leaving fossil fuels in the ground, reducing carbon emissions as quickly as possible to near zero, direct intervention of the state through expenditure and regulation, and “contraction and convergence” in greenhouse gas emissions between the North and the South. “The long-term strategy for eco- logical revolution throughout the globe involves the building of a society of substantive equality – the struggle for socialism” (441). Sustainable human development, the restoration of harmony between humans and nature and thus elimination of the ecological rift, so the book’s argument goes, will only be achieved through [a] social ownership and social use of nature, [b] social pro- duction organized by workers and regulation of the metabolic relation between humans and nature, and [c] satisfaction of present and future communal needs.

Despite its strengths, this lengthy book does suffer from repetition and bringing into being a “universal revolt” against capitalism is not explained. The arguments are set forth forcefully and with passion (as well as considerable empirical supporting evidence). Not quite a political manifesto but perhaps undercurrents thereof which appear somewhat more explicitly in Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to the Capitalist Ecological Crisis.

Like Hahnel’s Green Economics, Chris Williams’s book treats climate change as the epitome of the contemporary ecological crisis despite the passing reference to problems such as ocean acidification. The first four chapters cover the science of climate change, debunk the overpopulation myth, and argue the reasons why capitalism is unsustainable development. These are well- written and structured, supported by the author’s obvious strong scientific knowledge. The same does not describe the remaining four chapters which are lacking in coherence, contain contradictory statements, and poorly express a view of socialism. The discussion of immediate “real solu- tions” is somewhat superficial and the rhetoric would raise little objection from those concerned with addressing the ecological crisis. But this is where Williams creates confusion. “Real environmental reforms can and have been won under capitalism . . . when we collectively demand, organize and fight for them” (147). So then why “only a socialist future holds out the hope of a sustainable one for the planet” (238)? Williams does not reconcile these statements and leaves the impression he is unsure if reform of capitalism or its change to socialism is the preferred strategy. Generally speaking, this book adds little to the contributions of the pioneering ecoso- cialists (e.g. Bellamy Foster 2002, 2009; Kovel 2007).

The notion that capitalism is hostile to the environment is not new and now generally well- accepted. All four books agree that the ecological crisis of capitalism is global and vast in scope, and all share a sense of urgency to either reform or change capitalism. The common weakness of all four books lies in the lack of attention to, or cursory consideration of, what is entailed in the necessary transition that capitalism must undergo to be a reformed or changed society, if the ecological crisis is to be overcome. The need for political activism is acknowledged by all but, in the words of Ted Benton, “there is much work to be done in thinking through the sorts of feasible institutional forms that might take us into a more convivial and sustainable future” (Moog and Stones 2010: 243).

1Benton is also renowned for his political activism and being a field naturalist with particular expertise in the lives of bumblebees, dragonflies, and butterflies.

2For those seeking an introduction to the fundamental concepts and approach of mainstream environmental economics, Goodstein (2011) and Harris (2006) provide two excellent starting points.

References

Bellamy Foster, J. 2002. Ecology against capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Bellamy Foster, J. 2009. The ecological revolution: Making peace with the planet. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Costanza, R., C. Perrings, and C.J. Cleveland. 1997. The development of ecological economics. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.Goodstein, E. S. 2011. Economics and the environment, 6th ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Hahnel, R. 2002. The ABCs of political economy: A modern approach. London: Pluto Books.

Hahnel, R. 2007. The case against markets. Journal of Economic Issues 41(4): 1,139-1,159.

Hahnel, R. 2012a. Left clouds over climate change policy. Review of Radical Political Economics 44(2): 141-159.

Hahnel, R. 2012b. Desperately seeking left unity on international climate policy. Capitalism Nature Socialism 23(4): 83-99.

Hahnel, R., and K. Sheeran. 2009. Misinterpreting the Coase theorem. Journal of Economic Issues 43(2): 215-237.
Harris, J.M. 2006. Environmental and natural resource economics: A contemporary approach, 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Kovel, J. 2007. The end of capitalism: The end of capitalism or the end of the world?, 2nd ed. London: Zed Books.

