Laura Korte – Pike & Hurricane

Meat the Problem

Laura Korte — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 23:05:22 +0000

Around 51 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions comes from animal agriculture. 1 kg of meat uses between 5,000 and 20,000 litres of water to produce, compared to 1 kg of potatoes which takes around 290 litres. Livestock produces 37 percent of methane emissions. Animal agriculture uses up to 30 percent of our planet’s land mass. And so the list goes on, but the topic of animal agriculture continues to take second place after the issue of burning fossil fuels when environmental protection is discussed. Not that it is not important, but why do we not address the elephant in the room?

It is not unreasoned. The amount of money circulating in the food industry globally has been estimated to be annually around 4.8 trillion USD and counting. And with money comes greed and power and thus, lobbyism.

Lobbying is a form of advocacy from individuals, companies and lobby groups with the purpose of influencing the decisions of the government — and sometimes we forget what the topics being lobbied against or for are about. The overall attitude towards our governments and decision-makers is often that whatever is decided is for the greater good and not to thicken one CEO’s wallet. However, examples from all over the world lead to the question about what actually happens behind the curtains.

Strong meat and dairy lobby

When we, the common folk, see the government published dietary guidelines, the norm is to accept them and follow them, or at least to try to. The dietary guidelines are visible in school lunches and are up on waiting room walls. But if we only listened to independent scientists and not the government on this topic, we would realise that there is a lot that is added to the guidelines and a lot that is left out. As for the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for the US, scientists point out that the amount of red meat recommended is far more than actually recommended. Why? The guidelines are issued by the US Departments of Agriculture (USDA). The aim of the departments is to help the market for US grown meat and animal produce, and in the US alone the USDA spends 550 million USD annually to advertise animal products with slogans such as “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.”

Legislation such as the US Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is supposed to protect all animal enterprises from damages caused to the property or profit line. With the legislation, even acts committed without violence, such as blogs posts and Youtube videos, can be convicted as acts of terrorism. The legislation was passed in the US Congress after heavy lobbying from pharmaceutical, fur and farming companies in 2006, and has since then faced criticism on its infringement of the right to free speech.

As someone who grew up in Finland for most of my childhood, I vividly remember the school cafeteria walls being covered in milk advertisements sponsored by Valio. Valio receives 1,8 million euros as campaign funds from the European School Milk Scheme of the EU. The European Milk School Scheme does not only provide campaign funds for privately owned companies like Valio, they also subsidise the cost of different dairy products for the EU states.

The US and Finland are not singular nor peculiar examples; this sort of lobbying affects legislation all around the planet.

Burning of the Amazon Rainforest for the use of animal agriculture

Towards a more sustainable diet?

Those who have made the decision to stop consuming animal products are often labelled as eccentric hippies or met by counter-arguments about the lack of protein and other nutrients, and how soy production for vegan food has a tremendous impact on climate change and Amazon deforestation. However, according to WWF, 75 percent of the soy produced is fed to the animals, which are then consumed as food , although 12 billion of those animals are thrown away as food waste yearly. And only about 6 percent of the remaining soy is actually used in human food. The rest is used in other soy products like biodiesel.

Even though it needs to be recognised that livestock produces vital food and resources for many people, meat and other animals products cannot be sustainably produced for the whole population of this planet. And just by doing the maths for this; land and water use of the animal agriculture industry are far beyond sustainable.

Although meeting someone whose diet and lifestyle is 100 percent sustainable has so far been a mission impossible, it is more and more common to see how people continuously weigh their choices. We are repeatedly put into the test of sustainability, and whether we fail or succeed, the impact of the result will be global.

To realise that we all – not excluding animals – live on this same planet and breath the same air is vital for our survival. The separation of ourselves into different groups, into a pyramid of hierarchical order, acts as a hindrance for our goal of sustainable living. As sustainability becomes more and more critical to incorporate into our everyday lives, we could make a start by supporting each other in the process.

