Is the world being destroyed?

Quote:

Are you really arguing that the Constitution written by the Chinese Communist party and enshrining power in an authoritarian state is "democratic"?

I don't see where Walter Hinteler is "arguing" anything.

And yes, the 1975 constitution of the Chinese Communist Party is filled with symbolic phrases ...

The 1975 constitution indicated that what might be called
the leftist faction believed that it had won decisively the bitter intra-party
struggle of the Cultural Revolution and was in a position where the
adoption of a new constitution would solidify its control.

The Chinese government has never tolerated free speech.

I keep trying to talk about what we can do to address the challenge of climate change (and other challenges). No one seems to want to have that discussion.


The soap box is much easier.

That's how this tangent started.

I hope you are OK with that, because that's just how it works.

You are battling with reality...

(...) you want to post political propaganda unquestioned, and here I am questioning it.

Since 2019, deforestation and fires have caused the Brazilian Amazon to lose about 10,000 square kilometers of forest cover per year – a high and alarming increase over the previous decade, when the annual reduction in forest area was close to 6,500 square kilometers, according to data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE).

However, until very recently, experts had measured only the vegetation in areas destroyed; never had the biodiversity loss caused by fires been assessed. A new scientific study published in Nature – “How deregulation, drought and increasing fire impact Amazonian biodiversity” – translates this impact into numbers: to a greater or lesser extent, 93 to 95% of 14,000 species of plants and animals have already suffered some kind of consequence of the Amazon’s fires.

The study, which involved researchers from universities and institutions in the U.S., Brazil and the Netherlands, analyzed data on the distribution of fires in the Amazon between 2001 and 2019, when the region saw record rates of major fires, despite high rainfall.

“At the time, the fires attracted a lot of international media attention, and we were interested in better understanding their consequences, where they had happened, and which areas were occupied by fauna and flora,” says biologist Mathias Pires, a professor and researcher at the Department of Animal Biology at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp).

Using satellite images, the researchers compared the areas affected by fires – from 103,079 to 189,755 square kilometers of the Amazon rainforest – with habitats of 11,514 plant species and 3,079 animals (including vertebrates, birds and mammals).

“We were surprised to find that the habitats of most plant and animal species had already been affected by fires and that this impact continued to increase over time, despite the best conservation efforts,” says Brian Enquist, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona and a lead author of the article.

Primates suffered the worst impacts

The analysis indicated that, for some species, more than 60% of their habitat had been burned at some point in the last two decades. For the majority of the Amazonian plants and animals, though, the impacted areas represent least than 10% of their habitar range. While this sounds like a small percentage, a little bit of habitat loss in the Amazon can already be consequential for species survival. “Any lost habitat is already too much,” says Danilo Neves, professor of ecology at the Institute of Biological Sciences of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).

He explains that some groups of rare and threatened species have restricted distribution in the Amazon, such as the white-cheeked spider monkey (Ateles marginatus), which is endemic to Brazil and classified as endangered on the Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), meaning that its probability of extinction is high.

“That species depends a lot on the standing forest,” says Pires. “Monkeys need trees for displacement, food and shelter. They hardly ever move or feed on the ground.”

The white-cheeked spider monkey had 5% of its range affected by fire. “Five percent of the range impacted in 20 years is a lot,” he says. “What will happen in another 20 years, or 50…? We need to consider that, from a biological point of view, that’s very fast loss of habitat.”

Pires stresses that primates are under the highest threat from Amazonian fires. To draw a parallel with another animal species, he uses a bird – the hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin). Classified as threatened on the IUCN list, it ends up being relatively less affected by forest fires since its habitat range can cover virtually the entire Amazon.

As for plants, which, unlike animals, cannot escape the flames, the situation is even more disturbing. The tree species Allantoma kuhlmannii had about 35% of its range impacted by fire.

Unlike the Cerrado, where plants are more resistant to fire and drought, Amazon vegetation is adapted to closed environments and moist soil; when the flames end, the plants can hardly recover, and that part of their habitat may be lost forever.

Since the study focused on measuring the number of species impacted by fire, it did not look for any visible change in animals’ behavior or habitat.

“Given the scale, scope and growing impact of fires across the Amazon, it’s likely that animal populations have already been affected by habitat loss and the opening of more remote areas to hunting,” Enquist believes.

Less enforcement, more fires

By overlaying data on fires with the habitat ranges of flora and fauna, the researchers noticed three fire cycles in the Amazon, which are directly associated with distinct political contexts in Brazil.