Rockström, J., W. Steffen, K. Noone, Å. Persson, F. S. Chapin, III, E. Lambin, T. M. Lenton, M. Scheffer,

C. Folke, H. Schellnhuber, B. Nykvist, C. A. De Wit, T. Hughes, S. van der Leeuw, H. Rodhe, S. Sörlin, P. K. Snyder, R. Costanza, U. Svedin, M. Falkenmark, L. Karlberg, R. W. Corell, V. J. Fabry, J. Hansen, B. Walker, D. Liverman, K. Richardson, P. Crutzen, and J. Foley. 2009. Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society 14(2). Available at: http://www .ecologyandsociety.org/issues/article.php/3180

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). 2012. The emissions gap report 2012. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi. Available at: http://www.unep.org/publications/ebooks/emissions gap2012/

Lynne Chester is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on energy and the environment, electricity and carbon derivatives, markets for goods and services previously provided direct by government, and Australia’s institutional architecture.

1520. Natural Gas Production Falls Short in China

By Keith Bradsher, The New York Times, August 21, 2014

SHOUYANG, China — Jin Peisheng, a drilling rig foreman, knows the challenges of trying to extract natural gas from a coal seam under the cornfields here in north-central China.

Cracks in the subterranean coal are flooded with water that needs to be pumped out before the gas will emerge. The coal seams are so cold that gels injected into the well, which are meant to help release the gas, sometimes become gummy and block the flow instead. And there is constant concern about hitting the labyrinths of active coal mines that honeycomb the area.

“The big uncertainty is what’s underground — if there’s a tunnel, that’s a big danger. It would be dangerous for the miners,” Mr. Jin said.

Faced with severe air pollution from coal and a rising dependence on energy imports, China has been eager to follow the United States by rapidly increasing natural gas output. Replacing coal with natural gas has also been central to Beijing’s hopes to limit emissions of global warming gases in China, the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide by a wide margin.

But China’s ability to extract sufficient natural gas is in serious doubt. Despite heavy investment and strong government support, China’s natural gas production is growing at a slower pace than its decelerating economy. China’s production of natural gas increased just 6 percent last year and 4.4 percent in 2012.

China’s main problem is that shale gas production has fallen far short of expectations. That has left the country relying on alternative methods considered also-rans by American standards, like pumping natural gas from coal fields.

Now, the Chinese government appears to be acknowledging the shortfall. Wu Xinxiong, the director of the National Energy Administration of China, unexpectedly said in a speech this summer that China’s target for domestic natural gas production in 2020 was only 30 billion cubic meters for shale gas and another 30 billion cubic meters for coal seam gas. Just two years ago, the National Energy Administration estimated that China would produce 60 billion to 100 billion cubic meters of shale gas alone by 2020.

If Mr. Wu’s forecast comes true, shale gas and coal field gas would each supply only 1 percent of China’s electricity generation needs in 2020.

“If the population and economy keep growing, and extensive energy use continues, sustaining China’s energy supply will be hard,” Mr. Wu warned.

Gas production has been slow to rise despite energetic efforts by Beijing to make it financially attractive for energy companies, including direct subsidies for shale gas production. The Chinese government also announced on Aug. 13 that it would raise urban wholesale prices for natural gas at the end of the month by roughly 18 percent for industrial users.

With domestic supplies increasing slowly, China has been looking elsewhere. It agreed in May to buy gas from Russia under a 30-year, $400 billion deal. And it has begun importing liquefied natural gas from Qatar, Australia and Yemen.

The natural gas is sorely needed. Beijing plans to retire four coal-fired power plants by the end of this year and replace them with gas-fired plants in an effort to reduce air pollution.

But China does not have enough gas for a larger-scale conversion of power plants to gas. So the national government has already told smaller, less influential cities to stick with coal for now, and has discouraged businesses from investing heavily in gas-fired equipment.