By Laura Korte

Photo Credit:

7018-agriculture-animal-534 by Gratisography, CC0

Burning of rainforest for the use of animal agriculture by Genetic Engineering Network, noncommercial use only

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From the Silk Road to Paradise Papers: Tax Havens and Economic Inequality

Laura Korte — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 20:14:06 +0000

When talks of the wealth gap begin, images of class wars start forming in minds of some. However, other contributors to the wealth gap––globalisation and tax havens––seem to be left out of the debate.

Wealth gap, by definition, refers to the unequal distribution of capital within a population––in other words it is economic inequality. As this inequality is growing, several NGOs and institutes are doing more and more research on the topic. According to The Guardian, “half of world’s wealth [is] now in hands of one percent of population.”

From the Silk Road we have travelled a long way, to the era of opulence and luxury brought to us by modern day globalisation. Globalisation––the flow of capital, cultures and services––has gotten us adjusted to the myriad number of options, but we have now come to see the perhaps unavoidable side effect of globalisation; the global wealth gap. The continuity of its existence is much clearer for those who connect the dots between the wealth gap and its factors. So let us talk about one which tends to not be talked about; the impact of tax havens on economic inequality.

Different Rules in Taxes

The recurring topic of tax havens has surfaced on the front page of many newspapers with titles like ‘Paradise Papers’ and ‘Panama Papers’. Off-shore tax havens with their no-tax or low tax policies appeal to many wealthier individuals and companies as they create more or less lawful migration of capital which in return destabilises the economy. Keep in mind that legality is not the problem here, but rather ethicality.

Tax havens and companies, such as Appleby which helps the super-rich to “hide” their wealth, have been scrutinised for several reasons. Investigative journalists have done their duties and brought up issues such as the connections between individuals who are involved in for instance terrorism, illegal mining, human rights abuses and corruption.

It is believed that on a global level the use of tax havens results in approximately 255 billion US dollars loss in tax money annually. After a quick search you will find multiple research papers and journals talking about how tax havens hold between five and seven trillion US dollars. The 2016 US presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, stated that it is time for the biggest US companies to “pay their fair share of taxes so that our country has the revenue we need to rebuild America.” It does seem like there are different rules for the super-rich and for the rest of us; the financially mortal.

A Gulf in Wealth

Rich individuals and multibillion-dollar companies avoiding taxes in poorer countries, and even wealthy countries like the United States, bereave these countries from providing its citizens with public services.Bad tax schemes in countries also support the existence of economic inequality. According to Tax Justice Network, an example of this is tax competition, where governments try to lower taxes on the rich to keep the tax revenue in their country rather than it ending up in a tax haven, but simultaneously end up increasing the taxes on the poor. This in return, strengthens the economic inequality that already exists in all countries.

Though tax havens may seem like a niche that is exclusively for the exuberantly wealthy, tax havens are not marginal in the context of global economics––they truly have a huge impact on financial instability and politics. We do not tie the knot between the issues of wealth gap and tax havens, it seems as though these two things come hand in hand, ushered into our lives through the miraculous phenomenon called globalisation.

We need to start looking at the problem of economic inequality connected to the system that has been producing the imbalance. So from globalisation to tax havens, and from tax havens to the endless cycle of inequality. But understanding tax havens still continues to be strenuous for the ordinary people. Perhaps the lack of knowledge of these tax havens facilitating the endeavours of the richest stops the ordinary people from unifying in efforts of making a change. Like Ronald Wright once said “socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” But what if we, the bourgeoisie, the working class, the hoi polloi (Ancient Greek: “the many”), finally start rising up against the problem of unethicality and inequality and organise resistance towards this injustice?

Photo credits:

The Shard of glass–sharp like the inequality it reflects.

The wealth of a city built in the midst of inequality.

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The Humanitarian Lifestyle

Laura Korte — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 09:38:22 +0000

The idea of aid and development is grand. So grand that people tend to think of it in abstract terms and forget the aid workers and their families behind it. My own mother is one of these workers, and time and time again I know that my family and I have to wish her good luck on her endeavours in faroff lands and hope that she will return. It has been both the greatest gift and the greatest challenge.

Henna Korte, 55, picked up her phone to receive a call for an interview after a long day at work. The time difference is +2 hours to Sweden. She lives in Erbil, Iraq. Currently working as a Danish Red Cross Country Coordinator for Iraq, she has been away from her family and friends for 15 months. Trying to reminisce about how she ended up as a humanitarian worker, she really could not come up with a clear answer.