In 2001 to 2008, lack of strict environmental enforcement in the country served as fuel for more frequent fires in larger areas. In the following period, 2009 to 2018, enforcement policies managed to curb deforestation. However, in 2016, even though Brazil’s environment protection laws were praised globally, enforcement loosened, and deforestation started to rise again in the Amazon.

In 2019, when current president Jair Bolsonaro took office, the situation worsened. High forest destruction rates continued, driven by federal government rhetoric in favor of mining, against demarcation of indigenous lands, and critical of the work of non-governmental organizations.

“Our results clearly show that forest protection policies had a dramatic effect on the rate of impact of fires and on Amazonian biodiversity,” stresses Enquist.

The international survey points out that, in recent years, there have been fires in more central parts of the Amazon, including areas close to rivers, which is a new trend. “Fire consolidates deforestation. Deforested areas can regenerate, but that would require much more time and investment after the fires,” says Neves.

Risk of biodiversity loss and more extinctions

Scientists worldwide have made clear what needs to be done to restore the Amazon, that being to reduce deforestation, prevent fires and, consequently, protect the habitats of millions of plant and animal species. The formula to do so exists and has been used in the past: stronger commitment to environmentalism, effective law enforcement, forest monitoring, and support for environmental agencies.

Brazilian researchers Danilo Neves and Mathias Pires have no doubt that this is the only way to reverse the current scenario of habitat devastation and loss. “We know what to do. We have already solved the problem before,” says Pires.

The evidence is indisputable. Forest protection policies have a dramatic effect on fires and their impact on Amazonian biodiversity. But, if nothing is done, what can we expect from the future of life in this biome?

“We risk reducing and potentially losing large fractions of biodiversity, which is nature’s capital that gives resilience to climate change, and important ecosystem services that the Amazon provides to humanity,” says Enquist. “If nothing changes, we will see continued habitat degradation for most Amazonian species. As fire and deforestation now move into the heart of the Amazon and regions that are home to species inhabiting smaller geographic areas, the risk of extinction increases dramatically for thousands of forms of life.”

A coalition of meat industry associations has pushed for the upcoming UN food systems summit to boost global meat consumption and promote intensive livestock farming despite its environmental footprint, Unearthed can reveal.

The findings have prompted the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, to warn that powerful agribusiness interests could “dominate the discussion”, leading to disappointing outcomes.

In a draft position paper prepared in June for the summit, a group of industry associations including the International Meat Secretariat and International Poultry Council called for the UN to support increased meat consumption worldwide, arguing that “advances in intensive livestock systems” would “contribute to the preservation of planetary resources.”

The associations – who represent leading corporations that account for much of the global meat supply chain – wrote the paper in their capacity as key members of the summit’s ‘sustainable livestock’ cluster, a working group set up to recommend policies for the summit.

The document runs counter to calls by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for a reduction in meat consumption, particularly in rich countries, to tackle climate change. The IPCC warned that a failure to switch to more sustainable land use could harm efforts to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

The UN food systems summit, which takes place in New York on September 23, will make recommendations that are expected to shape government policies on food and agriculture around the world, and inform upcoming global agreements on climate change and biodiversity.

The draft paper, which promoted industry schemes and efficiencies rather than reductions in meat-eating in developed countries, went on to say: “Innovative methods in livestock can also address climate change both in mitigation and adaptation […] Livestock will provide solutions also for the challenges of today.”

Where’s the beef?

The draft paper triggered a rift between the meat industry, supported by the delegations of Brazil and Argentina – both major meat-producing nations – and some scientists and NGOs, who were added to the group once it had already produced the initial draft paper.

Philip Lymbery, global CEO of Compassion in World Farming, who was part of this new intake of contributors, told Unearthed: “When I was appointed a co-lead to the sustainable livestock solutions cluster, the first thing I noticed was that the working group was heavily weighted toward industry interests.

“The primary solution being put forward was that the world needs substantially more livestock production, tweaked by technical innovations, led by farmer-driven roadmaps. It seemed like more of the same, with lip-service to sustainability. Alternative voices in the working group had been largely ignored.”

In late June – by which point all other summit clusters had submitted their documents – members of the group clashed on a conference call meant to negotiate a new draft. According to notes seen by Unearthed, a representative from the International Poultry Council said it could not support any statement that suggested the industry is not already sustainable, while the International Dairy Federation argued against the framing of a “transition” to sustainable agriculture.