Gas had looked like one of the few remaining ways for China to reduce its addiction to coal. China’s nuclear power program slowed after Japan’s triple meltdown in Fukushima. Efforts to expand hydroelectric power have run into environmental concerns as well as the huge cost of resettling people from areas flooded when dams are built to make artificial lakes. Solar power and wind power are growing rapidly, but from small bases.

The revised figures from Mr. Wu represented China’s first official acknowledgment of what Western experts have been saying for many months: The country will not approach the success of the United States in shale gas anytime soon.

Shale gas deposits lie much deeper in China than in the United States, which greatly increases drilling costs. Chinese shale also tends to be laden with clay and is much wetter than American shale, making it harder to crack the shale and release the gas through pumping liquids and sand underground, the process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

After 40 million years of powerful earthquakes as the Indian subcontinent plowed into southern Asia, the main shale gas seams in western China are jumbled underground, instead of lying flat like a stack of pancakes, as in the United States, said Jeff Layman, a partner in the Beijing office of Baker Botts, the big Houston energy law firm.

In March, Sinopec, a Chinese oil giant, announced the country’s first commercially viable shale gas deposit, located outside Chongqing, and predicted annual production would reach a hefty 10 billion cubic meters by 2017. But the company has released few details, prompting foreign energy experts to begin asking whether all of the seams are truly shale, although Sinopec insists they are.

Neither Sinopec nor its rival, PetroChina, has announced any other large fields despite extensive drilling. Both of these state-controlled companies said in March that they were still drilling actively for shale gas in China even as they cut their worldwide exploration budgets for oil and gas after weak results.

Sinopec and PetroChina, which will hold earnings conferences on Monday and Thursday, respectively, are targets of broad government inquiries into possible corruption, including in their contracts with outside vendors. This has made their executives reluctant to approve further shale drilling contracts, said a Chinese oil industry executive who insisted on anonymity because of the legal issues involved.

China needs to develop better technology before tackling many of its shale deposits, said another executive, Yin Shenping, the chairman and chief executive of Recon Technology, a shale gas services company based in Beijing. “It’s obvious that the country has now decided to slow down the drilling process,” he said.

Lower expectations for shale gas have resulted in greater interest in another category of unconventional gas, so-called coal bed methane. In this process, natural gas is gathered by drilling into underground coal seams.

The United States, Australia and other countries have used this method for several decades. But they often tap the natural gas before coal extraction begins, to reduce the risk that gas will explode in coal mines.

China’s problem is that many of its coal fields already have working mines. China has 13 percent of the world’s coal reserves but 47 percent of the world’s production. Many Chinese coal mine operators have opposed nearby coal bed methane production, fearing that pumping sand and chemicals into wells to liberate gas might have the unintended effect of driving gas into their mines.

The Chinese government has negotiated with mine operators and villages here in Shouyang, 220 miles southwest of Beijing, to authorize a large coal bed methane project, led by Far East Energy Corporation, based in Houston. Michael R. McElwrath, chief executive of Far East Energy, said he believed the project would improve coal field safety by removing explosive gas from subterranean seams.

But the Shouyang coal field is unusual within China because the coal is fairly permeable, allowing gas to flow underground. If there are no more discoveries of permeable coal, Mr. McElwrath said, “we will have a nice little project but the industry will not take off.”

Far East Energy faces its own issues. In June, the company announced that it had shut a quarter of its 160 wells for various reasons, such as gummy gels or a lack of gas-gathering pipelines; it plans to restart most of those wells later. “We are considering a variety of strategic transactions to fund the coming year’s drilling activities,” Mr. McElwrath said, declining to elaborate.

Crews have been working here over the last several years, laboring in a countryside of yellow dirt so soft that even small streams cut steep-flanked gorges 50 feet deep or more. Some of the locally rented equipment uses designs seldom seen in the United States since World War II, an indication that China still lags in drilling rig technology. At each location, workers struggle with the many idiosyncrasies.

“In the United States, it comes to the surface easier,” said Robert Hockert, a longtime Wyoming shale gas and coal bed methane drilling manager who is now the China country manager for Far East Energy. “Here, you’ve got to work at it.”