“I suppose it came with the different jobs I had, and the fact that I had joined Red Cross when I was young…” Korte says, while still trying hard to think. Finally she says: “I don’t want to work for just the money, the pay should be something more than that.” The balance between humanitarian work and a so-called normal life can be difficult. As Korte starts to contemplate this, she jokingly questions if she even has a life. She then goes on to elaborate on the need of keeping in touch with family and friends while abroad, and emphasises the ease the internet has created. Not only do you want to hear how your family is doing back home, talking to friends and colleagues really helps you to stay strong and get through the hardest of times, Korte says. When she starts to go through her education, it becomes clear how not only well-educated she is in the field, but also how much passion she has towards it. She has received close to all training possible and keeps training even after more than twenty years of experience. She started off as a nurse, specialising in intensive care, but accentuates the fact that a nurse trained for Finnish hospitals will not have the readiness required for a job in a crisis zone.

Henna Korte

“I have the technical skills and the experience, but the other side, the psychological side, could have been taken better care of…” Korte says. “The training of staff could be elaborated. We always get a briefing pre-mission, and debriefing when we come back home. But neither of these really focus on anything else except the technical side of the job. In Iraq, [the International Committee of the Red Cross] has organised a system to look after the psychological wellbeing of employees, frankly my first mission there was a need for psychological care and now has been acknowledged. I have to say, there have been missions in which no one could ever be prepared for, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.”

Every humanitarian worker goes through different experiences, some more demanding than others. Korte counts the more difficult missions in her head, but ends up coming up with an answer: “there are many.”

The ones that stand out to her, she lists as her 18 months in Thailand, two months in Jordan, and now her 15 month mission in Iraq. Why? “The difficulties often come with the culture. It takes time to change your way of working while still holding onto your own values and working ethic. You need to learn how to work with the new culture and still be effective. As Red Cross always works with the national society of the country, we are there as guests and to support their work. We are not in the position to rule them.”

Even though Korte lists her long mission in Thailand as one of the hardest ones, the same mission makes the cut for the most rewarding ones, too. “When you are somewhere for so long, and you can see progress, it feels gratifying. Also, my mission on Saint Vincent and Grenadines was a personal success, due to the national society’s cooperation and willingness to work with me. Everything ran so smoothly in a small place”, Korte explains.

So what happens when a mission has come to an end? “When returning home, that’s when the culture shock normally hits you… It can be very difficult to come home after a mission. I remember after getting back home from Iran, I woke up in the middle of the night. I panicked when I saw that there was a man in our tent and this odd blue lamp. Had to shake myself awake to realise that the man next to me was my own husband, and the lamp was my own reading light.” Working 7 days a week for five weeks straight, how Korte lived in Iran, leaves its marks on the body as well as the mind.

Korte continues to explain her last weeks in Thailand, describing an attack, a jungle knife on her throat, beaten up in a bush. “I was lying there thinking if my family would ever find out why I didn’t come home.” No wonder dark alleys in the quiet suburbs back home can then be frightening. Every humanitarian aid worker has their own ways of returning back to the normal lifestyle that awaits at home, for Korte the way to do this was to get straight back into work. “I have never had a holiday after a mission, through my daily job I reset myself. When you face new challenges, you don’t have to think about the old ones.”

“Now I often get asked how can I work in Iraq when everyone is a terrorist… People don’t see a crisis happening, if they have got things so good themselves in a safe and stable country. Too often people think that the people who need help now have brought this onto themselves. People question my whole job through their own prejudices and stances. It frustrates me how people do not use their eyes enough to see that not ‘all Arabs are terrorists,’ ‘a woman could not possibly work in Iraq.’ Erroneous preconceptions are rarely cleared.”

“I have had opportunities to talk to volunteers, and what keeps me going and truly touches me is that there are people wanting to help in every corner of this planet”, Korte explains. She continues to elaborate on stories from villages and camps, where people are kind and kids are full of life. The smile can be heard from Korte’s voice as she talks about all the various encounters she has had with people along the years. “That’s the best part of this job, meeting people.”