Dr Marco Springmann, an Oxford sustainability academic added to the cluster alongside Lymbery, said: ”It seemed to me an unscientific process and a shouting match I didn’t wish to be involved in.”

The heated call prompted the meat industry associations to write to senior UN figures threatening to pull out of the summit in protest. Organisations, including the Meat Secretariat and Poultry Council, wrote: “It became clear in the last call / online discussion that the very solid foundations for sustainable livestock development that have been built up over more than a decade by science led organisations are being disregarded in favour of anti-livestock rhetoric within this cluster.”

If the meat organisations’ concerns were not addressed, they warned: “we cannot continue to devote time to a process in which it is clear that we are only there to lend a veneer of inclusivity while in reality some cluster leaders are pursuing their own ideological agenda.”

Hsin Huang, Secretary General International Meat Secretariat, told Unearthed: “Reducing the numbers of animals in developed countries will only lead to more animals produced in less efficient systems in developing countries. And that will make emissions issues, environmental issues, resource use issues and welfare problems worse. A better way forward is to think about how to combine the best aspects of intensive (mainly industrialised) and smaller scale (mainly developing country) systems.”

Dr Matthew Hayek, an environmental science professor from New York University who also joined late in the process, told Unearthed: “While stakeholder participation is important, a conference of this significance should not give incumbent industries a platform to deny or minimise the scientific consensus.

“While improving animal agriculture is important, it is insufficient; we know that reducing consumption of animal-sourced foods is necessary to reach our climate targets. Industry voices have protested the inclusion of this science.”

Mr Hsin of the International Meat Secretariat told Unearthed: “I find it laughable that we could be seen to be lobbying the UN FSS [Food Systems Summit]. We have been knocking hard on the door of the UN FSS since February, when we sent a letter, asking to constructively participate in writing the narrative on the role of livestock in sustainable production systems.”

He added: “Our criticism of the UN FSS is that it is not inclusive and we, the livestock sector, have been seen as the problem.”

Dr Martin Frick, deputy to the special envoy for the food systems summit, told Unearthed the summit did not aim to “take an unequivocal position”, adding: “This is a space for difficult conversations to happen, respectfully, while acknowledging that there is no single definitive food system that will provide good food, livelihoods and environments for everyone in all circumstances.”

He continued: “When we talk about animal-sourced foods, there is no simple or binary answer. Livestock is central for the livelihoods of small-scale farmers, particularly in the poorest countries. It is also an important source of protein and other nutrients for many who live in fragile contexts.”

Fallout

Ultimately the UN officials overseeing the summit agreed to let the cluster produce three position papers rather than one.

Hayek said: “Our perspective on reducing consumption was limited to only one of three solution papers; the other two still primarily contain industry-aligned solutions with exaggerated effect sizes.”

Many of the controversial talking points from the initial paper have been adapted to feature in the new positions, from championing technology-driven efficiencies in intensive farms to crediting livestock for “mitigating climate change by stimulating grassland plants to sequester carbon”.

Michael Fakhri, UN special rapporteur on the right to food and an independent adviser to the summit, told Unearthed: “What appears to have happened in its livestock strand is a microcosm of the tension at the heart of the food systems summit. Here was an opportunity to have a frank and difficult and public conversation about power dynamics in the food system, but the summit has failed to create a space to actually interrogate what the root causes of its problems are. I fear the outcomes will disappoint.”

He added: “Food systems today are not sustainable, it’s not conscionable, and when you involve agribusinesses that have money and power in the determining of its future, they will inevitably dominate the discussion.”

You are posting these articles (as a collection) as political propaganda

I don't exactly know what you mean by "natural". Are you claiming that everyone should feel the same way that you feel?

- The rant against "factory-farms" is one of the ridiculous ones.

They are pushing a conspiracy theory rather than a reasoned argument.

Both of these meet Hightor's ideological filter.

We’re among the thousands boycotting the UN food summit – it’s been hijacked by corporate interests while the voices of small-scale farmers go unheard

Thursday’s UN food summit proposes to help solve the world’s nutrition crisis, with 800 million people going hungry and 1.9 billion labelled obese, by better aligning food systems with development goals. But it won’t achieve any of this. The summit was hijacked early on by powerful corporate interests – but people are resisting.

Hundreds of social movements and civil society groups across the world representing small-scale and peasant food producers, consumers and environmentalists are protesting about the summit for being undemocratic, non-transparent and focused only on strengthening only one food system: that backed by the big corporations. Civil society bodies active at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), for instance, are running a massive grassroots boycott of the summit, and there is a website and several actions dedicated to it. Grain, a small nonprofit group campaigning for biodiversity-based food systems, shut down its website and social media in protest on Thursday and many other organisations are holding their own protests around the world. An online alternative forum in July, running in parallel with the pre-summit meeting in Rome, attracted about 9,000 participants. This week, even more are expected.

Even the scientific community is walking out on this farcical effort to address the urgent challenges facing our food systems. It is especially concerned about the summit creating a new scientific agency to justify its agenda, undermining existing UN bodies already responsible for this work. Mainstream development agencies are also starting to question the wisdom of the current direction of travel. The UN Environment Programme has just issued a scathing nine-point assessment of the industrial food system. In a recent joint report, three UN bodies assailed the $540bn (£396bn) of agricultural subsidies that governments currently hand out for promoting food systems that are “harmful for the environment and human health”. Also, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food has rebuked the summit for its corporate bias and lack of a human rights framework.

So why is the summit facing such widespread opposition? The main reason is that organisers have given agribusiness a lead role in the process and largely ignored the social movements and small farmers’ organisations around the world that produce a third of all food. As a result, the summit will unavoidably push for an industrialised and corporate-driven food system, undermining the future of the millions of small-scale farmers, fishers, herders, food vendors and processors across the world.

In contrast, small farmers’ movements such as La Via Campesina and its allies are presenting a very different future. La Via Campesina launched its vision of “food sovereignty” 25 years ago, at the 1996 world food summit. Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It is based on a model of small-scale sustainable production benefiting communities and the environment. Food sovereignty prioritises local food production and consumption, giving a country the right to protect its producers from cheap imports and to control its production.

It includes the struggle for land and genuine agrarian reform that ensures the rights to use and manage lands, territories, water, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those who produce food and not of the corporate sector. La Via Campesina sees agroecology as a viable alternative to the industrial food system. It recognises that small farmers, including peasants, fishers, pastoralists and indigenous people, who make up almost half the world’s population, are capable of producing food for their communities and feeding the world in a sustainable and healthy way.

There’s no doubt that the current global food system needs a massive overhaul. It is being torn apart by inequality, environmental destruction, the climate crisis, worker and human rights abuses, all of which were laid bare by the Covid pandemic. But peasant movements have a viable alternative. One where the needs of most of the world’s food producers and consumers are put at the centre of the food system, where their voices are heard and where sustainability and the climate are the main concerns. The UN Food System Summit, unfortunately, does not want to hear this.

For you to claim that you are here to satisfy "natural curiosity" is ridiculous.

I post [these articles] here because they exhibit the concerns people have about the prospects of life on this warming planet and the criticism people level at the irresponsible choices which brought us to this unprecedented confluence of negative trends. I believe these to be natural concerns, not political concerns, although of course there are political implications when economies are forced to adapt to changing environmental conditions.

And ideological porn is designed and selected to inflame the emotions.

The state of the world's oceans is worsening, according to an environmental report released on Wednesday by a European Commission-funded marine monitoring service.

Oceans cover over 70% of Earth's surface and are crucial in regulating the climate.
Key findings from the report

The Copernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Service report highlighted the speed of change in oceans due to human intervention.

The warming of the world's oceans and melting land ice caused sea levels to rise by 2.5 millimeters (.1 inches) per year in the Mediterranean.

Worldwide, levels are rising by up to 3.1 millimeters each year.

Although this seems like a small figure, the report pointed to the flooding of Venice in November 2019, when the water level rose up to 1.89 meters, as an example of the impending consequences.

The report showed that marine life is migrating to cooler waters. Warmer waters are also causing the populations of some sea-dwelling species to shrink.

It found that sole, European lobster, sea bass and edible crabs were being adversely affected by extreme heat fluctuations in the North Sea.

The report found that Arctic sea ice reached its lowest levels in the last two years.

Between 1979 and 2020, the report found the Arctic lost an area of ice about six times the size of Germany.

Loss of Arctic sea ice could contribute to regional warming, erosion of Arctic coasts and changes in global weather patterns.
'Unprecedented stress on oceans'

"Climate change, pollution and overexploitation have caused unprecedented stress on the ocean," Karina von Schuckmann, chair of the Ocean State Report, said in a statement accompanying the report.
How much impact will the report have?

Schuckmann said accurate and timely monitoring is crucial to better understanding the oceans and responding to changes.