“What you see will have an affect on your own thoughts. I find someone to talk to quite promptly, normally I resort to the help of a colleague.”

“August 31, 2005. I do not think I will ever get over it.”

But now I can talk about it. I was joining a group of officials to send the caskets of three Finnish children home, eight months after the Tsunami.”

The children were five, nine and twelve. Korte was observing the last identification before their last journey home began.

Korte has two children herself. And at the time, her children were aged 10 and 13, and the whole family lived in Thailand.

“The pain from this I took out on my husband, I waited until the kids were asleep of course.”

“People always understand natural catastrophes better. I myself have a hard time accepting violence, that is why I haven’t applied to work in conflict zones before. Even today I was visiting a camp, and out of curiosity I asked how far away we were from Mosul. 25km.” But how is it possible not to be scared all the time when you are situated in a crisis zone? “I believe in people and their inner good. I come to help and I am confident that I will be fine”, Korte says.

Wherever you go, on a holiday or for work, you will come across different things which can be dangerous. Never underestimate the power of efficient vaccination and wellthought behaviour. “The greatest physical danger I had to go through, actually happened to my child when they got sick with Dengue-fever while my whole family lived with me in Thailand.” Korte stayed next to her child every night, making sure she got the best care.

“What people have to remember is that aid workers end up leaving, the people who need help, will stay.”

Laura Korte

Photos by John Nissen

This interview has been translated from Finnish.

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Break the Silence

Laura Korte — Mon, 03 Oct 2016 12:18:02 +0000

It is not too often you see more than 15,000 Finnish people gather together in one place. Unless, of course, one recalls May 16, 2011. Finland won the Ice Hockey World Championship games. Beyond that day of endless drinking and celebrations, a recent occurrence on Saturday September 24, 2016, was somewhat startling. A great number of Finnish people had come together to protest and show unity.

It was all triggered by the murder of 28-year-old Finnish man, Jimi Karttunen, on September 10. While out in Helsinki, Karttunen approached a neo-Nazi Finnish Resistance Movement demonstration. Wanting to challenge their ideology, the conversation escalated and he spat at them during the exchange. The group conceded that they then “confronted” the victim in police reports. More specifically, it was found that Karttunen was beat down to the ground by a 26-year-old suspect with a history of violence and neo-Nazism, Jesse Torniainen. The suspect was placed in custody. Several days after the initial attack, Karttunen died in hospital from a brain hemorrhage.

The news of the tragedy travelled fast. Outside of Helsinki Central Station, a small vigil sprang out of the growing dialogue. Flickering candles illuminated bright yellow chalk that read ‘Stop the Hate.’ Soon, there was an event on Facebook for an anti-racist protest. At first, there were 200 people going, then 1,700 people going, 5,000 people going, and, suddenly, 7,000 people going. And on that autumnal Saturday of September 24, 15,000 protesters marched against the neo-Nazi Finnish Resistance Movement.

With an ever more socially-conservative mass media and government, there has been an undercurrent of tension between the right and left. Though, the issues of neo-Nazism and right-wing populism have taken root and flourished in Finland despite opposing will. It is a sign that, although liberal Finns are cautious, demonstrations against such hate should have occurred sooner. And perhaps now, the silence surrounding the unresolved leniency banning such racist organizations, like the Finnish Resistance Movement, has resulted in a homicide.

The passive acceptance of racism and xenophobia has been present in Finnish culture for some time now. All the different movements, such as “Close the borders,” have certainly gotten stronger over the past few years as the refugee crisis and the sanctity of the European Union has been questioned, putting real and imagined pressures on Finland. It is the more moderate and open-minded Finns who have realised it is time to come together and preserve tolerance.

Neo-Nazism reared its ugly head and showed Finland just what happens when people are told to fear refugees and open borders. After this tragic escalation of intolerance, Finland has displayed solidarity and unity outside of hockey games. With the eminent rise of the far-right in Finland and throughout Europe, it is disheartening that it took such violence to break the silence.

Laura Korte

Image 1: Susanna Pesonen; Hopeful anti-racist protestors at the demonstration in Finland on Sept 24.

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