The Copernicus Marine Service is designed to serve EU policies as well as international legal commitments related to ocean governance.

It provides inputs that support major EU and international policies and initiatives concerning the environment and oceans.

The findings of the report will likely contribute to these areas.

The report follows almost two months after a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that the key 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold in the fight to stop climate change will be crossed within the next 15 years.

At this point, the maddeningly unpredictable Delta variant has changed the expected course of the coronavirus pandemic so much that it can be hard to know exactly what you’re waiting for, or if you should continue waiting at all. Is something like before-times normalcy still coming, or will Americans have to negotiate a permanently changed reality? Will we recognize that new normal when it gets here, or will it be clear only in hindsight? And how long will it be before you can buy a new couch and have it delivered in a timely manner?

Somehow, that third question is currently just as existential as the first two. Everyday life in the United States is acutely dependent on the perpetual motion of the supply chain, in which food and medicine and furniture and clothing all compete for many of the same logistical resources. As everyone has been forced to learn in the past year and a half, when the works get gummed up—when a finite supply of packaging can’t keep up with demand, when there aren’t enough longshoremen or truck drivers or postal workers, when a container ship gets wedged sideways in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes—the effects ripple outward for weeks or months, emptying shelves and raising prices in ways that can seem random. All of a sudden, you can’t buy kettlebells or canned seltzer.

All of this was supposed to be better by now. Not perfect—even a triumphant end to the pandemic wouldn’t stop climate change or political unrest from throwing their own wrenches into global logistics—but better. Instead, as Delta has forced new restrictions in countries fighting to contain the virus and deepened uncertainty and fear in the United States, the game of supply-chain whack-a-mole that manufacturers and shippers have been playing for the past year and a half has grown only more complex. Some book publishers have had to delay new releases because the pulp used to manufacture paper has been gobbled up by online shopping’s endless appetite for cardboard.

To Americans whose lives have gotten progressively closer to normal this year—who are back in the office, whose kids are in school, who eat inside restaurants and go on vacation without much worry—these nagging problems can be baffling. They shouldn’t be. Americans are habitually unattuned to the massive and profoundly human apparatus that brings us basically everything in our lives. Much of the country’s pandemic response has treated us as somehow separate from the rest of the world and the challenges it endures, but unpredictably empty shelves, rising prices, and long waits are just more proof of how foolish that belief has always been.

When I called up Dan Hearsch, a managing director at the consulting firm AlixPartners who specializes in supply-chain management, I described the current state of the industry to him as a little wonky. He laughed. “‘A little wonky’ is one way to say it,” he said. “‘Everything’s broken’ is another way.” Hearsch told me about a friend whose company imports consumer goods—stuff that’s normally available in abundance at any Walmart or Target—from China. Before the pandemic, according to the friend, shipping a container of that merchandise to the U.S. would have cost the company $2,000 to $5,000. Recently, though, the number is more like $30,000, at least for anything shipped on a predictable timeline. You can get it down to $20,000 if you’re willing to deal with the possibility of your stuff arriving in a few months, or whenever space on a ship eventually opens up that’s not already accounted for by companies willing to pay more.

Such severe price hikes aren’t supposed to happen. Wealthy Western countries offloaded much of their manufacturing to Asia and Latin America precisely because container shipping has made moving goods between hemispheres so inexpensive. When that math tips into unprofitability, either companies stop shipping goods and wait for better rates, or they start charging you a lot more for the things they ship. Both options constrain supply further and raise prices on what’s available. “You look at the price of cars, you look at the price of food—the price of practically anything is up significantly from one year ago, from two years ago,” Hearsch told me. “The differences are really, really quite shocking.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that as of July, consumer prices had grown almost 5 percent since before the pandemic, with some types of goods showing much larger increases.

Overseas shipping is currently slow and expensive for lots of very complicated reasons and one big, important, relatively uncomplicated one: The countries trying to meet the huge demands of wealthy markets such as the United States are also trying to prevent mass-casualty events. Infection-prevention measures have recently closed high-volume shipping ports in China, the country that supplies the largest share of goods imported to the United States. In Vietnam and Malaysia, where workers churn out products as varied as a third of all shoes imported to the U.S. and chip components that are crucial to auto manufacturing, controlling the far more transmissible Delta variant has meant sharply decreasing manufacturing capacity and reducing manpower at busy container ports. (Vietnam has fully vaccinated a single-digit percentage of its population, while Malaysia is beginning to recover from its own massive Delta spike, in spite of good vaccination rates.) These problems are exacerbated, Hearsch said, by the near-total evaporation of maritime shipping’s quickest alternative: stowing shipments of goods in the bellies of commercial passenger jets already flying between Asia and the United States, which have been making far fewer trips during the pandemic.

Domestically, things aren’t a whole lot better. Offshoring has systematically decimated America’s capacity to manufacture most things at home, and even products that are made in the United States likely use at least some raw materials or components that need to be imported or are in short supply for other reasons. Pharmaceutical manufacturing, for example, has been stymied at times because many active ingredients are imported from China, or because some drugs are only manufactured overseas, according to Michael Ganio, the senior director of pharmacy practice and quality at the American Society of Hospital-Systems Pharmacists, which maintains a database of drug shortages in the United States. Companies that want to expand their capacity to manufacture or store more inventory are facing shortages of their own—namely, Hearsch said, that steel and sheet metal used to build warehouses and factories are in scant supply, partly because fabricators have to compete for workers in a tight labor market and often can’t run their factories at full capacity.

If you look hard enough at the problems plaguing any other part of the supply chain, you eventually find the point at which the people who do the actual work of making and moving things just can’t keep up. Container ships wait offshore, sometimes for months, because ports don’t have the capacity—the longshoremen, the warehouse staff, the customs inspectors, the maintenance crews—to unload ships any faster. Truck drivers to distribute those goods were in high demand even before the pandemic, and now there are simply not enough of them to do all the work available. The problem is so bad that some U.S. staffing agencies have started recruiting truckers from abroad, and some experts worry that the Biden administration’s recently announced vaccine mandates for large employers could constrain that labor pool even more, at least for a time. Many industry groups and freight companies believe the number of vaccinated truckers to be low, according to FreightWaves, a website that covers the shipping industry. Small trucking companies anticipate that a significant number of drivers will want to jump ship from larger carriers, which will likely be subject to the mandates once they go into effect. Even in a best-case scenario, such upheaval would scramble freight availability for months.

In other domestic supply-chain jobs, the reasons for the scarcity of ready-and-willing workers are pretty glaring. Food packing and processing rely disproportionately on poor visiting workers or immigrants already in the U.S., whose communities have borne the brunt of some of the pandemic’s most catastrophic outcomes. Industrial meatpackers, for example, are having a tough time hiring right now, which might be affecting what you can buy at the grocery store. This type of work was brutal and dangerous before the pandemic, and when the coronavirus hit, some meatpacking plants in the Midwest and Southeast had outbreaks so intense that they briefly drove spikes in statewide infection data all by themselves. Tens of thousands of people were infected, and hundreds of workers died—numbers that don’t include those who were infected or killed because they lived with people who worked in these kinds of facilities. At one Iowa pork plant, Tyson Foods fired seven managers who were accused of participating in a gambling ring to bet on how many of their employees would catch COVID-19. If the meatpacking industry has suddenly realized that fewer people are available to operate its plants than were available before the pandemic, perhaps that’s because many of them have died or been permanently disabled by COVID-19, and those who might replace them don’t want to meet the same fate.

If you get frustrated by your lack of choices at the grocery store or see a little warning about shipping delays at the top of a website and are told that “the supply chain” is at fault, it’s easy to imagine those problems as empty warehouses or idle factories or backed-up container ships or depleted fleets of semitrucks—problems concerning industrial machinery incongruous to the scale of human life and fundamentally disconnected from how you live yours. That’s why the results of these kinds of disruptions can feel so random. But this understanding of the problem is also a little too convenient for consumer-facing companies, which often go to great lengths to ensure that no one in the general public thinks too hard about what any of this means, or why it happens. They want shopping to be fun, to be a relief, to be something that feels as though it solves problems, instead of being a problem itself.

Both at home and abroad, labor is the ghost in the machine. The supply chain is really just people, running sewing machines or loading pallets or picking tomatoes or driving trucks. Sometimes, it’s people in the workforce bubbles of foreign factories, eating and sleeping where they work, so companies can keep manufacturing sneakers through a Delta outbreak. The pandemic has tied the supply chain in knots because it represents an existential threat to the lives of the humans who toil in it. The fact that Americans now can safely go on vacation does not mean that people half a world away can safely make new bathing suits for them. The normalcy sought by consumers was created by all of this hidden work, and that normalcy has always been threatened by dangerous working conditions. No one can expect things to go smoothly until everyone is protected.